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Hi Paula,
First, 10 lb of wheat bran in 800 pounds of feed isn't much, but it
isn't how many pounds of this or that that you want to pay attention to,
it's the overall calcium-phosphorus level and the total grams of
minerals. However, no, wheat bran is not as bad as rice bran---and for
that matter, I don't want anyone thinking that rice bran is BAD per se,
like rat poison. It's simply a high-phosphorus food---if you happened
to have a horse that NEEDED a phosphorus supplement, then by golly, rice
bran would be just the thing. The point about rice bran is if you
choose to feed it to your horse, do so as an intelligent, educated
decision, not as the result of fancy marketing---believe me, folks, I
worked in the pet product marketing industry for nine years before going
back to school and I know marketing hype when I see it. I've laughed
myself silly over some of the stuff they have in those rice bran
brochures.
Anyway, back to wheat bran---the reason why I will use wheat bran on
occasion is mostly because it soaks up liquids and makes a nice base for
mixing things into. (It also has some laxative properties and if I have
a colicky horse and my vet tells me to feed a big bran mash, then all
the nutrition stuff goes out the window and I darn well do exactly what
he tells me to do.) Wheat bran is considerably lower in phosphorus than
rice bran is and is lower in magnesium. The amino acid profile is
MARGINALLY better in rice bran, but not enough to make an argument for
it. Rice bran does have a higher potassium and iron content, but those
are two nutrients that are almost always supplied in abundance by any
decent ration. Wheat bran is also dirt cheap and a little goes a long
ways.
I will say this for rice bran, that very often it puts a nice hair coat
on a horse. This is probably due to the vitamin A, D and E content,
which IS considerably higher in rice bran than it is in wheat bran or
most other grains and which is often lacking in many horse's diets. On
the other hand, rather than feeding a pound of rice bran, you can still
provide three times as much vitamin A and an equivalent amount of
vitamin D by feeding a whopping pound and a half of medium quality
alfalfa. You'll still be lacking the whole 220 IU of Vitamin E in the
pound of rice bran, but if you really wanted to be picky about it, you
could get that 220 IU by adding less than half an ounce of any decent
vitamin supplement. And all of this for a lot less money and a whole
lot less phosphorus.
Here's where the "rice bran is a fat source" thing comes in. Yes, rice
bran does have a relatively high fat content for a grain product,
somewhere between 15-20%. Fine. But if you're trying to putting
weight onto a horse, what you care about is the total *energy* content
of the feed, not whether that energy is provided in the form of fat or
carbohydrates. It is true that there is some benefit to feeding a high
fat diet to endurance horses, but the tiny amount of "fat" you're
feeding by feeding rice bran isn't going to make a damn bit of
difference to anyone but the rice bran feed mill owners So the calories
in wheat bran are just as good as putting on weight as are the calories
in rice bran, except that wheat bran has a higher calorie density than
rice bran on a ounce for ounce basis. Wheat bran contains 2.94 Mcal per
kg, rice bran 2.62 Mcal, or only 89% as much. I bought a 40 lb bag of
wheat bran yesterday for $6.95. Last time I looked (which isn't often),
rice bran was $21.95 for 50 pounds. If you figure out the comparative
costs per Mcal of energy in each, regardless of whether that energy came
from fat or carbos, than I paid $0.13 a Mcal for wheat bran, while the
price per Mcal from rice bran would've been $0.37 per Mcal. Plus, of
course, wheat bran contains .44 grams less of phosphorus for every kilo
(2.2 pounds). I don't mind spending money on my horses when there's a
good reason, but why throw it away? I just don't think the price or the
marketing hype of rice bran is justified.
Don't get me wrong about wheat bran, either. It's better than rice
bran, but it's STILL high in phosphorus and shouldn't be overdone
anymore than ANY feed. And, by the way, the above arguments totally
ignore the gamma oryzanol content in rice bran, which is NOT found in
wheat bran. Tom is absolutely right in that if you have a specific
problem and this is the only way to solve it, then you do what you have
to do to boost the horse into an anabolic state. In the absence of
major catabolic problems, though, I say skip the rice bran and go get a
bottle of corn oil. Or go try out the purified form of gamma oryzanol
and then REALLY skip the rice bran altogether. Save the money and go
enter an extra ride or two. :-D
Any day now, I expect the Califronia rice growers to show up at my
doorstep and beat the living daylights out of me.
Just my two cents of course...and if I start adding up all my two cents
this weeks it's closer to a down payment on a saddle...<g>
Susan
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