Standing in with no food

Nudibranch

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The thing is, horses are evolved to graze and forage. On a 4 hour hack (or a day's hunting, whatever) they are moving and occupied, even if they're not eating. Would I want mine stood in for 4 hours with nothing to do? Not particularly. There's no reason straw chop can't be provided, as PAS has already said. I use it for the Fell and it works. I don't do fat horses. Never have.
 

JFTDWS

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I tend to cut hay with straw. My ponies will eat unmollassed chaff like mad - I think it's a pony "it's in a bucket so it must be nice" mentality :rolleyes:

PaS's routine - in as late as practical, with a nice late haying - is grand. It's not practical for me currently as mine aren't at home, but I aim for something similar when I have horses in over winter.

On long hacks I have no issue with mine grabbing a mouthful here and there. In theory, they're only allowed to eat when I stop and release them to it, but I turn a blind eye to the odd pinched mouthful of tree mid-canter too. I draw the line at Daemon trying to pull down and eat grass when he feels like it though :oops:
 

katastrophykat

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I cut hay and straw as well- they come in to a net 2/3rds of straw and hay in the middle so they work for it. The big lad eats most of the hay and straw, the ponies pick about the straw and eat some hay and they’re all muzzled now overnight approx 7-7 on ex dairy grass 🙄
 

tallyho!

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Well I'm struggling with my sect C companion pony. He's too bloody fat. he is out on grass, muzzled, and he never stops eating. He is an eating machine. I stood and watched him today and I guess the muzzle restricts his intake by about 25% (nothing scientfic going on here, just guess work). I soak all hay when he's in and it's either in a trickle net or a double netted haylage net. I'd give him oat straw but I can't get it here. When in, I leave him for a couple fo hours before giving him his first small net and then I go out at bedtime and give him a second very small net. ATM he's not losing weight but he's not putting it on either. I can't do a track as I like him to be in with Rose for most of the time and she needs the grass. I've just read Puzzled report and am relieved as I have no doubt that he has nothing to eat between midnight and 7.00 am.
Do you exercise him?
 

Tiddlypom

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I have mine standing in during the morning for 3 or 4 hours without forage at this time of year. They live out, but come in first thing for a small feed and a small hay net which lasts 30 minutes (which is long enough to run their equilibrium massage pads full cycle). Then they chill and dose for the next few hours. They do like their stables and bedding for a proper sleep!

After that, they’re bright and chirpy and ready to go back out or do some work. If I work them, I’ll give them a little more hay beforehand so that they have something in their tums to line them. If not working, they go straight back out without.

A small number of hours without forage won’t harm a horse, but those poor stabled neds who have finished their nighttime net by 6/7pm and then have to wait til 8 am or later next morning for more hay will suffer.
 
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TGM

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A hunter will not eat from 10.30 ish to 4ish. A racehorse will have food removed several hours before racing and water an hour before.

And this is probably one reason why ulcers are so prevalent in hunters, competition horses and racehorses! Coupled with the fact that fast work increases the splashing of gastric acid onto the non-glandular part of the stomach.
One lot of figures I saw put the incidence of gastric ulcers as:

93% of Race horses
63% of Performance horses
37% of Leisure horses
 

meleeka

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I suspect a large proportion of equines go more than 4 hours overnight when stabled. I checked a friend’s horse at 10pm once and there wasn’t a bit of hay left, she had no clue. I’d rather slow mine down if needed with small holed nets. Even my fatties aren’t expected to stand for hours with nothing. As said above they’d be grumpy and just stiff their faces more when they did get something.
 

DD

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I actually asked my vet about this last year, my argument was whilst hes stood in, his grass is growing, if he goes out hungry he'll just stuff himself stupid and if hes in, I cant leave him with nothing because then he'll just stuff himself quicker. She said that although standing in with nothing to eat is not advisable, up to 5 hours is safe, although of course you do end up with a grumpy pony :(
if you feed soaked hay before turnout they wont be too hungry and wont stuff themselves
 

DD

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mine are now not given ad lib hay or grass. they are on a bareish pasture at night and have soaked hay 3 times a day, morning, lunch,evening. they come in during the day to a haynet but stand up to 5 hours without food after eating it . they are slowly loosing the excess weight which didn't shift over the winter and are looking much better for it.
 

DD

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AA is so right about the link between maturity and weight gain .
This is so true of ID’s as young horses it’s lovely you pile the forage into them and they slowly mature then at about eight or so you suddenly realise they are starting to get fat and you have to start managing them .
Absolutly !
 

