What is chop and what are the benefits?

[Boxers]

I feed Dengie HiFi Original and add about a double handful to my horse's feed. He also has high fibre nuts, rolled oats and competition mix. Today I realised the HiFi had run out and I had forgotten to buy more - but does he really need it? Isn't it just chopped up hay? He also has about 6-8 hours turnout on grass and has a well filled net of haylage.

So can I save a bit of money by not buying HiFi anymore?

 

[FairyLights]

Hi chaff [chop] is added to the feed to bulk it out ,encourage the horse to eat slower and so chew the feed properly. I am interested to know why you feed oats hi fibre nuts and comp mix. you are unbalancing the mix, I'd feed just pony nuts with chaff OR cool mix with chaff. If the horse needs more energy then move to Competition mix or Conditioning mix.
Hope this helps.

 

[ex racer rider]

Tbh and I may be wrong but in regards to the comp mix and oats (i know you asked about chaff) I used to feed that but found it much more economical to feed coarse/ horse and pony mix and rolled oats, just as much oomph for the horse but not as much on the pocket and as your feeding hifi nuts you probs dont need the chaff, if you still want to add fibre but save on the feed bills switch it to sugar beet, cheeper (if you buy the 12/24 hour one) and will also balance out the oats as they are opposites in the whole calcium/phoshorous ratio . If its any help I feed the tb on chaff (recently switched to just grass for weight gain) cool mix and sugar beet, oats when she is in heavy work or needs oomph

 

[sbloom]

Cereals are not digested well by the horse so anything high in starch should be encouraged to stay in the stomach as long as possible. We used to feed chop or chaff as has already said, to encourage chewing etc, but actually adding fibre pushed the feed through the system more quickly, so the fibre can get to the hindgut where it is digested more naturally and more effectively than starch is digested in the stomach. If feeding cereals then I'd not add any chop, but then I'd not feed cereals unless I really had to - so many more better and more natural feeding options around these days based on forage, oil and protein.

 

[Boxers]

Hi chaff [chop] is added to the feed to bulk it out ,encourage the horse to eat slower and so chew the feed properly. I am interested to know why you feed oats hi fibre nuts and comp mix. you are unbalancing the mix, I'd feed just pony nuts with chaff OR cool mix with chaff. If the horse needs more energy then move to Competition mix or Conditioning mix.
Hope this helps.

So do you think I should drop the comp mix and feed nuts and oats? I forgot to say in my original post that he also has soaked sugarbeet.

He is a bit kick-along and so I gave him comp mix and oats for more oomph. He will be hunting a full day once a week (no extra oomph needed there!) and is hacked out 4 days a week.

 

[Tnavas]

As you are feeding sugarbeet then you can get away with not feeding chaff (chop). At one time it was not possible to buy chaff so we fed sugarbeet instead.

When feeding pelleted food or grains it is advisable to add either chaff or sugarbeet, pelleted feed disolves and forms a dense mass if not bulked up by chaff or sugarbeet with the possible risk of colic. Both chaff & sugarbeet encourage the horse to chew the food better - increasing the content of saliva and also slow down the rate the food goes through the system allowing it to be properly digested.

sbloom - Very little of the feed nutrients are absorbed in the stomach. Proteins and carbohydrates are partially digested in the stomach, and fats are only slightly hydrolysed before the food passes into the intestine. Adding chaff to the feed means that the grains are moved more slowly through the intestines.

 

[sbloom]

Real;ly not true despite being the traditional viewpoint. If starch is only partially digested in the stomach you have a problem....cereals need to be held in the stomach for amylase to digest the starch - fibre will move through much more quickly so may lead to undigested starch ending up in the hindgut. Autralasia does not have much in the way of forage based low starch feeding options because of sticking to traditional feeding ideas, but the knowledge we have is growing all the time, especially our knowledge of how the gut works.

You cannot treat a horse's intestines as one - the stomach and the hind gut operate massively differently and must be treated with care. Fats and fibre are digested in the hind gut and a healthy gut will move food through much more quickly than we ever imagined in the past.

Do look at work done by Simple System and Pure Feeds, plus many other more traditional feed companies. They may not have reached the same conclusion - separation of starch and fibre in feeding - but at least one nutritionist has. It seems only logical to me once you understand how the gut really works but most companies developing low starch feeding are not extrapolating their results to how to feed starch and fibre together as they feed only fibre and oil

A quick google of protein digestion found this:

In another study,
it was found that feeding more than twice the volume of chaff
relative to grain in a working horse’s ration, reduced the effi ciency
of digestion of starch to energy in the small intestine, presumably
due a ‘smothering’ effect of the excess chaff or fi bre passing with
the grain through the small intestine. More undigested starch
was passed into the hindgut which in turn, increased the risk
of low grade laminitis.

