Is green grass now the horses' enemy?

Spyda

Spyda

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It used to be said that a good dose of Dr Grass would do wonders for many a horse. More recently, I've been reading on here that grass is to be limited. Not just Spring grass, but any green grass - because of the sugars. Does this mean in years to come all our horses will be confined to bare earth paddocks and soaked hay???
 
I hope not :eek: I refuse to pay for hay all year round if I can avoid it :eek:

I don't know, I always thought it was just about being sensible about access to good grass with lami-prone types, natives etc... My highlands get out on grass, though may be muzzled some of the time or not out on the best. Never limit the cob's access other than for field management reasons!

I'm a big believer in first increasing workload if your horse tends to put on weight - obviously not applicable if the ned is lame / crocked / archaic - but for normal horses, there are better ways to control obesity, imo.
 
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If you have a horse that does well on spring/summer grass then yes, it is great! But if you have a horse like mine then it is a great big no no!
My mare BALLOONS on summer grass, last year she got so huge people kept asking me if she was in foal!
Some people just don't have a choice, and unfortunately sometimes restricted grazing for a fatty/lami is the only options for the horses health and wellbeing! ;)
 
I think it depends on the kind of grass.

Unfortunately all to many of us only have access to "recently re-seeded with a ryegrass mix designed for dairy cow" grass, hence all the "grass is evil" threads you see!
 
Certainly seems to be these days. Mine look the picture of health on good grass, nothing in a feed bag compares to it.

As they're pretty straight forward horses - including the H/W cob, the deal we have is that the better the grass, the more they work.

Having a high risk lammi prone horse is my idea of hell, I'm in admiration of all those who manage these horses while enabling them to have quality of life.
 
I'm thinking more in terms of 'green grass' is bad for good foot growth. The barefoot people are saying they are finding this to be the case. Increasingly so, apparently.
 
Spyda said:
I'm thinking more in terms of 'green grass' is bad for good foot growth. The barefoot people are saying they are finding this to be the case. Increasingly so, apparently.
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I've noticed this too, I think the difference is that with the unshod horse you notice it quicker.
All our unshod horses seem to do fine on unrestricted grazing and certainly more by luck than management with some of my fellow liveries.
However, I wonder if its partly because they are more active roaming on large pastures and playing in a herd of 10 and grazing on longer unstressed grass. The grass is never fertilized and they live out 24/7, so don't tend to gorge.
 
I think for the native types/good doers then possibly if they are not getting enough work. However my two look fantastic for being out 24/7 on good grass, but then they are worked hard 5/6 days a week in the summer.
 
I don't know. Back in the 70's the riding school ponies were barefoot and lived on huge acerage. No problems. If a horse needed shoes they got them, but it was preferable to stay unshod.

I don't know why it seems grass is so evil. Yes there have always been lami prone horses but now it seems like every other horse or pony is lami prone. Forgot to mention those horses used to be fed the only horse mix going, oats, baldy, and corn mixed in molasses. I don't know what's happened though I am suspicious horses get fed out of guilt instead of necessity and then damage is done forever and inclusion of these super feeds mostly made of soya. It causes so many issues. But look it big feed companies will never admit that so whatever.

Terri
 
Spyda said:
I'm thinking more in terms of 'green grass' is bad for good foot growth. The barefoot people are saying they are finding this to be the case. Increasingly so, apparently.
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Hmm, yes. Anecdotal evidence, hard to really judge without knowing the ins and outs of people's management practices.

Mine are all unshod, and out 24/7 on grass (actually mostly mud at the moment, but most of the year they have grass), but I don't tend to find them footsore when the grass is good. I would probably notice since almost all my hacking goes up a gravel byway outside my yard and all involves at least some roadwork.

The grass I have now isn't dairy type, maintained, livery yard ryegrass, so even when it's long or green it's not the same, but J&F were on livery with unlimited access to newly sown, maintained ryegrass before then and were fine. I could be lucky, or it could be that the people reporting problems are causing / perpetuating it by some other aspect of their management...
 
Grass is my enemy at the mo as after having acute laminitis last year my pony is just not coping with it :( she's coming in footy and with pulses if she's out for more than an hour, even though looking at my field you would say what grass :p
It's so easy to underestimate the damage grass can/is doing but I know lots of horses who do great on grass so it just depends on the horse :)
 
I think sometimes people are to quick to fertilise rather than give the grass time to recover, and also lush grass looks better than rough grazing, although the latter is a better type of grazing for the horse.
Again i think its down to the individual horse, just like i only need to look at a cheese burger and chips and the pounds go on, my neice can eat them by the bagload and not put a pound on :o
I now bring my horses in at night all year round rather than risk lammi
 
As has been stated above the problem is dairy grass (Rye Grass) and not excercising the horses/ponies enough. Also applying fertilizers to grass land grazed by horses is seriously bad news.
 
