oat straw

kerrieberry2

kerrieberry2

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not sure why but I was thinking earlier...... my mare used to be kept on a working farm, turned out with cows and the farmer would put all sorts out for the cows to eat! and I remember they used to have oat straw! all the horses used to tuck into it and seem to really like it!

so just wondered if anyone actually ever feeds this to their horses?
 
Yes, fed oat, barley straw before and she chooses her wheat straw bed to eat herself over fresh hay so, anything goes in my eyes.

At the mo she gets a mix of all of the above. I think as it gets harder to source good hays, many will be feeding a mix of forage and roughage.
 
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My horses get oat straw ( as a chop) added to their feeds everyday at this time of year in summer I use it as a partial haylage replacer for fatties.
 
yeh my mare used to love it, so was thinking about seeing if I could get some as our hay is running out!

is it better/worse than hay for helping keep weight on?

I know she used to be wild when she was eating it but she was always wild as a younger horse, so don't want to feed it again if its likely to make her hyper at 27yrs old!
 
my mare eats her chopped wheat straw bed over her fresh hay (lovely and smells like haylage). I am trying to work out whether it is good for her to eat straw as well as her hay or whether to put her on shavings. hay is £40 bale and big 5ft straw bale is £14 bale.
 
Yes Im currently looking to get some but it seems limited around here, the one huge bale I did buy was mouldy :( so looking for bags of chopped oat straw.
 
tallyhohoho! said:
Put it this way, my 18mo is eating it and no personality change.
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must just be that she is mad in real life then haha!

i don't know how easy it will be to get but I buy hay from the same farm that she used to eat it at! however, it is different farmers there now, so they might not have any! I'll look into it! :)
 
Sometimes I wonder why I bother separating bed and food... Maybe I should just dump the whole lot in a corner and be done with it :D
 
I tried oat straw but my Highland ponies would just burrow through it looking for unthreshed grain and waste a lot (big bale in feeder)! Barley straw was utilised a lot better but I understand it does not have as much feeding value.

I would say one thing about feeding straw, do make the transfer to different feeds gradual. I usually put out a bale of straw and a bale of hay together, then the change tends to be more gradual as they will pick away at both while they last, then you can feed 100% straw.
 
Ah yes, what Dry Rot said... if you are going to introduce it, easy does it.

You don't want colic.
 
kerrieberry2 said:
yeh my mare used to love it, so was thinking about seeing if I could get some as our hay is running out!

is it better/worse than hay for helping keep weight on?

I know she used to be wild when she was eating it but she was always wild as a younger horse, so don't want to feed it again if its likely to make her hyper at 27yrs old!
Click to expand...
I use it help my fattie (don't let her hear me call her that) to lose weight. I feed it as a chaff.

You shouldn't get many seed heads in straw these days as it will have been combined.
 
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I used bagged oat straw from Halleys Feeds in Scotland as a chaff in my mare's feeds, after the initial novelty though she left quite a lot in favour of alfalfa and her hay so one bag lasted me pretty much 3 months to wade through - I just gave the other bag away.
 
Mine both eat barley and oat straw, the feed value is quite a bit less than hay but mine are fat natives so its great for them, fills there bellies. Like others say introduce slowly and make sure it's good quality no dust or mould.
 
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