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| I'm wanting to switch up what I feed my older rodeo horse and have heard good things from people who use whole oats in their horse's diets. Can anyone give me advice on how to feed it and how much? My horse is on full access to pasture, and receives coastal hay daily as well. Thanks in advance! |
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Expert
Posts: 3514
  
| If you are going to feed whole oats, I would add 1/4 alfalfa pellets and 1/4 corn. And for a supplement Vitalize High Performance. You won't need anything else except good grass hay. And your horse will look great. But only add the corn if you are going to be riding him. |
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Married to a Louie Lover
Posts: 3303
| We feed whole oats, dac oil, and mineral. My 2 also get their oxymax. And they get a good quality alfalfa/grass mix. Everyone looks great and they all have a lot more energy without being what I would consider hot. |
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 Owner of a ratting catting machine
Posts: 2258
| I wouldn't feed corn.
I would (and am) feeding stabilized rice bran as my fat source. My 1275 lb hard keeper gets 1 lb twice a day. Of the whole oats he gets 3 lbs twice a day. If you're looking for a nice finish, alfalfa pellets with your coastal would be good depending on how many calories your horse needs.
My 1100 lb easy keeping mare gets 1 lb whole oats and 2 cups rice bran. It sure dapples her out, plus the Queen doesn't get her feelings hurt because she gets her bucket twice a day like everyone else. :)
I'm so happy I got off the processed grain and went to oats and rice bran. My feed costs went through the floor in comparison and the ulcer meds got off auto deliver.
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  Warmblood with Wings
Posts: 27846
Location: Florida.. | I wouldnt add corn either ... but add some alfalfa in any form .. |
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Expert
Posts: 3514
| A little corn doesn't hurt. You are feeding very little. I would not feed rice bran. It can cause the calcium/phosphorus to be put of balance. It you want one to shine then add Vitalize High Performance. You will get a shine and you also get protection against ulcers and colic with the pre and prebiotic. Saves money on feed and supplements. |
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Expert
Posts: 1226
| My gelding gets alfalfa and we supplement whole oats with platinum performance. He looks and feels great. I feel like simpler is better but that's just my opinion |
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 595
Location: North Dakota | Whole oats and whole flax with quality grass hay free choice and alfalfa to the one who gets worked. I also use Cur-OST supplements but that is to manage certain issues both my horses have. A good clean diet will do a horse wonders on its own. 
Edited to add: I feed 1lb whole oats and 3/4 cup whole flax one time per day to the horse that gets worked 5 days a week. .75lb of whole oats and 1/3 cup whole flax to my 23rd old who is just living life and could stand to loose a few pounds haha.
Edited by MidWest1452 2016-04-24 10:43 AM
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 A Barrel Of Monkeys
Posts: 12972
Location: Texas | I like to feed whole oats, but feeding pellets is just easier for me (multiple horses, young, old, etc).
Oats are high in phosphorus and so is rice bran. You need to try to balance that with alfalfa, which is high in calcium. When feeding oat, I use 2 parts oats, 1 part alfalfa pellets. Or, feed a flake of alfalfa with it. Add minerals and that's all you need. |
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 Coyote Country Queen
Posts: 5666
| We added oats to our horse's diets. If they are being ridden then they are stalled and get alfalfa twice daily, have a hay net of teff grass, and get about a pound of grain twice daily that is half oats and half Omolene 200. If they will eat the plain oats then I just give them oats, but I've found that some of them will leave the oats for their hay. Prior to this change we had just been feeding the Omolene, but I'd been hearing lots of talk about feeding whole oats instead so I decided to make the change. |
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| I won't feed corn. It can be moldy and you won't know it. It is too humid down here. Oats and barley are much safer to feed.
It is a mycotoxin on the corn that can be harmful.
Edited by GLP 2016-04-24 6:52 PM
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Regular
Posts: 70
| This..
Plus a had full of flax seed. |
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 A Somebody to Everybody
Posts: 41354
Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | GLP - 2016-04-24 6:47 PM I won't feed corn. It can be moldy and you won't know it. It is too humid down here. Oats and barley are much safer to feed. It is a mycotoxin on the corn that can be harmful.
I dont feed corn to my horses either to humid, I do feed corn to my goats I mix it in their feed. |
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Regular
Posts: 70
| Whole oats, rice bran plus a had full of flax seed. |
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 Expert
Posts: 5293
| readytorodeo - 2016-04-24 7:50 AM
A little corn doesn't hurt. You are feeding very little. I would not feed rice bran. It can cause the calcium/phosphorus to be put of balance. It you want one to shine then add Vitalize High Performance. You will get a shine and you also get protection against ulcers and colic with the pre and prebiotic. Saves money on feed and supplements.
Not always true. If your rice bran is stabilized (mine is) it has the calcium and phosphorous ratio stabilized. Only time you run into that is when you feed unstabilized. |
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Veteran
Posts: 143
Location: TX | Just FYI,
Corn can cause tying up. I wouldn't use corn much at all.
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Owner of a ratting catting machine
Posts: 2258
| FLITASTIC - 2016-04-24 7:03 PM
readytorodeo - 2016-04-24 7:50 AM
A little corn doesn't hurt. You are feeding very little. I would not feed rice bran. It can cause the calcium/phosphorus to be put of balance. It you want one to shine then add Vitalize High Performance. You will get a shine and you also get protection against ulcers and colic with the pre and prebiotic. Saves money on feed and supplements.
