Why Cereals Can Be Bad For Your Horse
One of the biggest problems faced by a horse-owner with limited grazing is ensuring that their horse gets enough to eat, especially in the winter months.
Many horse owners address this problem by feeding their horses more cereals or cereal-based products.
The trouble is that horses are designed to eat forage, forage and more forage! Forage can be grass, hay, haylage, silage or straw.
(n.
b Many vets do not recommend feeding silage to horses.
It has a very high sugar content and can contain botulism bacteria) In the wild, horses spend 16 to 20 hours a day grazing low quality grass.
Their digestive systems are primed to consume a constant flow of fibre.
The domestic horse is no different.
Forage primarily made up of fibre.
Fibre should make up the largest part of your horse's diet.
When a horse digests his food, the food is broken down by acid in the stomach, ferments as it moves along the small intestine and is then broken down further by microbes living in the hindgut.
The microbes that live in the horse's gut love to eat fibre.
They thrive when your horse is eating a high fibre diet.
Cereals tend to be high in sugar and starch.
When the microbes eat large amounts of sugar and starch, the gases they release (OK, I'm being polite, the gases the microbes fart out!) kill them.
The whole system becomes unbalanced.
The digestive system NEEDS these microbes.
When enough of these microbes die, it causes the digestive system to create too much acid which will cause serious health problems if left unchecked.
Gastric ulcers, laminitis and azutoria are all caused by a diet that is too high in sugar and starch.
Colic can also rear its ugly head.
These conditions can all be life threatening if severe enough.
All of these conditions can easily be prevented by allowing your horse to graze or by giving your horse plenty of hay.
A symptom of gastric ulcers is grumpiness - this may explain why some horses appear more grumpy in the winter when grass is sparse.
Unfortunately, the crappy summers we have been experiencing mean that the hay harvests have been particularly bad, which has resulted in hay becoming expensive.
But you can't afford not to buy hay.
It is essential.
One way of making your hay bill slightly cheaper is to use straw to pad out your horse's hay ration.
It is not commonly seen in the UK but straw is routinely fed to horses in the US and on the continent.
Straw is high in fibre but low in nutrients and should not be used as your horse's sole source of fibre.
Oat straw has slightly higher levels of nutrients than wheat straw.
So, next time your horse is looking grumpy and hungry, think about throwing him some more hay before giving him more hard feed.
Chewing on forage is also a great way to stop your horse becoming bored when the cold weather prevents him from getting enough exercise.
Many horse owners address this problem by feeding their horses more cereals or cereal-based products.
The trouble is that horses are designed to eat forage, forage and more forage! Forage can be grass, hay, haylage, silage or straw.
(n.
b Many vets do not recommend feeding silage to horses.
It has a very high sugar content and can contain botulism bacteria) In the wild, horses spend 16 to 20 hours a day grazing low quality grass.
Their digestive systems are primed to consume a constant flow of fibre.
The domestic horse is no different.
Forage primarily made up of fibre.
Fibre should make up the largest part of your horse's diet.
When a horse digests his food, the food is broken down by acid in the stomach, ferments as it moves along the small intestine and is then broken down further by microbes living in the hindgut.
The microbes that live in the horse's gut love to eat fibre.
They thrive when your horse is eating a high fibre diet.
Cereals tend to be high in sugar and starch.
When the microbes eat large amounts of sugar and starch, the gases they release (OK, I'm being polite, the gases the microbes fart out!) kill them.
The whole system becomes unbalanced.
The digestive system NEEDS these microbes.
When enough of these microbes die, it causes the digestive system to create too much acid which will cause serious health problems if left unchecked.
Gastric ulcers, laminitis and azutoria are all caused by a diet that is too high in sugar and starch.
Colic can also rear its ugly head.
These conditions can all be life threatening if severe enough.
All of these conditions can easily be prevented by allowing your horse to graze or by giving your horse plenty of hay.
A symptom of gastric ulcers is grumpiness - this may explain why some horses appear more grumpy in the winter when grass is sparse.
Unfortunately, the crappy summers we have been experiencing mean that the hay harvests have been particularly bad, which has resulted in hay becoming expensive.
But you can't afford not to buy hay.
It is essential.
One way of making your hay bill slightly cheaper is to use straw to pad out your horse's hay ration.
It is not commonly seen in the UK but straw is routinely fed to horses in the US and on the continent.
Straw is high in fibre but low in nutrients and should not be used as your horse's sole source of fibre.
Oat straw has slightly higher levels of nutrients than wheat straw.
So, next time your horse is looking grumpy and hungry, think about throwing him some more hay before giving him more hard feed.
Chewing on forage is also a great way to stop your horse becoming bored when the cold weather prevents him from getting enough exercise.
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