 |
[RC] beet pulp or bran - Marlene MossTitle: MessageWe have a 32 year
old horse boarded at our place. He looks really good, but since none of
his remaining teeth line up, effective chewing is out of the question.
When he came here to CO from NC, he was on primarily bran and extruded feed like
Strategy. He got hay to chew on, which he mostly created little wads with
and spit them into his hay feeder or water.
The owners were fine
with us switching to beet pulp and Strategy, since that's what we have on hand
all the time. But we started with the bran they provided and then slowly
transitioned toward the end of the bag. Initially, he pooped once or twice
a day, little hard orangish balls.
When we had him
fully on the beet pulp, he was up to pooping 4 times a day, normal to a little
soft. The owners finally moved out here and thought he might have lost
some weight - probably from the trip and we hadn't tried to specifically have
him gain because he looked pretty good - their other horse is a butterball, so I
guess that's the side they prefer.
Anyhow, they thought
it might be the beet pulp not being as good as the bran and said they'd buy him
bran. We waited a couple weeks for them to bring it before just picking it
up ourselves, but in that time frame, there were some other changes. He
was pooping 5-6 times a day, completely normal and the odd thing is that he is
now eating a lot more alfalfa/grass that we gave him to chew on, and not
creating the little spitted out wads.
The thing with the
wads makes no sense to me, but I think he would do better on beet pulp than bran
if that must be a large portion of his diet. Now that we bought the bran,
I'm doing about 50/50 beet pulp/bran and watching for additional
changes.
Any thoughts -
especially from Susan - on which would be better primarily between beet pulp and
bran? I have never fed bran before, but I know that when we had a really
bad drought, we stocked up on beet pulp because we could replace a good portion
of our horses roughage with it if we couldn't get hay, so it seems like a
logical option. The horse is also getting alfalfa cubes, 6 pounds of
Strategy a day, Clovite and oil, plus about a half slice of grass hay and a
slice of alfalfa which is digested to an undetermined amount. Again, he
looks pretty good, but I want to do what's best for him and if there should be
changes, I want to have good reasons for the owners.
Thanks for any
advice!
Marlene
Marlene Moss
Saddle Fitting - www.KineticEquineAnalysis.com
Boarding/Training - www.LosPinos-CO.com
|