Not always true. If your rice bran is stabilized (mine is ) it has the calcium and phosphorous ratio stabilized. Only time you run into that is when you feed unstabilized.
Xactly. |
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 It's not my fault I'm perfect
Posts: 13739
Location: Where the long tails flow, ND | I feed 1lb of whole oats and 3/4 cup of flax, along with Cur-OST supplements.
Everyone looks great in my barn! |
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Regular
Posts: 56
Location: Oklahoma | I feed cup Whole Oats, 1 cup Barley, and 1/2 cup of Sunflower with my CurOst supplements. They are on good grass pasture all day (or night as soon as weather gets hot) and alfalfa 2X a day with grass hay. Horses look and feel amazing!! My 2 hard keepers are no longer a hard keepers!!!
I used to feed high fat diets, but, nothing worked really. I would end up with a bit of a crusty neck. No more crusty necks and healthy happy horses. |
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Regular
Posts: 56
Location: Oklahoma | I needed to add that my horses get very little grain. The oats, barley, and sunflower don't fill 1/2 a coffee can. It took me awhile to have the nerve to try that, but, once I did, I couldn't believe the results. I was afraid to feed less to hard keepers. I think less grain is better on the digestive tract anyway!! Learned all that from Cur-OST!! |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
Location: West Texas | For horses, oats are superior to corn in every way, except energy (but that is really a mute point). The only reason to add corn to an oat mix is to make it cheaper and to add margin in the feed for feed companies. That is why it is done, no other reason, regardless of what the feed rep or nutritionist tells you.
Every nutritionist will say oats are a better horse feed, then most of them go right around and put corn in many, many products. It is not right. Even fat supplement feeds like Purina Amplify and Nutrena Empower Boost contain ground corn. Why? There is no good reason except a little cheap (cheap for them, not for you) energy to pad their pocket books a little more.
Edited by Tdove 2016-04-25 10:42 AM
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 Whack and Roll
Posts: 6342
Location: NE Texas | I too feed less than a pound of oats, with a cup of BOSS once a day, and mix in my Cur-OST. Mine get a flake of alfalfa once a day right now given that our grass as pasture is plush. In the winter they get alfalfa twice a day, but I still only grain once daily. I have young horses to aged horses on this program and they all thrive and do well.
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Red Bull Agressive
Posts: 5981
Location: North Dakota | Yeah definitely don't add corn. It is the most worthless feed out there for horses. I love whole oats though. I would recommend adding a little alfalfa (I do pellets or cubes) to help balance the calcium:phosphorous ratio. Beyond that you can add flax and/or rice bran (or preferably Renew Gold). Currently the amounts I feed per day are 2lbs oats, 4lbs alfalfa pellets, 1/2lb Renew Gold, 1 scoop flax supplement, and Cur-Ost. I've adjusted it over time depending on the time of year, how much work my horse was in, etc. but right now this is what's working for us. |
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 Expert
Posts: 2013
Location: Piedmont, OK | I feed whole oats, alfalfa, flax seed and Animal Element Mineral 201 and Detox |
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | FLITASTIC - 2016-04-24 7:03 PM readytorodeo - 2016-04-24 7:50 AM A little corn doesn't hurt. You are feeding very little. I would not feed rice bran. It can cause the calcium/phosphorus to be put of balance. It you want one to shine then add Vitalize High Performance. You will get a shine and you also get protection against ulcers and colic with the pre and prebiotic. Saves money on feed and supplements. Not always true. If your rice bran is stabilized (mine is ) it has the calcium and phosphorous ratio stabilized. Only time you run into that is when you feed unstabilized.
Stabilization and calcium fortification are 2 different processes often found in the same product, but you can find rice bran with one and not the other. I feed stabilized but unfortified rice bran with alfalfa. |
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Expert
Posts: 1695
Location: Willows, CA | I was the one who started putting calcium in stabilized rice bran. We sold it for years without doing that, but I got frustrated with trying to explain to people why it really did not make any difference whether added Calcium was in there or not. It was just easier to balance the cal/phos ratio in the product. Unlike grain based feeds that can be fed at very high levels, the imbalance in Stabilized Rice Bran is such a small contribution to the entire diet that, in the majority of cases, it is basically meaningless. You change how much calcium and phosphorus in the diet more by the variation in how much hay you grab when you feed, than by the small amount that is found in a normal feeding of Stabilized Rice Bran. If the diet is upside down based on your hay and what else you feed, Cal/phos balanced SRB is not going to fix that. If your diet is cal/phos balanced overall, then SRB with no added calcium is not going to mess it up. We all learned that alfalfa is high in calcium and grass hays are high in phosphorus. While this was true many years ago, in doing thousands of hay analysis tests, I rarely see a grass hay these days that is not also higher in Calcium. If you are feeding five or more pounds of grain based feed that has not had calcium added, along with straight grass hay that tests close to equal cal/phos you might have a reason to consider an added calcium source in the diet. But, if SRB is fed as intended, without adding it to a large grain ration and straight grass hay added calcium is very rarely needed. In that case it is more important to know that it was properly stabilized than if it had calcium added to it. |
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Feeding whole oats