question - horse digestive systems, hay etc

[PatchyPony]

hi guys,

another question im afraid

I was told by a nutritionist that horses guts are best always full of fibre of some sort as they are trickle feeders. That, the gut is like a sausage and 'fuller' sausage will be less likely to kink into a colic than an empty sausage.

Tally has a huge grass belly! I can only get haylage at my yard, not hay, and at the moment she gets a small haylage net at night... but im pretty sure she empties this really fast. I was feeding it on the floor before, but in order to slow her down a bit Im using the haylage net. So that means most of the night she doesnt have anything to eat... and her gut may be empty? IS this bad? I dont want to give her any more! Also, Im thinking of bringing her in mid afternoon as the grass is so good.... but again, would it harm her to be standing in with nothing to eat?

She gets 1/2 scoop chaff and baileys low cal balancer in the morning, and the same at night with a small (1/4 sccop max) amount of speedibeet in.

thanks

 

[carthorse]

Just lost my first, fairly long, reply so this one will be short as I'm a slow typer & can't be bothered to do it all again!

Can you try any of the following:
- put her haylage net inside another haylage net to slow her down more
- get some hay from elsewhere (if YO will let you) & feed lots of it well soaked
- mix some clean straw in with her haylage, even if she doesn't like straw she'll spend longer picking it out
- use a grazing muzzle so that you don't need to bring her in early & can maybe give more haylage when she is in
- split her haylage ration, ideally give her one small net after she's been in for a few hours & one later at night (I know this may not be possible but it's just an idea)
- could you put her evening chaff & LoCal in a feed ball so it lasts longer & she has to work for it
- I think I'd drop the Speedibeet, I've always found mine put weight on even on small amounts of it

I hope some of these help

 

[PatchyPony]

what a good idea putting straw in with the haylage! That way I could split her ration into 2 nets... and it's ok to do this? Mix it with straw?

thanks - sorry you lost your first reply, but thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

Do you think it is ok for them to stand in for an afternoon? Or should they get hay while their in?

 

[carthorse]

Yep it's definately ok to mix straw in, when I was a kid we used to do it all the time for the fat ponies & my vet also recommends mixing straw in with hay or haylage if ponies are too fat. And look at what's in a lot of bagged chaffs - chopped up straw!! Just make sure it's good clean straw, don't feed any that's mouldy or dusty (I'm sure you wouldn't anyway, you sound like much too good a mum to do that )

It's not going to hurt her to stand in for a few hours with no hay, horses may be trickle feeders but they don't need to eat constantly. Watching both of mine they will spend a lot of time in the box dozing & watching what's going on rather than eating, despite having ad-lib hay. It's only a problem when it's for long periods as that lets the stomach acid build up & too much of the gut starts to empty.

I don't know what I did with my first answer - I hit a button & it all vanished! I should stick to horses - I get things wrong but at least I know what's wrong

 

[cvb]

there are other things you can do as well. Ours get a snack ball with their last lot of food - this just has grass nuts in it, and they have to work to get them out. (It can sound like they are taking the stable apart tho - as they learn how to "bounce" the ball off the corner for faster food release )

anything like this where the food uptake is slowed up by something that they have to puzzle at - helps

Check what straw you mix in - oat straw is the most commonly fed straw type.