Hungry horse

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helbe

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My mare is coming in from the field so hungry our feet barely touch the ground on the way in,if I tell her off for pulling me she spins and bucks,she is a very good doer and is looking `well` so am feeding her haylage and small feed of mollichaffe calmer, is there anything I can give her to stop this hunger without piling on the weight ? its getting dangerous!
 
As Amymay said, give her hay. If you soak it for 12 hours this will take out some goodness so won't put weight on, you could feed more so it lasts her longer at night. Try Spillers Happyhoof as its Low in calories making it ideal for good doers.
 
Don't give her either Mollichaff or Happy Hooves or any similar chaff - they all have a certain amount of molasses. I feed my good doer on oat straw chaff (Honeychop) and haylage. Because the haylage is wet she can have more weight of haylage than of hay. Because ours live at home, she can have her ration split into 3 (1/4,1/4,1/2) and if she has to stay in longer than usual she can have extra chaff. Would you be able to split the ration, so that she isn't ravenous when she goes out?
 
What about the simple systems chaffs? There's some low calorie ones u could try. And also what about the fibre blocks? I just got some for my horse he loves him and it keeps him gnawing away for a bit and is apparently equivalent to half a slice of hay but takes my boy longer to eat than giving him half a loose slice cos I'm watching his waist line too!
 
I have a very good doer and soak her hay, plus feed oat straw, it bulks her haynet out without adding too many calories.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Don't give her either Mollichaff or Happy Hooves or any similar chaff - they all have a certain amount of molasses. I feed my good doer on oat straw chaff (Honeychop) and haylage. Because the haylage is wet she can have more weight of haylage than of hay. Because ours live at home, she can have her ration split into 3 (1/4,1/4,1/2) and if she has to stay in longer than usual she can have extra chaff. Would you be able to split the ration, so that she isn't ravenous when she goes out?
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Honeychop Original is a lightly molassed high fibre oat straw chaff -from their website.
 
Spit That Out said:
Glad you shouted the plain bit as your first post missed that bit out ;):p
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But neither did I say that I feed Original - I would have expected any-one looking on the website to see that they do an unmolassed version and as I had already said 'don't feed molassed chaffs' or words to that effect I would have thought it was obvious.
And as I think that this is the 2nd time you've done exactly the same thing, I thought I'd better make sure you heard. Apologies if that was not you.
 
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Soaked hay cut with straw, no short feed, or if supplements / short feed needed, plain (unmolassed) chaff (in the field to make her more handlable if necessary).

Fewer calories = more forage. More forage = less hungry. Simples :)
 
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Pearlsasinger said:
But neither did I say that I feed Original - I would have expected any-one looking on the website to see that they do an unmolassed version nd as I had already said 'don't feed molassed chaffs' or words to that effect I would have thought it was obvious.
And as I think that this is the 2nd time you've done exactly the same thing, I thought I'd better make sure you heard. Apologies if that was not you.
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Second time I've done what? I read your post as I need an unmolassed chaff for my boy and Spillers Happyhoof was the best I could find at my feed merchant so I googled Honeychop and it brought up the original...please don't get so defensive or shouty it's only chaff!!
 
Spit That Out said:
Second time I've done what? I read your post as I need an unmolassed chaff for my boy and Spillers Happyhoof was the best I could find at my feed merchant so I googled Honeychop and it brought up the original...please don't get so defensive or shouty it's only chaff!!
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The tone of your 1st reply was rude and you obviously didn't look carefully at the website. It's always best to be sure of your facts before you correct other people.
 
Maybe it was the way you read it?

I didn't correct you...I didn't say you we're wrong I just showed you an extract from their website to say it was lightly molassed, you didn't state you fed the plain variety in your original post and I didn't look for any other kind on their website, I just went straight to Honeychop after seeing your post about unmolassed chaff as I thought it would be good for my lad, didn't realise I needed to study the company fully to see everything they make.

