my friend fed my horse unsoaked sugarbeet!!

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Ambypamby

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Has anyone had this happen to them? my horse is totally fine! she did it sunday night and i didnt find out until i saw her a few days later. she has has horses for 15 years and just didnt think and gave him a scoop by accident!
 
Dont mean to be funny but how stupid is she! Some one did this to my horseto get to me coz they did not like me thankfully some saw her do it so i got up to the yard bought my horse in called the vet he had to be flushed out and it gave him lammi so he had to have surports on his feet in for a week just on bran mash. You are very lucky!x
 
if she been around horses for 15 years how did the hell she manage givening your horse sugarbeet i dont think i would of took it lightly
 
Oh dear! How scary! Was it nuts or shreds? Actually this did happen on our yard, the old horse escaped one night and let himself into the feedroom. Don't know how much he ate, but he was fine afterwards as well. Needless to say, the feed room security was beefed up after that incident!
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Good god I can't believe anyone could be so callous as to do that to your horse deliberately babybells, that's horrendous!

Sounds like you were both very lucky, and babybells, I hope you moved your horse, or the other person
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er no.

how on earth do you do something like that by mistake, I hope it was pellets then I can see it might be vaguely possible. If our sugar beet is out of the bag for any reason (we have pellets) then it goes into a separate tub with a bloody big label on it, maybe you should suggest she does this in future.
 
God, I'd have gone mad!

My old pony once managed to escape from his stable in the night, get into the feed room and eat about half a sack of unsoaked pellets. I was about 12 and convinced he was going to die!
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The vet came out and checked him over but he was fine
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We have had this before on HHO, and apparantly they do it all the time in the States and Canada! They laugh at us for soaking it. At least, that's what I remember. I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.
I am glad your horse is OK
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This happened to a friend in France. Her mother fed her horse his wet beet and thought the dry was 'nuts' so fed that as well.

The horse got choke the first vet could not clear it and left the horse saying if he is not better in the morning pts. I suggested she try our new vet - he cleared the condition and the horse lived he got there just in time.

I don't like anyone else to feed my horses but sometimes needs must.
 
i know its crazy she just got back from holiday and said she would pop some feed in for mine on the sunday night when she was doing hers i gave her a long txt to tell her what he has- soaked sugar beet, chaff, herbal mix and small bit of calm and condition. she thought the sugarbeet shreds were herbal mix!!! speechless! i took it lightly because he was fine and she promptly burst into tears as she loves him to bits. Although if anything would have happened to him it would have been a different story! i just cant beleive that he is fine to be honest i keep expecting him to keel over!
 
I have always thought that it was death to horses but apparantly it is common practice in the states. It is interesting to read that someone knows of a horse that had choke from it since I have never actually met someone who's horse has been ill from it.........but maybe that's because we all have the sense not to do it!

We also used to feed the cattle dry sugarbeet regularly at the farm i worked at. I still wouldn't do it since it makes sense that rapidly expanding feed might do some damage and I'd rather be safe than sorry!
 
My friend gave her horse a handful of unsoaked beet pellets in his tea- in fairness they did look like pony nuts but even so......she had gone home + I found the horse with his head over the door choking....the vet had to come out and tube him, it wasn't good.....but he was ok in the end.
 
ruscara I think it depends on the quantities and if feeding dry is better in the shredded form, dry beet I think occurs in quite a few feeds but in a quantity that it doesn't matter so much.

A whole scoop of nuts I can imagine causing possible problems, partly as nuts expand much more than shreds do (having used both!)
 
I don't know, but i think new research said it would not kill a horse, there is not enough juices in the tummy or intestines to cause the sugerbeet to swell greatly, and the time taken for the food to pass through the horse is to fast aswell for any great swelling of the pellets.

Though i don't think I'd chance it personally
here is a copy from an artical

Does it need to be soaked?

There is much debate about if beet pulp needs to be soaked before being fed to a horse. Some people say all of it (shreds or pellets) need to be soaked at least 4 hours before feeding. Others say none of it needs to be soaked. Yet others say the pellets should be soaked while it is personal preference if the shreds are soaked.

Studies have been done to show that soaked or not, it is no more likely than any other feed to cause choke in horses. So, basically, it is personal preference...or rather, your horse’s personal preference.

Some horses like it soaked for a few hours until it makes a soft mash, while others will eat it only completely dry. Then again, some will eat it only if it is soaked for a few minutes so that it is moist but still crunchy.

If you choose to soak it, it is currently recommended to soak it no longer than 1-2 hours, especially in hot weather, as it can begin to ferment. If soaked beet pulp smells sickly-sweet like wine, it has begun to ferment and should be disposed of.

Myths:

Myth #1: Unsoaked, it will expand inside my horse’s stomach and explode.

This is not true. Yes, it hugely expands when soaked in water. However, the inside of a horse’s stomach is filled with acid, not water. The instant beet pulp reaches the stomach, the process of breaking it down begins.

Myth #2: Unsoaked, it causes choke.

Also not true. Unsoaked beet pulp is no more likely to cause choke than any other feed. Choke is caused by a horse bolting his feed and it getting caught in the esophagus. If a horse has choked before, or is a bolter, ALL feeds should be soaked, not just beet pulp.

Myth #3: It is high in sugar.