From http://www.kohnkesown.com/digestion.pdf

 

[Miss L Toe]

Real;ly not true despite being the traditional viewpoint. If starch is only partially digested in the stomach you have a problem....cereals need to be held in the stomach for amylase to digest the starch - fibre will move through much more quickly so may lead to undigested starch ending up in the hindgut. Autralasia does not have much in the way of forage based low starch feeding options because of sticking to traditional feeding ideas, but the knowledge we have is growing all the time, especially our knowledge of how the gut works.

You cannot treat a horse's intestines as one - the stomach and the hind gut operate massively differently and must be treated with care. Fats and fibre are digested in the hind gut and a healthy gut will move food through much more quickly than we ever imagined in the past.

Do look at work done by Simple System and Pure Feeds, plus many other more traditional feed companies. They may not have reached the same conclusion - separation of starch and fibre in feeding - but at least one nutritionist has. It seems only logical to me once you understand how the gut really works but most companies developing low starch feeding are not extrapolating their results to how to feed starch and fibre together as they feed only fibre and oil

A quick google of protein digestion found this:

In another study,
it was found that feeding more than twice the volume of chaff
relative to grain in a working horse’s ration, reduced the effi ciency
of digestion of starch to energy in the small intestine, presumably
due a ‘smothering’ effect of the excess chaff or fi bre passing with
the grain through the small intestine. More undigested starch
was passed into the hindgut which in turn, increased the risk
of low grade laminitis.

From http://www.kohnkesown.com/digestion.pdf

I am not a great one for googling nutritional or "scientific" advice, as it could be a load of codswallop [and how many cods do you need for a game of wallop?]
Allen and Page recommend Chaff to be fed with their products, so I would stick with their more science based ideas.

 

[4x4]

Yeah, you try and get chaff without anything added to it though it's a nightmare! When you've already got the diet worked out and all you want is good old fashioned chaff without sugar or alfalfa!

 

[Tnavas]

sbloom - I've been feeding horses for 45+ years and remain a total traditionalist in what I feed, my horses and those that have been in my care don't suffer from, laminitis, behavioural problems, metabolic problems, colic - the list continues. In this time I have been responsible for hundreds of horses.

Since the introduction of commercially prepared feeds - in the early 70's in UK and in the late 90's here in New Zealand I have seen more and more problematic horses, all fed commercially prepared feeds. The more processed the feed the faster it moves through the stomach and into the intestines. Feeding chaff slows that down. Look at the number of horses that are now insulin resistant! Feeding soy is more than likely to be the cause of this as it affects the pancreas.

Only a couple of days ago a person visiting our area for the royal show was telling me my horse will get laminitis as he was out in the paddock eating grass - I told her he won't, he has space to move around and is not fed anything additional except a mineral block which he has free access too. I don't pen mine up behind electric tape! Mine lead as natural a life as I can manage.

A lot of the information you read is just what we have known for decades.

 

[Tnavas]

sbloom Your comment
"Autralasia does not have much in the way of forage based low starch feeding options because of sticking to traditional feeding ideas, but the knowledge we have is growing all the time, especially our knowledge of how the gut works."

This made me laugh - we are not in the back of beyond you know - we have processed feeds in abandon here too - I avoid them like the plague and in the same manner as I do all the processed human foods! New Zealand is now showing an increase in metabolic diseases since the introduction of these feeds.

We also have John Kohnke - he is an Australian vet and the author of the article you took excerpts from. He is only a phone call away from us here in New Zealand and always happy to chat. He is a man of much knowledge and has done a lot to improve knowledge for the everyday horse owner.

 

[Miss L Toe]

Yeah, you try and get chaff without anything added to it though it's a nightmare! When you've already got the diet worked out and all you want is good old fashioned chaff without sugar or alfalfa!

Dengie Molasses free: with or without alfalfa

 

[4x4]

Sorry 2nd ingredient on bag is chopped alfalfa.

 

[4x4]

Unless of course you can get something in Scotland that we can't get in England?

 

[TGM]

Dengie Molasses free: with or without alfalfa

Unless Dengie have suddenly introduced a new chaff that they haven't publicised on their website, all the Dengie chaffs contain alfalfa. The Alfa A range are mostly alfalfa, and their HiFi range is a blend of straw and alfalfa.

 

[4x4]

Well, TGM, that's what I thought - I've done all the research for my feeding and couldn't find any so I was surprised to see that post! Am trying to get Ossichaff down here!