Stands To Common Sense Surely?

I'm surprised that Robert Eustace was surprised.
Though everyone knew that horses can eat as much in a short space of time the same amount as those on 24 hour turnout. More tendancy to gorge.
The only benefit from restricting grazing must be to do so when the fructans are at their highest level ?
I manage mine by grazing them in a large pasture with a herd so they move around and have more stimulation from interacting and playing with each other. Keeps them fitter and less stressed too. Try to balance work load with eating too, just as with a stabled horse eating hay.
 
Actually, when you referred to restricted grazing I assumed you meant turning out on poorer grazing for ponies/laminitics etc. Makes sense that the horse would eat more.
 
Glad it's not just me then. Yes, I understand about the quality of the grazing and poorer is better for lami/overweights but have always found that when you feed ad-lib, they trickle feed but if they're restricted for any reason like time or a muzzle, they will gorge themselves and stow it away like little hamsters which can't be good for them.
 
It does say that the turnout was on "normally" managed ground, this to me would mean managed to get the best out of the grass the whole year. With regards to ponies on restricted grazing, are they not normally put on poorer grazing or turned out with grazing muzzles to limit intake?

ETS i just saw your seond post and you answered me!!!
 
Seems like a bit of a 'no **** sherlock' report?! Sure we could have saved them plenty of time and money by letting them know that!

What on earth would be the point of having them on shorter turnout hours still on decent grass anyway - unless to miss high sugar parts of the day? Seems pointless to study a situation what would be uncommon? Good doer ponies on decent grass seems a recipie for lami no matter that you pop them in stables for some of the day!

When ours first go out 24/7 (from being in overnight through the winter) they are pigs for the first couple of days, then when they click that neither them or their grazing is going anywhere they chill out and go back to grazing normally!
 
I went to a lecture on managing obestity in horses a couple of years ago. There was research by the same people, pat harris/waltham/spillers that claimed that soaking hay didn't remove nearly as much sugar/starch as previously thought.
As a result I stopped soaking my hay for my good doer. She actually came out of winter last year looking slimmer than ever before.
http://www.forgeandfarrier.co.uk/haysoaking.htm
Makes me wonder whether I should remove her muzzle.......scary prospect.
 
I think the thing with the hay soaking though is to let people know that even soaked hay may not be safe from a sugar content point of view, not that it is okay to feed unsoaked hay because it may not make much difference.

With metabolically challenged horses and ponies hay soaking generally does make a difference, this may be due to the fact that soaking also leaches out other things apart from sugars, especially potassium and protein which can affect metabolic horses.

Whatever the horse eats has to be 'safe', in some horses grass simply isn't and so intake has to be controlled, my laminitic can't tolerate much grass at all and without electric fencing and muzzling would be confined to a stable or dead.

In an ideal world I'd be able to turn out unrestricted on low sugar, low calorie grazing (or should that be browsing?) but sadly 'normal' pastures are so far removed from what a native should eat it ain't happening!
 
I noticed year ago that my food loving gelding self regulated when he was on 24 hour turnout - I would often see him standing in his field not grazing. When he was on day turnout and winter stabling during the winter he never seemed to stop grazing.
 
Yeah thats kinda obvious. I put my 2 out on grass paddock for first time in 3 months (spent days out in stubble field with haylage) they gobbled so much grass they slept wen the came in and they usually just tuck back into haylage again. Was quite funny lol.
 
My companion pony is a complete gannet and would just eat and eat if you gave him the chance. He can also be a little so and so to catch so catching him in the middle of the day wouldnt happen. For these reasons he wears a muzzle the entire time he is in the field from spring - autumn.
I cant restrict his turnout as he is needed to keep my mare and her foal from last year company and they are out for at least 14 hrs a day. My horses are always stabled at night so he comes into soaked hay. His muzzle doesnt prevent him from eating it just means he has to work a lot harder for a lot less grub and as we are farmers and my horses share their spring - autumn turnout with cows fencing them off wont work.
 
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