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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 582
 
Location: Wherever They Send Me | Do you guys recommend whole, hulled or crushed? |
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 BHW Resident Surgeon
Posts: 25352
 
Location: Bastrop, Texas | Their |
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 It's not my fault I'm perfect
Posts: 13739
 
Location: Where the long tails flow, ND | I feed Whole:) |
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 Expert
Posts: 2258
| I feed 1 1/2 lbs a day plus alfalfa pellets and a few other goodies but total ration is 3 lbs. I have found that if you feed them after they have had hay you get way less issue with a horse having too much energy. All of mine look good and are doing well. |
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 Take a Picture
Posts: 12841
| Bear - 2017-03-30 11:03 AM
Their
THANK YOU
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 Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11511
Location: 31 lengths farms | Whole oats...mare with kidney stones also gets Renew Gold, needed something with a few more calories and that wasn't processed at a mill with medicated cattle feeds. Winner winner chicken dinner.... I feed enough to mix their respective herb mixes into the feed. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 883
Location: Southern Indiana | Is it necessary to feed fat/oil with oats when they are getting good alfalfa, grass hay, & pasture? I'm going to switch mine. |
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  Champ
Posts: 19623
Location: Peg-Leg Julia Grimm | FLITASTIC - 2017-03-30 7:31 AM
I have a mare who will absolutely tie up on oats!!! Does NOT matter if its 1 pound or 20, if she gets oats, she will tie up every time I ride her. She is on curost total support to and it happens no matter how I look at it, so she gets her supplements mixed with something else.
Is she PSSM1? Starches and sugars are very bad for PSSM1 horses.
To the OP: I feed COB (corn, oats and barley). Unfortified. Then I feed a vitimin/mineral supplement. They get good grass hay and 3-5# of alfalfa a day and pasture 24/7/365. I try to keep my feeding program simple and it's working so far (the last several decades). If I have a horse that needs weight and they are getting 2# of COB a day already, I add beet pulp. Where you can get in trouble with feeding grains (on a non PSSM1 horse) is feeding too large a meals. Studies have shown more than #2 per meal of grains causes ulcers. |
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Champ
Posts: 19623
Location: Peg-Leg Julia Grimm | TheDutchMan01 - 2017-03-30 10:46 AM
Is it necessary to feed fat/oil with oats when they are getting good alfalfa, grass hay, & pasture? I'm going to switch mine.
IMO no. But you should offer a free choice balanced mineral. |
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 Hugs to You
Posts: 7551
Location: In The Land of Cotton | TheDutchMan01 - 2017-03-30 1:46 PM Is it necessary to feed fat/oil with oats when they are getting good alfalfa, grass hay, & pasture? I'm going to switch mine.
No, just a good mineral, and clean water. |
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | TheDutchMan01 - 2017-03-30 12:46 PM Is it necessary to feed fat/oil with oats when they are getting good alfalfa, grass hay, & pasture? I'm going to switch mine.
No, but feeding fat with oats lowers the glycemic response. |
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 Ms. Marine
Posts: 4641
Location: Texas | I feed straight whole oats. Nothing else. |
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Veteran
Posts: 160
| My mare is HYPP N/H and ulcer prone. Thanks to the HYPP, she has to have a very regulated low-potassium diet (less than 33g potassium per meal). Turns out, most processed feeds have massive levels of potassium, so those are out. As well as all of the molasses and corn that aggravate her ulcers.
About two months ago, I switched her to 2lbs of whole oats, 1lb alfalfa pellets, about 1lb of a high fat/low potassium senior feed just to get a little bloom on her before the grass started growing again, THE Muscle Mass, free choice hay, and 24/7 pasture.
SHE IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT HORSE! She's calmer and easier to catch, much softer when riding, shiny, and putting on topline like a dream. It has been years since she looked so good. I will never go back. |
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| 90% of my horses are on just oats. Around 2lbs a day of whole oats  |
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Red Bull Agressive
Posts: 5981
Location: North Dakota | snoopy - 2017-03-30 9:05 AM I read an article yesterday from a vet not affiliated with any company where he analyzed horses and there digestive systems over a period of time, well he found out that corn, molasses, etc., is NOT good for horses, in fact in can cause ulcers. He stated oats is all a horse needs. Anyone feed only oats? If so, how many pounds a day?
Yeah, horses aren't so different from people in some ways. Highly processed foods filled with starches and sugars aren't good for us and aren't good for them either. Many of the processed feeds out there are very bad for horses in the long run. My horse lives on good pasture and does not need any other feed, but when I had multiple horses living on dry lots, I fed oats and other grains.
Whole oats, fed in moderation, are one of the best grains out there. Corn is very hard for horses to digest and causes inflammation. They are not designed to be eating it. All of the fillers like wheat middlings and other weird things in lots of commercial feeds may not be "harmful" but you're just paying for fillers. They're not benefitting your horse in any way. Barley is very "meh". It is not terrible but not digested nearly as well as oats. Oats also don't make horses hot, as many people think. **Some horses are an exception to this though, simply because they are all individuals and react differently to different feeds.**
There's a wide range as far as how much to feed per day. Depending on your horse's workload, size, access to turnout, and whether they're a "hard keeper", "air fern", etc. will determine how much you need to feed. Generally the rule is never feed more than 4lbs per feeding. I've never heard of anyone feeding more than 8lbs of oats per day (split into 2 or 3 feedings).
Always the most important thing is quality forage, but if you're looking for something else to supplement your oats with, you can add a little rice bran or Renew Gold, which has rice bran, coconut, and flax in it; soaked beet pulp, alfalfa, or flax.
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Expert
Posts: 4766
Location: Bandera, TX | Three 4 Luck - 2017-03-30 1:04 PM TheDutchMan01 - 2017-03-30 12:46 PM Is it necessary to feed fat/oil with oats when they are getting good alfalfa, grass hay, & pasture? I'm going to switch mine. No, but feeding fat with oats lowers the glycemic response.
That's why I can get away with feeding my young breaking horses oats and their easily managed. Love it! Renew Gold and Whole Heavy Northern Oats are my grain and like the others said no more than two lbs at a time. I will feed the horses a little bit after I ride them as well. I always put a bit of alfalfa down while I'm mixing the ration. I have to use electrolytes due to how hard I ride them and will feed a bit of flax if they lose luster.
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 Expert
Posts: 1258
Location: MN | thank you for all the replies, I'm switching gradually. Simple, cheaper, less likely for Ulcers, love it |
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 Owner of a ratting catting machine
Posts: 2258
| The best thing about oats is that when you get them wet and after dropping them on the ground, they sprout and grow into a living thing.
Horses eat grass. Oats are grass seed. Seems like a no brainer that they're going to be a superior energy source. :) |
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Expert
Posts: 1207
| Very good comments on this. But you also have to have that good "quality" hay, oats or pasture or whatever. Not everyone has that nor every feed store. |
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Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | classicpotatochip - 2017-03-31 8:33 AM The best thing about oats is that when you get them wet and after dropping them on the ground, they sprout and grow into a living thing. Horses eat grass. Oats are grass seed. Seems like a no brainer that they're going to be a superior energy source. :)
Technically corn is a grass/grass seed too. Just way more genetically modified from the original. |
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