AdorableAlice

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I wouldn't want mine to be without food for that long 7.5 hours? In the day? But what works for one doesn't work for another :)

How long does it take for the hay eaten through the night and the hard feed given to the horse for breakfast take to travel through, be digested and turn into the power and energy for her to travel/compete ?

Your comment if effectively saying the horse is empty for 7 hours.
 

Goldenstar

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And this is probably one reason why ulcers are so prevalent in hunters, competition horses and racehorses! Coupled with the fact that fast work increases the splashing of gastric acid onto the non-glandular part of the stomach.
One lot of figures I saw put the incidence of gastric ulcers as:

93% of Race horses
63% of Performance horses
37% of Leisure horses

There’s more to ulcers than food .
Racehorses get too little forage and starchy diets they are often young and under huge mental and physical stress
The big thing thing that’s causing ulcers that not considered is pain bony and soft tissues caused by diagnosed and undiagnosed issues .
Then there’s sleep related issues which theres been a massive increase of in recent years
Unsuitable tack and training regimes etc etc .
What I am doing is trickle feeding during the day the horses don’t need to be eating all the time .
 

Goldenstar

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I suspect a large proportion of equines go more than 4 hours overnight when stabled. I checked a friend’s horse at 10pm once and there wasn’t a bit of hay left, she had no clue. I’d rather slow mine down if needed with small holed nets. Even my fatties aren’t expected to stand for hours with nothing. As said above they’d be grumpy and just stiff their faces more when they did get something.

In winter my horses always have forage except in exceptional circumstances.
To have a horse finishing a net by ten and not getting any more is bad organisation .
I am looking for my horses to forage left in the morning but that might be straw chop .
 

be positive

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How long does it take for the hay eaten through the night and the hard feed given to the horse for breakfast take to travel through, be digested and turn into the power and energy for her to travel/compete ?

Your comment if effectively saying the horse is empty for 7 hours.

It is not often I would disagree with AA but while the digestive tract will still be full the horses stomach where the acid is produced will probably be mainly empty for most of that 71/2 hours, I would want to give something on arrival if I did not travel with a net just to ensure the stomach acid was reduced.
 

oldie48

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That's a long night in. If mine are in they always have hay left in the morning so I know they've not been without.
I've had horses that I would happily leave with enough hay that if I died in the night they would still have enough at 12 the next day and they won't eat all of it and will be very picky. Rose if one of these. I've also had horses for whom I have had to weigh each haynet and double net as they eat very quickly and then again I've had Welsh ponies who are programmed to live on fresh air and lichen and who hoover up grass and hay without pausing. I find they all need to managed differently when in at night. I'm lucky to have them at home so I can pop out before bedtime to give another small double netted soaked feed. When my fatty gives me his sad hungry look, I wobble his crest then look the other way and before I get bombarded with "why did you let him get fat?" he came to me like that and I am doing my best to get it off him. He is getting quite good to lunge though!
 

Pearlsasinger

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I've had horses that I would happily leave with enough hay that if I died in the night they would still have enough at 12 the next day and they won't eat all of it and will be very picky. Rose if one of these. I've also had horses for whom I have had to weigh each haynet and double net as they eat very quickly and then again I've had Welsh ponies who are programmed to live on fresh air and lichen and who hoover up grass and hay without pausing. I find they all need to managed differently when in at night. I'm lucky to have them at home so I can pop out before bedtime to give another small double netted soaked feed. When my fatty gives me his sad hungry look, I wobble his crest then look the other way and before I get bombarded with "why did you let him get fat?" he came to me like that and I am doing my best to get it off him. He is getting quite good to lunge though!


I got my Draft mare to drop well over 100kg (difficult to tell exactly, because she was off the weight-tape scale when I got her) by giving her ad-lib forage in the form of a measured amount of hay/lage (depending on which her companion needed) and the rest of her ration made up of plain oat straw chaff. She could choose whether to eat the chaff or not. Actually when I first got her (she was obese then), she was bedded on straw but she ate so much of her bed that she got impaction colic, so I swapped to chaff. The only bucket feed she got was soaked grass nuts/haycos with supplements and only ever a small amount of that. At no point did she ever not have the option to eat something, she was already showing ulcer-type symptoms and I certainly didn't want to make that worse.

There are plenty of alternatives to leaving a horse standing in with nothing to eat for hours and it is good practice to use them. We don't use haynets for safety reasons, so needed to find a different way to limit intake.
 

scats

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I would love to feed mine ad lib hay, but they are both good doers and gain weight at the drop of a hat. I weigh hay and feed it in small holes nets. In winter when they are in longer, they get chopped oat straw too, incase they finish their hay and are hungry but they obviously choose to stand without anything for a few hours as the straw is always ignored (or knocked over and trampled in to the bed...!)
 