Not only is this one not true, its actually the opposite. The sugar beet industry is the industry responsible for making table sugar...so they take the sugar out of the sugar beets and leave everything else, EXCEPT the sugar.

In fact, most feed companies add a small amount of molasses to beet pulp to make it more palatable to horses and to reduce dust due to the lack of sugar. However, even with this added molasses, beet pulp is still lower in sugar than most other components of your horse’s diet.
 
I have the number of a very good hitman if you need it
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Seriously, its hard to believe people's stupidity sometimes. Friend or not I would have flipped my lid
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'hot weather'

chance would be a fine thing
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I'll stick to 24 hours for pellets thanks very much, not worth the risk IMO and as we only feed it in winter it normally lasts a few days quite happily.
 
thanks benjaminb i would have took you up on that if anything were to have happened to him! needless to say thats the last time she will do his feed or anyone else for that matter! lesson learned!!
 
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My friend gave her horse a handful of unsoaked beet pellets in his tea- in fairness they did look like pony nuts but even so......she had gone home + I found the horse with his head over the door choking....the vet had to come out and tube him, it wasn't good.....but he was ok in the end.

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Thing is, this happened to my cob and my friends pony from just eating high fibre nuts...
I think all feed should be dampened at the very least.
My cob got choke when I threw a handful nuts down on the ground for him as a treat. He scoffed them and obviously didn't chew them properly. It pased and no harm was done but I will never give him dry nuts again like that of any kind...
I feed speedibeet shreds and will sprinkle them into a dampened feed...
 
Yeah.....I always dampen my feeds....its how I was taught 'back in the day'....... I think this episode was made worse by the fact there was dry reddigrass in there as well
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- it had kind of made a ball.

Happened so fast...I was on my way to the muck-heap and thought oh look, XX has eaten an apple ( bit of foam on his lips, horse not distressed) ....on my way back 2 mins later he was proper choking......2 people left her a message and she didnt respond until I rang and left a message and she knew it was serious, I'm not one for flapping so she knew it was bad when I said I had rung the emergency vet....
 
It's very frightening to see isn't it? My boy couldn't swallow at all. It looked so painful and then every now and then a load of slop would just pour out of his mouth and nose where it had built up in front of the blockage.
When it happened to a friends pony a couple of weeks before, the YO had got a tub of Flora margarine and a wooden spoon and has spooned a load down her throat and it cleared before the vet got there. So I did the same with my boy and that cleared itself too. Don't know if it worked or was just a coincidence but I always have my Flora on standby
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As sonic1704 and others have said, it is not the end of the world to give a horse dry sugar beet. Also, as said in the USA and Canada the don't usual soak beet and horses have been fed up to 45% of their diet as dehydrated beet shreds with no problem at all. I have pellets so I do soak, but that's because I like their feed damp and it's for my convenience as I get more out of it volume wise!! If I could get shreds I would just chuck a bit of water in their buckets at feed time to damp it.

It may not be ideal but your horse has obviously survived with no ill effects - you probably wouldn't even have known if your friend hadn't been honest enough to tell you.

Glad all is OK with your horse though
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You wouldn't believe what I have seen horses eat with no effects whatsover.
 
My late shettie colicked just on high fibre nuts - I think the issue is more the bolting of a tasty feed than the actual beet itself. Henry once got into my old feed room and downed half a sack of my friend's sugar beet. He was found head deep in the bag contentedly munching. He was absolutely fine. Since Little B colicked with the high fibre stuff, I've soaked anything (except Hi-Fi) fed at more than a couple of handfuls quantity. Even Happy Hoof!
 
You are so lucky your horse is still alive if he was fed a scoop of it.

About 4 years ago my Section A managed to get in to our feedroom, she had literally a mouthful of un-soaked sugarbeet (I had left a cup full out as that all the TB was fed).

When I went out to get them in less then an hour later Pony was in a hell of a state! She was having difficulty walking (I guess because of the pain) and had sugarbeet coming out of her nose (trouble breathing also) and mouth. Vet was called and after a few hours she was out of danger, I have never been so scared in all my life, I really thought we were going to loose her that night
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:O 15 years you'd think that was a basic thing! I know a highland that managed to get into the feed room and have a bit but he seemed fine they gave him bran mashes to try and get it out his system from what I remember. It was in a container and feed room door shut but this pony was a determined bugger!
 
I think an eventer (poss Lucinda Green?) used to give her horses a handful of unsoaked shredded sugarbeet on the XC day, so it would slow release sugar the whole day.

An old horse of ours broke into the tackroom and managed to snuffle his way into a bag of concrete powder
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(we were doing renovations at the time)

He lived a good few years after that though, and never got colic, I think he was just well 'ard!
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Do you reckon people just read the first post in a thread?

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yes but we still don't know if shreds/pellets

shreds I have less of an issue with for obvious reasons!
 
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i know its crazy she just got back from holiday and said she would pop some feed in for mine on the sunday night when she was doing hers i gave her a long txt to tell her what he has- soaked sugar beet, chaff, herbal mix and small bit of calm and condition. she thought the sugarbeet shreds were herbal mix!!! speechless! i took it lightly because he was fine and she promptly burst into tears as she loves him to bits. Although if anything would have happened to him it would have been a different story! i just cant beleive that he is fine to be honest i keep expecting him to keel over!

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This post a bit further down explains a bit more -it was shreds.
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