What are nuts?

Denali

Denali

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I hope this is in the right place……. So what are nuts? I’ve been reading more than posting and can’t quite figure out the US version of nuts. Any advice is more than welcome.
 
I'm not sure I really understand what you're asking.

Nuts on its own doesn't mean anything specific in the horse world. It's just a term used to refer to some sort of pellet-like feed.

Grass nuts/ pellets are a specific kind of feed https://www.dengie.com/horse-feeds/grass-range/grass-pellets/
I'd imagine hay pellets are similar?

You can also get pony nuts, which are sometimes called horse and pony cubes. They all look like pellets though https://www.equisupermarket.co.uk/p/heygates-horse-pony-nuts-20kg.
 
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Ahhh thanks everyone! I get it now. Again my apologies. Thanks for the explanations. I know a lot of the terminology but “nuts” I just couldn’t figure out and didn’t want to assume.

Again many thanks
 
And cobs as in hay cobs.

When i was a child, there was one type of pony nuts:-Spillers. which were a pelleted compound feed.

I found this though in the 80s they were still considered new in Devon.

1958 – First pony nuts – The first compound feed for horses, SPILLERS Horse and Pony Cubes, is launched.

https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/horse-care/feeding/the-history-of-feeding-innovations-58574

Now you get hay, alfalfa, straw as well ascompound mixes formed into shapes but the original name of nuts has hung around.
 
I don't think nuts and pencils are something that are distinguished in either Canada or the US. These terms were new terms to me here so understand the OPs confusion!! That said, we do distinguish "cubes" but normally in the context of hay cubes
 
lynz88 said:
I don't think nuts and pencils are something that are distinguished in either Canada or the US. These terms were new terms to me here so understand the OPs confusion!! That said, we do distinguish "cubes" but normally in the context of hay cubes
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Do you not get feeds in that form then? Or you do but you just don't refer to the form of the feed when describing it?
 
criso said:
And cobs as in hay cobs.

When i was a child, there was one type of pony nuts:-Spillers. which were a pelleted compound feed.

I found this though in the 80s they were still considered new in Devon.

1958 – First pony nuts – The first compound feed for horses, SPILLERS Horse and Pony Cubes, is launched.

.
Click to expand...

really? I got my first horse in 1973 and lived in rural Devon. He was fed Spillers H & P as I knew absolutely nothing about feeding horses at that stage. I didn't think Devon was that backward :D:D:D:D

my confusion came when I was looking after cattle and the farmer kept talking about "cake" WTF is cake. :p
 
paddy555 said:
really? I got my first horse in 1973 and lived in rural Devon. He was fed Spillers H & P as I knew absolutely nothing about feeding horses at that stage. I didn't think Devon was that backward :D:D:D:D

my confusion came when I was looking after cattle and the farmer kept talking about "cake" WTF is cake. :p
Click to expand...

Local big feed suppliers sold oats, barley, bran (in cloth sacks), flaked maize, full fat sugar beet and Spillers horse and pony nuts. Most people fed the straights but a few fed the nuts. Riding stable ponies where i first liveried got a scoop of oats if they worked so i fed that at first.

Feed merchants also did their own coarse mix which they blended onsite. I fed their Hunter mix which had all sorts of high calories goodies in it as my pony was more arab/tb so less of a good doer. Before that she was getting oats, flaked maize and sugarbeet in winter. I knew about linseed but with nowhere to cook i didn't use it.

I grew up in the gap where it wasn't common to cut your own chaff but bagged chaffs weren't seen yet so when i returned to riding in the late 90s suddenly everyone was feeding Mollichaff or Alfa A which I'd never seen.

We did know about horseage thougjh as the Westerways were local but it wasn't something we gave to ponies.

Just to confuse matters, we used the word 'cake' to describe slices of hay as in give 3 cakes of hay. Then i realised no one understood me in London/Herts so s sections or slices.
 
criso said:
Local big feed suppliers sold oats, barley, bran (in cloth sacks), flaked maize, full fat sugar beet and Spillers horse and pony nuts. Most people fed the straights but a few fed the nuts. Riding stable ponies where i first liveried got a scoop of oats if they worked so i fed that at first.

Feed merchants also did their own coarse mix which they blended onsite. I fed their Hunter mix which had all sorts of high calories goodies in it as my pony was more arab/tb so less of a good doer. Before that she was getting oats, flaked maize and sugarbeet in winter. I knew about linseed but with nowhere to cook i didn't use it.

I grew up in the gap where it wasn't common to cut your own chaff but bagged chaffs weren't seen yet so when i returned to riding in the late 90s suddenly everyone was feeding Mollichaff or Alfa A which I'd never seen.

We did know about horseage thougjh as the Westerways were local but it wasn't something we gave to ponies.

Just to confuse matters, we used the word 'cake' to describe slices of hay as in give 3 cakes of hay. Then i realised no one understood me in London/Herts so s sections or slices.
Click to expand...

I bought straights, sugar beet and a mix from Marriages in Essex in the mid ‘60’s. I can’t recall when they first sold me Spiller’s H&P nuts.
 
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