Is it time to switch back to straights?

Snow Falcon

Snow Falcon

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For a while now I've been thinking about all the supplements, mixes and food stuffs on the market. I am coming to the conclusion that all the added ingredients in them isn't doing our equines any good.

I cut the sugar out of our ponies feed some time ago. As a result of having a cushings pony last year I thought it prudent to take it out. With 2 of ours being diagnosed with low grade cushings this year too it's made even more sense.

Making comparisions to human food, all the hidden sugar and salt in our diets is doing us no good and it seems the same for animals. What do you think and have you made changes to your horses food?

Mine are on unmolassed chaff and those who need extra get micronised linseed.
 
I always fed straights and had no issues, then I went overseas and came back and work in the equine feed industry got baffled with info and tried processed feeds, I eventually switched back to straights Lucerne (alfalfa) and oats (as required) and my main stay supplement plus salt and the results were very dramatic for a horse I had battled with condition on.

My current mare is on the above without oats and has a brilliant shiny coat despite it being winter here.

Wont go back to processed foods and have even gone this way with my own diet.

I read somewhere if you can't recognise what you are eating you shouldn't eat it - I like this (ie if you can't tell what's been added).
 
We are very lucky here in NZ in that we can get good quality chaff, hay and grains - no additives required ! I still can't get my head around buying branded chaff coated in molasses.

I guess the bottom line is when you are manufacturing it is all about "adding value" - the feed companies don't make much out of selling "pure" whole oats. Being the cynic I am, I believe they are the ones driving the whole nutrition mine field that feeding your horse has become. It's really not that hard.
 
I completely agree. I feed unmollassed sugar beet with micronised linseed over winter with great results. I can feed it high quantities, the ponies love it and even better, its cheap! No brainer to me.
 
I have never fed starchy feeds (the highest I would ever feed is 7% and this is high to me) but am now looking to move to straights from the processed feeds you can buy. I do agree with you HOWEVER your comment re salt is not the same for horses, salt has a very different effect on horses than humans and actually horses do require a significant amount of salt added to their diet. Additionally I will continue to feed supplements as required - so a broad spec vit/min and then additional ones that I see have a positive effect on the horse. But I choose supplements that are mostly pure ingredients rather than the ones that have lots of fillers in. I would never cut out the vit/min supplement as grazing/forage/straights are just not balanced to provide a horse with everything they need.
 
Completely agree!
Your thoughts are on exactly the same trail as mine!
Could this be a factor as to why we're now getting so many cases of this EMS, laminitis etc? I appreciate that we have more research being carried out and diagnosis is better etc but personally I think what we're feeding now must be a massive factor.
Have gone back to basics myself and it's definitely the way forward.
 
NZJenny said:
We are very lucky here in NZ in that we can get good quality chaff, hay and grains - no additives required ! I still can't get my head around buying branded chaff coated in molasses.

I guess the bottom line is when you are manufacturing it is all about "adding value" - the feed companies don't make much out of selling "pure" whole oats. Being the cynic I am, I believe they are the ones driving the whole nutrition mine field that feeding your horse has become. It's really not that hard.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with you there and you may have noticed that we don't get all the problems that UK & America are getting with their horses.

There is a few that develop Cushings and the lamanitics are fat ponies but we don't have problems with all the other metabolic diseases.

I expect it will eventually go that way as we get more and more processed foods. It scares me the number of different coloured bags the food manufactures can produce - seeing them all lined up in the tents at HOy is quite scarey.

SOY is the one I believe that is causing so many problems - if you read up on what it can do to humans it must be doing something to our horses.

I remember when the first meusli mixes came out in the UK in the mid 70's they caused havoc as people put their horses on it.

When I first came to NZ 27 years ago we had Horse & Pony pellets and Pollard. We can still buy straights from our local stores, we have several in one town.

I teach at Pony Club and thankfully we still teach them to recognise the basics and I do my best to get them to stop using the commercial mixes. At the moment everyone is obsessed with feeding Protein! To get a good topline - trying to get them to understand that quality work is also needed is frustrating
 
I also agree, I work within the equine feed industry and its a nightmare out there for owners and giving advise is like hitting your head on a brick wall. Sometimes u get the odd one that has their head screwed on and they are a pleasure to speak to believe me. BUT it's very hard when we have local vets advising owners to feed mollichaff to ponies who have laminitis!!
Vit/min wise I use equimins advance complete with is fab with no nasty fillers.
 
Yes, I have had more than one very bad experience with feeding various things which did the horses in question no good at all. The first was a sugar & ce3real intolerant mare, who had coarse mix for years, which affected her behaviour very much for the worse.