TGM

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There’s more to ulcers than food .
Racehorses get too little forage and starchy diets they are often young and under huge mental and physical stress
The big thing thing that’s causing ulcers that not considered is pain bony and soft tissues caused by diagnosed and undiagnosed issues .
Then there’s sleep related issues which theres been a massive increase of in recent years
Unsuitable tack and training regimes etc etc .
What I am doing is trickle feeding during the day the horses don’t need to be eating all the time .

I agree completely that you have to look beyond just diet for the causes of ulcers. But that said, the way we feed can have an important effect on prevention as well. I do agree with you, however, horses don't need to be stuffing their faces for 24 hours a day if they are prone to being overweight. There are various ways of reducing forage intake so the animals are still getting some forage regularly throughout the day and night, even if it is not available every single second of the day. It is also a case of weighing up the pros and cons with individual animals - if you have one that is extremely prone to laminitis then keeping that at a bay will take priority over preventing ulcers, for example. Plus generally the horses and ponies that are very overweight are not normally the ones doing tons of galloping work, so the risk of splash ulcers is much lower.
 

flying_high

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How long does it take for the hay eaten through the night and the hard feed given to the horse for breakfast take to travel through, be digested and turn into the power and energy for her to travel/compete ?

Your comment if effectively saying the horse is empty for 7 hours.

The issue isn’t energy production from food, the issue that unlike people’s stomachs, horse’s stomachs secrete stomach acid continuously whether there is food in the stomach or not. They produce more stomach acid if stressed / in pain. If there is no fibre / roughage in stomach then the acid can start to damage stomach wall and if extensive can cause minor to major ulcers.

Studies show horses are at lower risk of ulcers if without forage overnight, versus in day time. I think the vet hypothesis is that horses sleep more and produce less stomach acid at night.

I’d not personally leave a horse 7.5 hours in a competing situation without access to forage. I would NEVER travel without hay. I provide access to hay in stable, before riding, when travelling, between classes at a show.

In terms of weight, I have an adult, 12 year old, British Warmblood, SJ lines, fairly old fashioned stamp. He is in field of moderate grass cover (chalk soil, about 6 acres with 5 other horses) for about 8 hours. He has a hay box in his stable which is never empty, and he never finishes (does get turned over and refreshed). He eats a small amount coolstance copra, emerald green grass nuts, meadow grass chaff, herbs, and vitamins and minerals). He’s in varied work 6-7 days a week, and we are near amazing hacking, so does a fair bit of fast work, and schooling to medium, and polework. He’s not fat, and is pretty much spot on most of the year. I would restrict hay / muzzle / up work / down what is in bucket if he gained too much weight. But he is pretty self regulating.

My understanding from recent vet lecture, is that it is better for horse to have some forage in the stomach before working / competing for acid splash protection.

And the old assumption that empty stomach better for exertion is based on research in people, for whom the blood supply diverts to stomach, and stomach presses on lungs. Horses don’t divert blood to digest forage, and stomach doesn’t press on lunge, and studies found horses with forage in stomach can out athletically perform horses with no forage in stomach!! This I thought was amazing.

I also think horses that are never without forage often eat slower and self regulate.
 

flying_high

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Research has shown that horses cope much better with empty stomachs between midnight and 7am than any other time.
I think researchers / vets think this is because are programmed to sleep / doze some of the night, so stomach produces lower volumes of stomach acid than in day time.
 

Pearlsasinger

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I also think horses that are never without forage often eat slower and self regulate.


My Draft mare learned to self-regulate on our regime. I know that she had been fed a high sugar/high starch diet with haylage available at particular times and only turned out on alternate days in winter, on a DIY livery yard, in her previous home I know where she was in the home before that but don't know how she was fed. she appeared to be greedy when she arrived here but she soon (within about 18 months) settled down to only eating when she needed to do so.
 

AdorableAlice

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It is not often I would disagree with AA but while the digestive tract will still be full the horses stomach where the acid is produced will probably be mainly empty for most of that 71/2 hours, I would want to give something on arrival if I did not travel with a net just to ensure the stomach acid was reduced.
Pick of grass BP, usually 15 mins of hand grazing on arrival if not parked on hard standing, or soaked hay fed at ground level.
 

chocolategirl

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Had a thought earlier today. The most common school of thought seems to be that horses should at no point be without forage. Stabled horses should have ad lib hay otherwise risk of ulcers etc.

