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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
  
Location: West Texas | Oats are digested well, generally. Nothing is digested 100%, it is not supposed to be. Digestibility, cost, and nutrition are almost an economics table or formula. You can get very high digestibility, but doing so often leads to higher incremental cost and lost organic nutrients. This is exactly what happens to oats, the gain in digestibility is less than the comparative cost to do so. Furthermore, shelf life and nutrient quality and density is significantly reduced. Processing oats, increases their already high digestibilty by an average of 7%. The cost of processing is about double that. So feeding processed oats is more expensive than whole. Plus, the processed oat oxidizes and looses natural fats, vitamins, and minerals. This is why highly digestible whole food ingredients are superior to processed feeds. | |
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Red Bull Agressive
Posts: 5981
Location: North Dakota | Tdove - 2016-08-21 5:08 PM 2-4 lbs/day of Whole oats: 1. Energy dense calories from highly digestible starch (helps restore glycogen levels in anaerobic exercise like barrel racing). Oats have the highest starch digestibility of any grain. 2. Good natural fat source (5%) 3. Highest fiber grain source 4. Moderate levels of protein and highest grain protein (10-12%) 5. High chew factor for concentrate and promotes saliva production 6. Very palatable 7. Most nutrient dense grain source with the following make up:
What he said. I always thought oats were just a filler, until I did some unbiased research and found out they are actually a FANTASTIC element to most feed programs. Even though they are somewhat high in starch, they are significantly lower than barley and corn, and the starch is far more digestible. I fed even my extremely hot/spooky barrel horse oats and they didn't do anything to make him crazy. I'm down to one horse and he is more than fat enough on pasture alone, but if I ever do need to feed grain again, quality whole oats will definitely be part of my program. | |
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 Owner of a ratting catting machine
Posts: 2258
| You know what I like best about feeding whole oats?
When you spill some and they get wet, they sprout and try to grow grass.
Oats are grass seeds.
Horses naturally eat....grass.
Seems a no brainer straight from the "keep it simple, stupid." law. | |
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 Veteran
Posts: 133
| I haven't fed just straight oats outside of a complete feed ($28 a bag) in a couple of years but was glad to run across this thread cuz I think I will feed oats again. I usually mix with beet pulp and rice bran (stabilized) It reminded me of some research I had done a few years back -- I was looking at a nitric oxide product for horses and looked to see what the main ingredient was (L-Arginine) and then researched food sources of L-Arginine and up popped oats as one of the highest sources of L-Arginine! See the links below. Buying oats is a lot less expensive than buying the N.O. product if you can't afford it right now or maybe you can decide to just feed oats instead?
Nitric Oxide is said to (I quote): "Now that we know what it is, we can begin to focus on the benefits of nitric oxide to horses:
• Increased blood flow
• More efficient delivery of other nutrients to all of the body’s systems
• Assists the body in tendon repair, ligament injuries, muscle strains, ulcer prevention, and more.
• Helps to reduce inflammation
• Improves recovery from training and competition." and
"The body requires the proper amounts of vitamins, minerals and amino acids to synthesize a compound called Nitric Oxide. This very important signaling molecule is a powerful antioxidant. It widens blood vessels improving flow to the tissues, organs and muscles."
Sources: https://michaellustgarten.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/which-grain-is-the-best-source-for-protein-essential-amino-acids-bcaa-and-arginine/ and http://www.totalhealthenhance.com/products/!/NitrOxide/p/59387391/category
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Married to a Louie Lover
Posts: 3303
| Wanted to come back and say I was picking stalls this morning at the barrel race and saw significantly fewer oats in the poo of one of my fast eaters than I did a month ago 
Herbie must be onto something :)
I may also have a problem because I enjoy getting to clean individual stalls and evaluate the gut health of my kids. All 4 are lotted together at home so unless you see them poo it's anyone's guess who has the issue. | |
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