Not sure why your so peeved about the whole thing?
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Don't give her either Mollichaff or Happy Hooves or any similar chaff - they all have a certain amount of molasses. I feed my good doer on oat straw chaff (Honeychop) and haylage. Because the haylage is wet she can have more weight of haylage than of hay. Because ours live at home, she can have her ration split into 3 (1/4,1/4,1/2) and if she has to stay in longer than usual she can have extra chaff. Would you be able to split the ration, so that she isn't ravenous when she goes out?
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Spit That Out said:
Honeychop Original is a lightly molassed high fibre oat straw chaff -from their website.
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If you had wanted further info or clarification from me you could have asked politely, instead of contradicting me, which is what you did.

This is copied from the Homepage of Honeychop;

The Honeychop range of high fibre chaffs are made with only the finest quality ingredients providing all the fibre your horse or pony could need in a safe, palatable and natural way. The Honeychop range is different from any other. We are the only horse feed manufacturer to use just oat straw in our products. This is important as it is softer and tends to be more palatable than wheat or barley straw. Having a lower lignin content also makes oat straw easier for horses to digest. Honeychop currently produce five chaffs – Original, Plus Garlic, Plus Herbs, Plus Apple and Chopped Oat Straw (Ideal for horses and ponies who are overweight or prone to laminitis).

I'm really not sure what you were looking at.
 
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I think you might be reading too much into this...have a cuppa and a chocky out of your Easter egg and chill your beans...it's a thread about a hungry horse and and not worth falling out over.
 
helbe said:
My mare is coming in from the field so hungry our feet barely touch the ground on the way in,if I tell her off for pulling me she spins and bucks,she is a very good doer and is looking `well` so am feeding her haylage and small feed of mollichaffe calmer, is there anything I can give her to stop this hunger without piling on the weight ? its getting dangerous!
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Haylege and Mollichaff? Why exactly? You shouldn't be feeding her haylege if she is a good doer.

If your mare is a good doer, then just feed her hay ad lib, soaked preferably. If you are concerned about vits and mins (which you don't seem to be because you are only feeding mollichaff which doesn't really have any in), then give her something like a lo-cal balancer (Bailey's no.14 is fab) on it's own. Or perhaps consider bran with magnesium supplement, if you want a bit of a filler to go with it. No nutritional value and you must make sure you add limestone flour or magnesium supplement with it due to the high phosphorus levels.
 
I just can't believe someone can get their knickers in a twist about chaff...Moomin1, you have said not to feed haylege but I don't see any posts from anyone saying your being contradictory to their original post which they say feed haylege...

Im guilty of reading someone's post, looking at a website (ok not in depth) and copying the websites statement that its lightly molassed. As that person didn't let us know it was the plain version (shouted out later) I assumed (wrongly) that the product in question was molassed which is something I'm already feeding and wouldn't be any good for either mine or the OP's horse as It was pointed out that Happyhoof wasn't suitable either by that person.

I tried making light of the situation but that person is obviously too wound up about chaff to see how silly this whole post has become.

I'll back away slowly from the thread so not to anger any more folks about chaff and play with the less stressy folks on here tonight.
 
Spit That Out said:
I just can't believe someone can get their knickers in a twist about chaff...Moomin1, you have said not to feed haylege but I don't see any posts from anyone saying your being contradictory to their original post which they say feed haylege...

Im guilty of reading someone's post, looking at a website (ok not in depth) and copying the websites statement that its lightly molassed. As that person didn't let us know it was the plain version (shouted out later) I assumed (wrongly) that the product in question was molassed which is something I'm already feeding and wouldn't be any good for either mine or the OP's horse as It was pointed out that Happyhoof wasn't suitable either by that person.

I tried making light of the situation but that person is obviously too wound up about chaff to see how silly this whole post has become.

I'll back away slowly from the thread so not to anger any more folks about chaff and play with the less stressy folks on here tonight.
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I wouldn't worry yourself, I think someone is just getting a bit het up over very little tonight! ;)

I don't think that Happy Hoof is going to make a huge difference to most horses, unless they are very intolerant to sugars.
 
Moomin1 said:
I wouldn't worry yourself, I think someone is just getting a bit het up over very little tonight! ;)

I don't think that Happy Hoof is going to make a huge difference to most horses, unless they are very intolerant to sugars.
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Oh I dunno... I mean, if you fed it by the sackload it might :D
 
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