The latest was a mare who couldn't tolerate Glucosamine - it compromised her immune system, to the extent that after she had been taken off it, she died of septicaemia.

I have fed various supplements and wished I hadn't. Pink Powder/Haylage Balancer made unshod feet very tender, we had a dreadful reaction to seaweed in 4 horses, the vet thought it was probably mould that caused the problem.

Now, we only feed grass, either as grassnuts, dried grass chaff or hay and single ingredient additives such as salt. We keep a careful note of anything new which is introduced and monitor is effects carefully. This meant that when a mare who had been on magnesium for 3 weeks became lethargic, we took her off it immediately.

It does annoy me that huge feed companies make vast profits out of gullible horse-owners who only want to do the best for their horses and fall for the marketing strategies. Some of the feed company reps spout utter rubbish, dressed up as pseudo-science.
 
I called at my local grain merchants to see if they had any floor sweeping I could feed to my wild duck. They said thy didn't because it all goes back into the feed!

Then I met a behaviourist who used to work for a major feed company. His job was to make the feed more palatable so animals would eat more and their customers would then have to buy more….

We only feed whole oats and soaked sugar beet pellets here, both bought in bulk. Highland ponies should never be fed anything out of a bag with writing or pictures on the side. It gives them ideas above their station and then they think they ought to have the fashionable diseases too!. :D
 
I agree to some extent, but sometimes you have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water! I've fed straights and I've fed commercial foods, and currently mine are on commercial foods as that is what suits the individual horses I have at the moment. However, I never get sucked in by the manufacturers' blurb - I always read the analysis and list of ingredients to see if it is what I really to give to my horses.

It does make me sad to see people buckets of highly molassed mix and chaff to fat horses/ponies who could very well live off grass and hay, but the owners have been brainwashed into believing that they must do this to ensure the animal 'gets all it needs', even though they haven't got a clue what their animal 'needs' and whether the feed supplies it!

As an example of the way that feed manufacturers try and manipulate owners, I recently got my daughter's horse weighed by a Spiller's rep at a national competition. I must confess I only wanted to know how much he weighed, and didn't need any nutritional advice, but I listened to the rep's spiel anyway. However, was not impressed when she tried to tell me that their feed X was equivalent to feed Y (by a different manufacturer) that he was currently being fed. She was most put out when I was able to list the analysis and point out several ways in which it was not equivalent at all! But if I had been less informed then I would have just taken her word for it.
 
Well, I feed a couple of thousand horses in europe. No matter if family pony or group winning racehorse.

Any feed you can buy in a bagged form in a shop is not working by "healthy ingredients" it is only working by marketing and a nice dress for to make you believe that you buy the very best for your horse.

But the only thing that counts is what is left when the make up and marketing is washed down.

And the reality is scary. It is only a brain wash.

There is a well known UK company selling very important bagged feed for horses with muscular problems (tying up) and one irish company as well.

Tying up does mean too much sugar, starch and high glycaemic feed for a sensitive horse.

Solution is feeding low glycaemic feed. Don`t provoce the metabolism, keep it horsy and quiet.

Waht is low glycaemic? More or less hay and also beetpulp.

These companies did invent the wheel fully new.

They offer a special feed mix for horses with this problem. A health food designed for their metabolism.

Well if you analyse it, it is more or less beetpulp and a higher fat content (oil). Rocket science !!!!!!

The costumer is not reading what is in it, he is mostly fully happy with the advertising.

The business is, if you can`t convience them, confuse them. And then they will buy the same Sh...t for more money.

Differnt package, same ingredient and more money.
 
Beet pulp, whole oats and linseed oil here for my older horse, plus ad-lib hay of course. Although he seems to prefer straw to hay; this morning he had eaten almost half of one bank in his stable and dragged all of his hay over to that spot for reasons best known to himself. Oh well, seems to work for him!
 
TGM said:
It does make me sad to see people buckets of highly molassed mix and chaff to fat horses/ponies who could very well live off grass and hay, but the owners have been brainwashed into believing that they must do this to ensure the animal 'gets all it needs', even though they haven't got a clue what their animal 'needs' and whether the feed supplies it!
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I completely agree with this statement - but the saddest thing of all about this is that these owners believe they are doing right by their horses . . . and the feed companies' bewildering number of offerings (not to mention glossy marketing campaigns) just make it harder for owners to make a sensible, informed decision.

