'wet' (soaked) feeds vs dry feeds - quantities question!

[horsemad32]

I'm hoping someone knows the answer to this!

'Wet' feeds that you have to soak, all double in size. So, bearing in mind the size of a horse's stomach, you can feed half the amount at any one time, than you could with a dry feed. Does this make wet feeds more inefficient to feed? Or are they more efficient - does that dry feed double in size in the stomach, and end up being too much to digest properly?

 

[be positive]

Most soaked feeds are fibre based so the amount does not matter in the same way, dry feeds will absorb water and swell which is why the amount should be less. Many horses will almost browse through soaked feeds if given fairly large quantities they do not tend to rush as they do mixes so a more natural way of eating, unless they are very hungry, greedy or on restricted forage when they may bolt it.

 

[Queenbee]

Feed them at their dry weigh, so if you feed 500g of sugar beet, weigh it out and then add water, you can feed that. However, water or not I don't like to feed too big a feed anyway, I normally feed a max feed of 2 1/2 scoops, this is normally a combination of 1 scoop chaff, 1 scoop soaked beet, 1/2 scoop conditioning type feed (normally linseed or something like baileys outshine)

 

[JoClark]

I prefer feed that you don't have to soak.
I was using calm and condition and the amount you have to feed a 16.1 ISH in winter when wet is huge, I changed mine to top spec feed as the starch and sugars are also less and he is visably more comfortable eating. I still wet it just not soak.