I think the modern way of keeping horses and ponies doesn't do them any favours. They don't get worked anything like as hard as they used to be , get overfed with things most of them don't actually need, absolutely everything seems to be mollassed ' to make it more palatable' - most ponies would eat the contents of your Hoover in reality and good old mixed grass herbage is ploughed up and reseeded with superstrength rye grass. Horses, and especially ponies are designed to live on poor quality grass, weeds, and shrubs such as bramble, gorse and heather shoots, and burn as many calories looking for it as they get out of it. Compare it to the modern human diet of fats, processed food, sugar and calorie intake way in excess of what we need, consider the number of people developing diabetes and then see if you can spot the similarities. You didn't get fat people with supposed addiction to food during or after the war and I'd bet a pound to a penny you didn't get too many insulin resistant ponies either !
 
fatpiggy said:
I think the modern way of keeping horses and ponies doesn't do them any favours. They don't get worked anything like as hard as they used to be , get overfed with things most of them don't actually need, absolutely everything seems to be mollassed ' to make it more palatable' - most ponies would eat the contents of your Hoover in reality and good old mixed grass herbage is ploughed up and reseeded with superstrength rye grass. Horses, and especially ponies are designed to live on poor quality grass, weeds, and shrubs such as bramble, gorse and heather shoots, and burn as many calories looking for it as they get out of it. Compare it to the modern human diet of fats, processed food, sugar and calorie intake way in excess of what we need, consider the number of people developing diabetes and then see if you can spot the similarities. You didn't get fat people with supposed addiction to food during or after the war and I'd bet a pound to a penny you didn't get too many insulin resistant ponies either !
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Exactly. Conversely when we put a TB out on loan and she came back a bag of bones, just a few months on good grazing with a bit of haylage and some feed balancer and she put weight and muscle back on in no time. So in some cases it is still good old Dr Green.
 
I know years ago we all hacked to the local shows, 6/7 miles there and back. Did a full day of jumping and games. Sometimes my sister and I shared same horse.

Monday was day off, rest of week was fun fun fun, ride, ride ,ride. Also we only fed bran, oats, pony nuts during the winter, no supplements, no summer feeds.

You see so many ponies in fields doing nothing these days, I think exercise plays a big factor.
 
fatpiggy said:
I think the modern way of keeping horses and ponies doesn't do them any favours. They don't get worked anything like as hard as they used to be , get overfed with things most of them don't actually need, absolutely everything seems to be mollassed ' to make it more palatable' - most ponies would eat the contents of your Hoover in reality and good old mixed grass herbage is ploughed up and reseeded with superstrength rye grass. Horses, and especially ponies are designed to live on poor quality grass, weeds, and shrubs such as bramble, gorse and heather shoots, and burn as many calories looking for it as they get out of it. Compare it to the modern human diet of fats, processed food, sugar and calorie intake way in excess of what we need, consider the number of people developing diabetes and then see if you can spot the similarities. You didn't get fat people with supposed addiction to food during or after the war and I'd bet a pound to a penny you didn't get too many insulin resistant ponies either !
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This 100%

People forget that horses were not designed to live on rich pasture and eat molassed feeds etc.
No wonder we have so much laminitis nowadays & so called 'naughty' or 'sugar intolerant' horses, when in reality they are just fizzed up on extra sugars in their diet that they don't need & aren't designed to tolerate.
I'd give anything to have a rough, moorland type pasture for mine.
 
OWLIE185 said:
As has been stated above the problem is dairy grass (Rye Grass) and not excercising the horses/ponies enough. Also applying fertilizers to grass land grazed by horses is seriously bad news.
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Agree with you Owlie. I know that my horses don't get anywhere near the same amount of exercise as my pony used to many years ago, which I am determined to change this year.
 
fizzer said:
I know years ago we all hacked to the local shows, 6/7 miles there and back. Did a full day of jumping and games. Sometimes my sister and I shared same horse.

Monday was day off, rest of week was fun fun fun, ride, ride ,ride. Also we only fed bran, oats, pony nuts during the winter, no supplements, no summer feeds.
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I remember those days too. *Sighs wistfully*
 
I agree with most of the posts on here regarding feeding what isn't needed and yes some horses dont get as much exercise as needed BUT some horses cant be worked that much for many reasons.
Mine, for example, cannot be worked anymore than 3 x 1 hour hacks per week (no school work at all!) due to medical reasons so I can't work my horse enough to keep the weight down, meaning I have to use other options like restricting the grazing and bringing in during the day in summer :rolleyes:
 
fizzer said:
I know years ago we all hacked to the local shows, 6/7 miles there and back. Did a full day of jumping and games. Sometimes my sister and I shared same horse.

Monday was day off, rest of week was fun fun fun, ride, ride ,ride. Also we only fed bran, oats, pony nuts during the winter, no supplements, no summer feeds.

You see so many ponies in fields doing nothing these days, I think exercise plays a big factor.
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Lol i remember that as well, but sadly the roads are a much more dangerous place to be with way more traffic than their used to be, well certainly much more than there was in my day.
We used to hack out and take picnics with is as we were out so long, i dont see as much of this now
 
I'm a barefooter of course and I have noticed several things:

It depends on the horse. Roughly 2 in 3 horses that I have kept have had no problem with grass at all. The rest have needed to be kept in during the day, and to be fed yeast if they are to stay happy without any shoes on.

