Feeding bran

silly mare

silly mare

Sara
Aug 11, 2000
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Colchester, Essex
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Does bran have a "heating" effect? And what does chaff consist of?

My loan mare had a mix in her feed bin - name escapes me, but it says on the sack that it is for horses in light work and won't heat them up. The friend I share her with has been giving her quarter scoops of this, and possibly bran and chaff mixed in with it. This mare has been extremely skittish the last few days - on Saturday she went crazy and tried to break out of her stable when she saw/heard two horses in the distance galloping across the stubble field opposite!

She is usually very placid. Not sure if she's just been upset by these horses galloping past, or if the hard feed is having an effect!
 
Bran is not heating, it's just the husk from the outer grain. Not much feed value.

Chaff is chopped hay and sometimes straw, both just add fibre, chaff is far more digestible than bran.

The horse was spooked by the sound of the galloping horses, simply because nature says, if they are galloping there must be a good reason for it, tigers in the woods run for your life. It's just a natural reaction to the sound of galloping feet. A horse in a confined space in the wild is a dead one.
 
Feeding

Thanks Wally. The stuff (so technical!) in the third feed bin smells like molasses or sugar beet or something like this, and is the consistency of chopped hay? Please can you tell me the proper name for this, as I've an awful lot to relearn!!

Cheers!
 
It sounds as though the stuff in the third bin might be Molli-chaff or something similar. This is chaff,(chopped hay/straw) which is coated with molasses and added vitamins and things. It can, depending on the make, be quite high in sugar, so it could potentially have a slight heating effect, but in the quantities you're describing, I wouldn't have thought that it would make much difference to your pony. Can I just say, that if you are not very experienced with feeding horses, you are probably better off to buy a complete mix, like the one you already have and feed that in the recommended quanties and avoid adding bits and pieces to it. It's a bit of a hobby horse of mine, but it is very easy to unbalance feedstuffs, and after all, the feed manufacturers have gone to a lot of trouble to make sure the mixes are balanced.
 
It could be sugar beet shreds. If it is soak for 24hours befor you feed it. To tell if it's sugar beed shreds soak some in water, it will swell up. Could be moli-chaff though, is it like chaff? all grassy bits.
 
Thanks

No - definitely not sugar beet, because I've come across this previously and would NEVER feed it without soaking it! It does sound like chaff with molasses - and smells that way too. We are consulting her owner with regard to feeding, as we would like to continue with what she has been used to in the past. Thanks for all your responses.
 
When feeding what supplement

I think that your feed could possible be Alfa-A, this is similar to molly chop, only it does contain Molasses, both of my horses are feed Alfa-a and they love it.
 
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