Re: Complete feeds

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

You make a very good point---feeding a minimal diet (ie, pellets instead of
hay, or seven pounds of super-rich hay instead of free-choice grass) is
pretty hard on the horses.  They have an instinct to be chewing and if they
cant do it by grazing or at least munching hay, then they'll satisfy it by
eating your barn and fences down, or cribbing or other boredom vices.

There are alot of physical effects as well.  Feeding in two large meals a
day instead of continuous nibbling has fluid shift effects (significant in
endurance horses during a ride) and also leads to higher incidence of
gastric ulcers, colic and if I wasn't half asleep, plenty of other effects
as well.

Grazing 24/7 is the closest thing to magic there is in nutrition, but second
best choice is definitely feeding free choice hay, with whatever supplements
it takes to balance the ration for whatever the horse is doing.

Susan G
----- Original Message -----
From: Lisa <lpopp@pa.net>
To: <ridecamp@endurance.net>
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 9:24 PM
Subject: RC: Complete feeds


> With all this talk of 'complete' feeds, has anyone ever wondered what
> the psychological effects of a hayless -or minimal hay- diet might be on
> our horses?  I have (am I weird, or what?).  Considering that horses are
> meant to walk and forage *almost* 24/7 I have to wonder.  Especially
> with horses that are confined to smaller areas.  I guess I tend to
> overfeed hay, more so from a mental well being standpoint than for
> physical health.  I worry about the old guy I have that has no bottom
> teeth and gets all his feed (soaked senior and beet pulp) at once.  His
> nutritional needs are met, but what the heck does he do the other 23 1/2
> hours of the day?
> I need to get out and ride and stop thinking so much......
> Lisa
>
>
> > asked if we could develop a Complete
> > Performance feed without hay and absolutely no dust for Race horses with
> > dust allergies and  for horses with heaves. It was developed about 10
years
> > ago and was the first beet pulp base horse feed of it type.  There are
> > probable hundreds of horses that are at the tracks that thrive on it as
> > there only source of feed. The feeding reccomendations for Complete
> > Advantage for a 1000#  horse in heavy training is 23#, which would
provide
> > 9.2 # of beet pulp
>
>
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