It depends on the grass. I'm sure that I have a lot less trouble with my hill meadow that hasn't been fertilized for over 20 years than I would on ryegrass.

It depends on work. My summer hard-working horses who evented off grass had to be fed hard food as well as their fill of the green stuff. Horses now just don't seem to work for their keep like they used to.

I agree with the people saying that there are two big problems

- commercial food stuffed full of molasses/molglo/corn syrup - ie sugar. Even Laminitis Trust label food is up to TEN percent

- fat horses. Horses are coming out of winter far too fat, leaving them nowhere to go but into laminitis as the spring grass and autumn flush come through.
 
Def the lush green dairy grass!

My friend has a lovely big TB. He used to be barefoot with lovely quality feet. 2yrs ago she moved to farm livery and he lives with cows (and a couple of horses) on dairy grass. She however hasn't made the link with that and his crumbling feet that won't hold a shoe:( and has put it down him doing more work (which isn't really true)

Old scrubby established pasture is great but i'd actually prefer a dry lot over a rich dairy grass paddock!
 
Spyda said:
I'm thinking more in terms of 'green grass' is bad for good foot growth. The barefoot people are saying they are finding this to be the case. Increasingly so, apparently.
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Or it could also be the case that certain barefoot horses shouldn't maybe be barefoot at that time of year. If hooves are good and strong with shoes on at this time of year then why not shoe?! I don't see any reason whatsoever, other than on vet advice that a horse who struggles with foot health when barefoot shouldn't just have shoes back on if that sorts the issue.:confused:
 
Spyda said:
I'm thinking more in terms of 'green grass' is bad for good foot growth. The barefoot people are saying they are finding this to be the case. Increasingly so, apparently.
Click to expand...

I think there is a slight misunderstanding.

Grass is fine.

It's the sugar that's the problem.

Horses don't suffer from heart disease - but they do get hoof problems AS A SYMPTOM of poor internal health.

In simplistic terms...if you look at Dr Chris Pollitt's research - the high sugar content in over-grazed, short, stressed, sun-fed or frosty grass causes the death of the fibre fermenting bacteria in the hind gut. The corpses of the bacteria releases toxins in the bloodstream, which attack the laminae and cause inflammation within the hoof capsule.
Thus you get footy BF horses. Shod horses can't feel it, so the horse won't be footy at all, but you also won't get the warning signs until you have acute laminitis.

Dr Pollitt has found that when an experiment horse is fed to induce laminitis and then is PTS before any discomfort showed - he still found damage to the laminae....even before the horse showed symptoms.

Even horses that don't get footy - if they get loose stools or gassy, you have an internal problem.

It is interesting to note that feral horses rarely suffer from laminitis - except in cases when they are restricted in movement. So exercise is important for horses to tolerate grass.

My horses have no problems with turnout...but if they went footy in spring - then I would know it is a warning for me.

Diet is the most common reason for poor hoof health - so when someone complains that their horse is footy (and you'll find lots of posts on that around this time of year) the barefooters will often advise that it's the grass....but that doesn't mean we think grass is bad. It's just not right for the horse at that moment.
So we'll advise removing from grass for 24-48 hours to see if that helps - and then you'll know if it's the grass or something else.
 
Moomin1 said:
Or it could also be the case that certain barefoot horses shouldn't maybe be barefoot at that time of year. If hooves are good and strong with shoes on at this time of year then why not shoe?! I don't see any reason whatsoever, other than on vet advice that a horse who struggles with foot health when barefoot shouldn't just have shoes back on if that sorts the issue.:confused:
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Because it doesn't sort the issue. It disguises it. The horse is still suffering from the toxins, it just can't feel the effect on its feet.

This is one reason why so many horses are reported to stop behavioural difficulties when their shoes are taken off. In those cases, it's not the shoes coming off, it's the adjustment of the diet to allow them to grow strong enough feet for the shoes to come off. Because the horse has a happier gut, it behaves better too, and sometimes other things happen too, like skin sensitivity reduces and even severe cases of sweet itch can disappear.
 
cptrayes said:
Because it doesn't sort the issue. It disguises it. The horse is still suffering from the toxins, it just can't feel the effect on its feet.

This is one reason why so many horses are reported to stop behavioural difficulties when their shoes are taken off. In those cases, it's not the shoes coming off, it's the adjustment of the diet to allow them to grow strong enough feet for the shoes to come off. Because the horse has a happier gut, it behaves better too, and sometimes other things happen too, like skin sensitivity reduces and even severe cases of sweet itch can disappear.
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That's all very well if a horse is known to have issues relating to lami/navicular or behavioural issues when they are shod, but I don't see the problem if the horse has none of these yet the owner will insist on remaining barefoot (or as I prefer to call it 'unshod') despite crumbly feet at this time of year.

Don't get me wrong - I would love to have my horse unshod - would save a fortune, but unfortunately I tried it and she went so lame she had to be on box rest for a week and bute. She has the strongest feet I have come across and never has a problem with crumbling/casting shoes etc, but she is thin soled so shoes are her best option.
 
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