Best feed???

Hey folks,
Normally feed just good 1st cut hay to all tzhe horses. This year is scarce.
Was just talking to the feed mill guy and he said that for us (horses don't work, just are pregnant and nurse (seasonally) barley was the best grain, with sugarbeet pulp being next, then oats and corn then 2nd cut hay, oat straw, and barley straw.

Sound right?

Oats are the standard for horses that all other grains are measured against, that is because oats are light and filling and much less likely to cause digestive problems, barley is a heavy grain almost equal to corn and non-working horses should not need either one. Horses are just about the dumbest domesticated animals there are when it comes to over eating, foundering themselves etc. Mules can be self fed ear corn and cottonseed and they won't over eat.

Yep, you want to get as much roughage going through them as you can. Which means hay, primarily, and not real good hay, at that. We never feed alfalfa, just grass, and very little supplement. They come through the winter fine, and almost never a digestive problem.

Lost one to colic about 25 years ago- the only time we fed alfalfa hay.

Dave2 remember that the feed mill guy is going to promote what he has and can make the best profit off of.

I would be very cautious about feeding barley. It is 12-13% Crude protein and 7% fiber.

Oats(hulls on) are a much safer feed for horses. 11-12% crude protein and 16 percent fiber.

Barley is a much more dense feed with easily digestible starch. The rapid rate of starch digestion can result in more digestive problems.

Your horses are not working hard so you just need to just maintain them. They will digest a lower protein higher fiber diet much better and safer. You would be able to feed them more lbs of this type feed per day. A horse"s digestive track will work much better with the higher fiber and more volume.

Rolled oats, with some rolled barley, molasses, and a mineral would be a good feed for horses.

If you want real cheap then just find some bulk oats. You can feed them straight. With the hulls on them they are just about impossible for a horse to founder on them. You can use a mineral supplement either in a block or loose.

I am not a horse person but I have sold a lot of hay and oats to horse people my whole life. Some very good horse people have told me one of the biggest mistakes they see is feeding too high of protein feed to horses that are NOT working. People go to the race track and see the top dollar alfalfa being feed to those horses and think that their horses should have that. WRONG!!!! Most people"s pleasure horse in not working everyday. They will do much better on a straight grass or timothy hay. Plus you can give them a third of a bale rather than just a thin slab of alfalfa. The extra volume will make the horse digestive track work much better.

The only issue is that I don"t know if oats are available where you are at. I have attached a article about feed grains. It is talking about cattle but it has a very good chart listing the common grains crude protein and fiber. Plus some of the feed issues will pertain to your horses too.
Characteristics of Common Feed Grains

No. I've never heard of feeding any kind of straw to horses, bovines for roughage, mixed in the feedwagon yes.

Oat hay (green) yes, but it's rich, feed sparingly, like afalfa or grass/alfalfa mix, latter I've never had trouble with, fed lightly to supplement, but straight up alfalfa, way too rich and risky, besides they get fired up on that rich stuff, makes em hard to deal with.

Good quality 1st cut, 2nd cut hay grasses, or a mixture of both 2x-3x per day, and suitable grain or equine feed 2x a day has been the standard for as long as I can recall, well around here at least. Mind you, these are working horses, things change when they are off due to weather, season etc. Good hay will suffice them.

Most use bagged, grain mixes or pelletized feeds, but when I was a kid we had none of those, and all the supplements and all the other "jazz" it was whole oats, crimped oats, and or a sweet feed, that was some mixture of grains with molasses, it came in burlap bags, which changed to weaved plastic bags later.

We prefer to keep em or as many of them as possible on grass in the spring summer/fall, reducing other feeds like pelletized or grain mixtures, some get supplements. I am a firm believer that grass is best, followed by good quality hay, 1st/2nd cut grasses, (when can be found/afforded) They do fine on good hay, and you may not have to give em much or any feed/grain, they seem to hold weight fine for the most part. Change of feed at any time is done gradually, no sudden changes.

We try to feed them in increments so that there are no real long spans without feed, with a preference for the best grass hay that can be afforded, not easy, average is 3000 bales/year, some years the hay is poor, due to weather. Not easy keeping horses is it ? LOL !

Re: Horse feed- what do you want them to look like?
We grain for top line, hay for belly. Grain will fill the top line of the horse through the neck, withers and butt; the hay will get some meat on the ribs and belly. We really only do corn in winter ( builds fat and heat) and only do alfalfa on our old boys who have a tough time keeping weight. When we've had colic issues, it's usually been more about water than hay- I've heard some folks going the beet pulp route (saturated), never used it myself. Our feed routine is usually two scoops and a flake morning and night, on horses that get ridden pretty much every day. We'll adjust both grain and hay depending upon top line and belly.