Ever heard of this horse hay substitution?

[NS2A]

I cant imagine feeding oat or wheat straw to anything

I use wheat straw for bedding for my chickens and goats. I enclosed the goat shack (which is just a 4x4' hut) to keep the wind out better, so I really couldn't see in there all that well. Well, I looked under there the other day, and they ATE all their straw bedding!! Yup, every single bit of it. I then threw some more "used" straw from the chicken side under there and they did the same thing!!

I feed them (pgmys) a slice of 2nd cutting alfalfa hay (good stuff!) in the morning and 3 big handfulls of grains in the evening along with any scraps from the kitchen. And they still ate up all that dirty straw!​

 

[chickbea]

Eee, nope. The only time I have heard of adding molasses (sp?) was to hay as an inducement to get geriatric horses to eat more.

 

[blue90292]

i get alot of leads on hay using craigslist. here in texas, there are ALOT of people selling mediocre hay so you can find some, somewhere, instead of at the feed store. another place to look is here.

http://www.hayexchange.com/index.html

 

[horsejody]

I wouldn't use straw. It may be cheaper, but the nutrition isn't there. You could probably put molasses on sawdust and have them eat that too, but just because they'll eat it, doesn't mean we should feed it.

 

[Meesh]

I routinely feed a straw/hay mix to the fat ponies. They need the roughage but not the calories. This was at the recommendation of my vet.

During our bad drought, I would have had no problem feeding my crew alfalfa & straw. That was my backup plan, if I had to go that way. Fortunately I was able to ship in some hay instead.

Cheers,
Michelle

 

[patandchickens]

Interestingly, I was at a seminar yesterday that included a talk by Dr Bob Wright, a veterinarian with the U of Guelph and he also writes most of the information sheets for OMAFRA (the province's agriculture ministry, functions in many respects like an extension service does in the u.s.)

He was saying that each week he puts a bale of (good) straw at the bottom of his feeder (he uses a roundbale feeder, but puts taken-apart small squares in it daily to control idle geldings' food intake) and he puts their daily hay on top of it. That way, if it is a cold night and they need a little extra fuel, or they just have 'bored teeth', they have something useful to eat instead of getting cold or gnawing on all his fenceboards.

Now I don't think you'd want to do that with just *any* horses, but for some I can see where it could work really well.

And, point being, this is someone who can be assumed to know what he is doing.

Just interesting, I thought,

Pat

 

[seedcorn]

My g'father always told story of man who bragged on how he got his to quit eating expensive hay and switched him to saw dust. Horse loved it. Problem was horse died due to no nutrients..........

Not true story, but his way of saying if you want an animal, gotta feed it and if you didn't want to feed it, get rid of it.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
That's great, seedcorn, but it has nothing to do with whether sometimes straw can be okay or useful as part of a balanced diet for some horses.


Pat

 

[Florida chick]

IF they are that cheap they don't deserve to own horses! Feeding straw, ESP with molasses is asking for an impaction colic. Its very poor quality forage.

 

[patandchickens]

I'll try this one last time and then give up.

Horses need a considerable amount of fiber (roughage) in their diet, or their digestive systems shut down, ok? Everything else a horse needs -- protien, vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, etcetera -- can be provided by grain, pellets, cubes, whatever, but horses still need that certain amount of fiber. Straw has fiber (in fact that's about all it is). Thus, straw can sometimes be useful, although you then have to provide *everything* else the horse needs in other forms, generally concentrates of one sort or another.

So, AS A PART OF A SPECIALLY DESIGNED DIET, there is nothing particularly wrong with feeding straw IN SOME CIRCUMSTANCES. For instance, for horses on restricted diets (where if you gave them all their roughage in the form of hay, they would be getting too fat); or if hay is not available in sufficient quantity or quality (so that the alternative is either feeding dangerously bad hay, or insufficient roughage, or a bullet through the head).

This is not some weird idea I came up with myself, it is something that VETS ENDORSE AND RECOMMEND in some particular circumstances.

I am not saying 'everybody go feed your horses straw'. That would, in fact, be a recipe for malnutrition and impaction colic. I am not passing judgement on whether the lady in the feed store, mentioned in the first post above, should or shouldn't be feeding straw (we do not have sufficient information to tell). What I am saying is, do not be closed-minded about whether there are some circumstances in which it can be usefully and safely done.

I don't get why people seem to be getting so snooty about this, rather than learning a little more about equine nutrition and about what people (including vets) have found to be safe and useful.

Giving up now,

Pat