Hi Cheryl,
I wanted to pass on what I was taught in my equine nutrition classes at
Cal Poly on feeding psyllium. This is from Dr. Robert Bray, who did his
Ph.D in equine nutrition, so please don't everyone yell at me, I'm just
passing on what he told us---his opinion was (is) that psyllium in small
amounts does extremely little to clear the gut of sand, given the small
volume of psyllium you're feeding and the large capacity of the equine
gut. Also, because sand is heavy, it tends to gravitate more towards
the bottom of the gut, where it is passed over by much of the psyllium
goo floating by overhead. He says the marketing hype about psyllium
"encapsulating" sand particles is hooey, because psyllium can't tell the
difference between a particle of sand and a particle of anything else.
In his opinion, the majority of sand is going to be removed by feeding
fiber. Yes, psyllium and Metamucil, etc are fiber, but so is hay, which
is fed in much larger amounts. Although psyllium's gooeyness may pick
up more sand per pound of it fed, overall it's not going to collect and
move along nearly as much sand as the sixteen or so pounds of hay you're
feeding every day anyway, just because you're feeding alot more hay than
you are psyllium.
He thinks that for psyllium to do any good, it should be fed in large
amounts, once or twice rather than on a daily basis. What he calls
large amounts, I don't know, from my notes I think he meant like a
couple of pounds, but I don't know for sure. Personally, after hearing
the stories about wads of psyllium being removed from equine guts, I'd
be leery of feeding it much at all, although I know alot of vets
recommend it and alot of people have good results, which is fine by me.
Rather than spending the money on psyllium, one suggestion in sandy
areas was to invest instead in buying several rubber trailer mats and
bolting the feed tub to it so the horse can't kick it around, then
feeding from that so the horse doesn't eat from the ground any more than
absolutely necessary. I got there five minutes to late to snap them up,
but I have seen used mats at the local auction going for five to ten
bucks apiece.
Anyway, just wanted to pass on another point of view.
Susan Evans
>
> Also I wanted to let the group know that I have and excellent research
> article on hay, grass vs alfalfa, a complete nutrient break down and other
> great info.
Could you send it to me? Thanks.