Who feeds bran/bran mash?

Vikki89

Vikki89

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One of the horses on the yard possibly has colic at the moment, has had a injection and if no better by 8 he is going to horsepital
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This got us talking about bran/bran mash, mum said when she used to work with horses (worked with hunters about 20 years ago) they all used to get fed bran mash.
Do you feed it/ have any in incase you need it?
 
Research has shown there is no difference in faecal water content when bran is fed wet or dry. Horses can get the runs after feeding because of bacterial upset, rather than because it helps clear things through.

As long as an additional source of calcium is fed with bran it wont do the horse any harm but it really is a waste of money. The fibre it contains is relatively indigestible (high in lignin). There are much better sources of fibre, without the calcium/phosophorus imbalance. Feeding it as a mash on an infrequent basis also upsets the gut bacteria. It has no warming effect when fed hot, fibre digestion provides much more warmth, so again, hay or chaff is better. It is an old fashioned feed that has since been proven not to be nutritionally valuable to horses. It used to be popular but doesnt really have a place in modern feeding.

Personally i wouldnt feed it because it gives no benefit to the horse and so is a waste of money. I certainly wouldnt risk feeding it to a horse with colic in case the gut is upset further.

I expect there will be a load of bran fans along later though!
 
yeh my horse had mild colic a month or so ago, and the vet came out gave him an injection, we were told to walk him round for 15-20 mins and also give bran mash. When it gets really cold we feed it with warm water aswell.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Research has shown there is no difference in faecal water content when bran is fed wet or dry. Horses can get the runs after feeding because of bacterial upset, rather than because it helps clear things through.

As long as an additional source of calcium is fed with bran it wont do the horse any harm but it really is a waste of money. The fibre it contains is relatively indigestible (high in lignin). There are much better sources of fibre, without the calcium/phosophorus imbalance. Feeding it as a mash on an infrequent basis also upsets the gut bacteria. It has no warming effect when fed hot, fibre digestion provides much more warmth, so again, hay or chaff is better. It is an old fashioned feed that has since been proven not to be nutritionally valuable to horses. It used to be popular but doesnt really have a place in modern feeding.

Personally i wouldnt feed it because it gives no benefit to the horse and so is a waste of money. I certainly wouldnt risk feeding it to a horse with colic in case the gut is upset further.

I expect there will be a load of bran fans along later though!

[/ QUOTE ]

Completely agree with all of this and it annoys me when vets (who are NOT nutritionists) advise feeding a bran mash to a colic patient, this can only compromise the gut bacteria further.

I had a conversation with my vet once, when I asked how long they studied nutrition for and was it six weeks - his reply was 'Six weeks! More like six hours!'

When Sirena was in horspital, they tried to feed her a 'convalescence' mix, now bearing in mind she was competition fit at the time, having returned from the regionals the day before, this could have had disasterous results and she COULD have ended up with Azotoria, thankfully she refused to eat it and I smuggled some fibre nuts into her.
 
Have to agree that alot of vets are very old fashioned with feeding. One of our local hospitals feeds the same feed (course mix) to everything, even after colic or box rest!
 
The horse who had colic the other night was given an injection and the owner was told to put a small amount of hay in his stable. There was no mention of walking him around or bran mash.
We just got on to talking about it as someone who used to be on the yard fed it to her horse when he had colic.
 
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