Those of you who feed bran...

metalmare

metalmare

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I'm thinking of feeding bran to keep my pony's gut moving while he is on his bare keep summer diet. He also 3 slices of hay daily for extra roughage.

What calcium supplement do people use? I'm thinking limestone flour would be suitable.

How do you calculate how much supplement to give? He already has NAF GP supplement which contains some calcium but also phosphorous.

Thanks,

Alex.
 
Once a week mondays horses day off was when we gave bran. Always to keep gut going and horses day off. We did not give any extra supplement
 
So the next question is, should I feed a little daily or give a weekly feed?

I was advised by one person that the reason it acts as a laxative is because if fed only occasionally it actually upsets the horse's stomach and is therefore best fed daily or not at all.

But it does seem to be commone practise to feed bran weekly, or after a hard day's work such as hunting.

My YO feeds daily as she believes it pushes grass through the gut and reduces the risk of lami.
 
I've fed it daily to a range of horses without additional supplements and never had a problem. Also, it depends on how you feed it as to how it works, feed it very wet as a laxative or dampened for the opposite effect, never feed it dry!
 
Sorry Pegasa,

Both damp and wet bran is laxative. Dry bran has the opposite effect. You can feed bran dry if you need that effect. The frequency of feed doesn't have an affect on that - just wjhethre it is wet or dry. But if you do feed bran daily for a prolonged period you need to supplement calcium - we always used limestone flour.

We had one lad on dry bran daily for 4 years to assist with chronic loose droppings. The alternative was course upon course of steroids which put him at Lami risk. We also fed 1/2 scoop limestone in each feed. We will also feed bran mash after hunting. It is palatable and gets warmth into the core of the horse quickly. It will also guard against any later colics from over excitement and not eating most of the day. It has no nurtitional value though so not a substitute for a proper feed.
 
Hi, that's really good advice, thank you!

Do you think it would be beneficial for me to feed bran or am I over complicating things? Pony has his bare keep paddock, a net of hay each day and a large handful of hi-fi unmollassed chaff with a scoop of seaweed. His condition score is currently about 3.25 and his poos are of a good consistency.

He is grazing the almost non-existent grass, so he has got a tiny trickle of food going through all day long. When I watch him and he doesn't know I'm there he gets on with grazing. Once he spots me he pretends he's dying of hunger.

I wondered whether the bran would put a little more fibre through him without adding calories?
 
I do feed a tiny amount of dry bran to counteract 'the runs' that my horse gets otherwise but for your purpose I would suggest feeding plain oatstraw chaff to keep the gut moving. I supplement haylage with it overnight in winter because although the marse is on a diet, I don't want her to spend long periods with no forage. The oat straw is high in calcium, so balances the bran but you can certainly use limestone flour.
 
I feed half a scoop of bran per horse mixed in with my horses feeds, its probably considered a bit old fashioned these days but it bulks the feed up, seems to make it more palatable and slows them down in the eating/digestion process. Also if you are adding any liquid or powder oils/supplements they seem to bind better to bran than to anything else
If you're feeding sugar beet or an alfalfa based chaff which is really high in calcium then it should balance the ratio OK.
I think some of the bran sold in the UK already has limestone added to it?
 
Pearlsasinger said:
I do feed a tiny amount of dry bran to counteract 'the runs' that my horse gets otherwise but for your purpose I would suggest feeding plain oatstraw chaff to keep the gut moving. I supplement haylage with it overnight in winter because although the marse is on a diet, I don't want her to spend long periods with no forage. The oat straw is high in calcium, so balances the bran but you can certainly use limestone flour.
Click to expand...

Where can I get oat straw chaff - do you have a chaff cutter? I tried buying oat straw direct from a local farm but they all seem to grow wheat round here.
 
JDee said:
I feed half a scoop of bran per horse mixed in with my horses feeds, its probably considered a bit old fashioned these days but it bulks the feed up, seems to make it more palatable and slows them down in the eating/digestion process. Also if you are adding any liquid or powder oils/supplements they seem to bind better to bran than to anything else
If you're feeding sugar beet or an alfalfa based chaff which is really high in calcium then it should balance the ratio OK.
I think some of the bran sold in the UK already has limestone added to it?
Click to expand...

He doesn't get sugar beet but this is the ingredients list for the hi-fi molasses free:


Ingredients: Chopped alfalfa, chopped cereal straw, NIS pellets, alfalfa pellets, soya oil, mint and fenugreek.


So that is primarily alfalfa, so if I fed equal parts chaff to bran, or slightly more chaff than bran, hopefully that would add enough calcium.

I'm not feeding huge amounts of the chaff as I think he could do a little too well on the oil.
 
A lot of your rice brans have limestone added to balance the Ca:P. Wheat bran generally doesn't. However sugar beet and alfalfa have high enough calcium to balance out. Watch out though as wheat bran has between 15 and 25% starch as well as being high fibre, so check your manufacturers specs.
 
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