By way of example, I know someone with a rather overweight shire cross cob mare . . . she is fed molassed chaff, generic nuts, a commercial mix and carrots/parsnips/apples/party rings (yes, really) . . . oh and is already on haylage (hay is steamed because mare coughs). I know her owner loves her very much . . . AND that she feeds her as much as she does because she is a big horse - i.e., doesn't look at her makeup/metabolism and the amount of work she does and feed to THAT. If she were mine, she wouldn't get a sniff of haylage, would be getting soaked hay (loads of grass in her field) and would only be getting a handful of unmolassed chaff (as a token feed so she doesn't feel left out when the others are fed). No supplements, no fillers, no nuts, no starch. She gets cresty - hasn't had a laminitic episode yet, but I'll lay good odds that as she gets older, it will happen.

The mare's owner really believes she is doing the best thing possible for her horse . . . and I'll bet if she were able to talk to a recognized nutritionist, she'd change how she managed her mare's diet . . . but, unless and until, she will continue to listen to the marketing hype promulgated by the feed companies . . . AND (and this is what amazes me about the horsey world) follow her horsey friends/fellow liveries lead and feed what they feed . . . regardless of the type of horse.

I know my fellow liveries at current yard think I'm rather strict/a bit OCD about my boy's feed . . . no molasses, carrots, no apples, no sugary treats, no commercial mixes, no haylage unless and until it gets really cold/he's working hard enough. But I know, from bitter experience, what sugary/starchy feeds do to him - to his metabolism, to his brain, to his feet and to his gut.

P
 
Oh, and not all bagged/commercial feeds are the work of the devil. If owners would take the time to do some research, read the ingredients list, etc., they'd be able to winnow out the wheat from the chaff (pun intended).

I feed commercially-prepared food (Dodson & Horrell ERS Pellets) . . . I know what's in it (or more importantly, I know what's not!). But good quality hay (and haylage in the winter) fed ad lib makes up the majority of his diet when he is in at night . . . his bucket feeds are only the top ups I think he needs to carry his supplements (for his joints and feet) and provide the high quantities of oil good for conditioning, his coat and his joints.

I think it's fair to say that the mixes are the work of Satan himself, ditto the generic nuts which are often full of sugar and starch and the molassed chaffs . . . but to say that everything sold in a bag with writing on the side is similarly evil is a little blinkered.

I'll fetch me coat . . .

P
 
I have been back to straights for three years now not sure why I ever started on mixes and cubes now I think it about .
Better cheaper easier no brainer really.
 
I switched to unmollassed sugar beet a couple of months ago, having been feeding my horse commercial feeds for the last couple of years. He has always been a tricky customer, sharp, inattentive, over-reacts at the slightest thing, and can tend to worry off his weight too. Since I've changed back to SB, he is much calmer, he pays attention, the overreaction has stopped, and he's so much more chilled out. He is still whizzy and can be sharp but without all of the silliness, and he is maintaining a good weight now. I'm actually now at the point when I feel I could do with feeding something for a bit more sparkle and I've never been in that situation with him.

Coincidence? Maybe but feeding a plain, straight feed seems to be working better for him. I will feed pre-prepared feeds and have done in the past but this particular horse seems to be much happier without them.
 
I switched about 7 or 8 years ago to feeding oats, lucerne chaff/hay and a good quality vit/min supplement, and for those in work also get a fat source (copra, oil etc). Recently I discovered an excellent compressed-lucerne pellet which I'm using instead of chaff as I can get the required amount with far less volume. I've always been a KISS feeder- Keep It Simple Stupid! Even when I have fed premixes, I've only fed ONE, to the feeding rates on the bag, and added a balancer pellet. That's it, no chaff, no other feeds doing the same thing! But I've never found the premixes to do what they say they will. I've had far greater success being able to adjust the levels of the different straights that I feed. Days off work means less oats, the night before/after a hard ride, a little more (adjustments are all within reason, I don't suddenly give them another 2 kgs of oats ;) ) I work at a Feed store and it always astounds me how little people know about feeding horses. There's the people that by 4 different things (all basically the same product but different companies..) and bags and bags of chaff, and then those that feed out 'a few cups' of something and ask how they can get weight on their horses...
Oops of topic a bit! :P
 
OK, I really like what I'm reading here and have been thinking a lot about this recently.

The problem I have is that my horse is a 23 years young TBxWB who has Cushings and I do struggle to keep the weight on him particularly in the winter.

He has a low sugar diet of molasses free Sugar Beet (winter only) and molasses free Alfa-A with Topspec Comprehensive Balancer and Cool Conditioning Cubes plus oil in the winter. He also gets plenty of soaked hay. I have tried him on miconised linseed previously but even in quite large qty's it didn't make any difference.

Most things I read about feeding a Cushings horse tell me that I should stick away from cereal based mixes or straights. Do people agree with that? What would you suggest feeding a Cushings horse - "straights"-wise - or should I say back to basics? :-)
 
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