But then I thought, sometimes I hack out for four hours at a time. My horse doesn't get to eat on a hack. How is not eating in a stable for four hours any different to not eating on a hack for four hours?

Other than the boredom, can standing in for a few hours with no food really be that detrimental? Or actually, for those fatty ponies on the brink of lami, could a few hours stood in each day with no food actually be beneficial?
I work on this premise, that they shouldn’t go more than 4 hours with nothing going through their gut, however, I then only feed a small amount of either hay/haylage, or a small chop feed with their daily balancer. I think too many people mistake greed for hunger as well, which is definitely contributing to the obesity epidemic in horses😏 even though mine are all in regular, moderate work, I still struggle with this regime to get and then keep weight of them! I am a little paranoid about ulcers though, so I don’t like them to be exercised unless they just eaten something 🤔
 

bubsqueaks

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They’ve done studies showing more stomach acid produced day time versus night time. So more important from an ulcer prevention perspective that horse has nearly constant access to fibre source daytime and less important they don’t run out over night.

I’m lucky in that I’ve always been able to feed hay ad-lib without horses getting overweight.

Can you point me to the studies showing this please as very interested on anything ulcer related - thank you.
 

TotalMadgeness

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I have two good doing natives at risk of lami who are allowed to graze overnight in strips. I don't like them not having anything to nibble on during the day so they get a net of damp oat straw hung up in their stables. They also get a tiny amount of timothy mix haylage when they come in and before exercise. During a hack they are allowed some grass to chew on when I'm opening/shutting gates.
 

baran

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My Draft mare learned to self-regulate on our regime. I know that she had been fed a high sugar/high starch diet with haylage available at particular times and only turned out on alternate days in winter, on a DIY livery yard, in her previous home I know where she was in the home before that but don't know how she was fed. she appeared to be greedy when she arrived here but she soon (within about 18 months) settled down to only eating when she needed to do so.

You are lucky. OH's horse had lived out all his life until OH bought him and would eat until he exploded!
 

flying_high

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Sorry, I was at a vet lecture on ulcers, when they quoted the headlines from the research.


And I have been to more than one lecture on ulcers.


I think it might have been Richard Hepburn, at Wellington Equestrian centre – link to his advice here - https://www.bwequinevets.co.uk/187/equine-gastric-ulcers-explained-specialist/
If you google his name, he has also done an interesting podcast on ulcers, where he explains the forage daytime more important than night time http://www.horsehour.co.uk/2016/12/19/gastric-ulcers-explained/


I **think** it was a study that left a group of horses with out forage for 12 hours at night, and second group 12 hours day time, and scooped regularly, and those left without daytime got ulcers a lot faster. The net conclusion the vet presented was if feeding restricted forage for weight reasons, give two thirds of forage ration day time, and 1/3 at night. Which I thought fascinating!
 

flying_high

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Can you point me to the studies showing this please as very interested on anything ulcer related - thank you.

Sorry, I was at a vet lecture on ulcers, when they quoted the headlines from the research.

And I have been to more than one lecture on ulcers.

I think it might have been Richard Hepburn, at Wellington Equestrian centre – link to his advice here - https://www.bwequinevets.co.uk/187/equine-gastric-ulcers-explained-specialist/
If you google his name, he has also done an interesting podcast on ulcers, where he explains the forage daytime more important than night time http://www.horsehour.co.uk/2016/12/19/gastric-ulcers-explained/


I **think** it was a study that left a group of horses with out forage for 12 hours at night, and second group 12 hours day time, and scooped regularly, and those left without daytime got ulcers a lot faster. The net conclusion the vet presented was if feeding restricted forage for weight reasons, give two thirds of forage ration day time, and 1/3 at night. Which I thought fascinating!
 

LegOn

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Just reading this thread and I think it really confirms that all horses are different!!! Different personalities, different temperaments can lead to different behaviours! I think its like people when feeding small children - some are really good eaters and put on weight easily or are good with different foods, and some arent - they struggle to take bottles or dont feel like eating at the right times, but they are humans with the same digestive system but they are all different - just like horses!

I think its up to us as owners to take board as much correct information as possible and do your research to educate yourself but then also be sensible in applying that to your horse and your situation, keeping an eye on responses from them and adjusting accordingly!

I've never had a horse that was just so chill about his food - takes his time and eats what he wants, when he wants, whether its grain or forage - but I just go with it & when I needed a bit more weight on him, I split up his feeds and feed him in his individual turn out so he can eat at his own pace! You could give him a bale of hay & he will only eat what he wants where as my other horse would eat until he explodes... and probably make himself very ill or die!!!
 
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