Conference noted::equitation

    What I do:
    
    Mix the bran (2 qts-dry) with hot water, until it looks like very soupy
    oatmeal.  I mix in applesauce, chopped carrots, molasses, sweet feed,
    oats, or whatever suits your fancy.....
    
    Consider this their grain ration, and yes, feed hay after if you
    normally do.
    
    A bran mash doesn't usually cause any digestive upset (in fact, the
    vets recommend it here if a horse is colicy), so a gradual change
    is not necessary, unless you know something about your horse and sudden
    feed changes.....
    
    Lynne

    Our climate here in Washington state is very similar to yours in the
    UK. We feed mashes 9-10 months out of the year for that reason.
    
    We do something very similar to what Lynne said in the previous reply.
    However, we like to let the mash stand for 5-10 minutes before feeding
    because the bran soaks up water and expands for a little while. Letting
    the mash stand for a few minutes also softens any hard grains(like
    oats) that you have added to the mix which will make the grain more
    digestible.
    
    BTW, bran mashes have little or no "laxative effect" on horses. In
    fact, bran only seems to have such an effect on humans because it is
    added fiber to the diet. Horses which eat enormous amounts of fiber in
    their hay and grass are not affected by small amounts of additional
    fiber in a mash.
    
    On the other hand, many vets recommend mashes for horses which graze
    sandy soil because the mash helps pass grains of sand the may have
    ingested.
    
    
    
    

I used to sometimes add peppermint candy to the bran mash while it was soaking
to give my horse an extra treat.  He would eat peppermint candy (or candy canes
around Christmas time) as a treat, so adding the peppermints to his mash was
something he really enjoyed.

Janet

    I like in Colorado Spgs . It is very sandy here and sand colic is a 
    major problem with horses. I have been feeding my horses bran until 2
    of my horses had colic. ( I baby my horses, I am very cautious about
    their diet) The vet that came out for the colic explained that bran
    is light weight and will go right over sand which weighs a lot more.
    He said that the sand will lay there with the bran going right over
    top until the horse will colic. He recommended giving Psyllium, which
    is a seed that once digested will absorb water and swell up many times
    its normal size, thus pushing the heavy sand out. I have been using it
    and had no problems.  (yes, this has nothing to do with keeping them
    warm)
       Still more on the use of bran.... I noticed a gal down at the
    stables who has expensive Arabians, I asked her about the bran , she
    had the same response as the vet... however.... she mixes a 1/4 cup
    of cooking oil in her horses feed once a day. She says it lubes from
    the mouth on thru. Her mare colics very easy, since she has mixed the
    oil in, no problem.
    			Again, this has nothing to do with heat, I almost 
    lot my old guy due to sand colic, if I can sneak this info. in and 
    stop anyone else from going thru what I did, its worth a try.
    ... As far a Heat? sweet feed keeps my guys and gals warm enough, you
        may even say hot if I feed the amount on the package, I give about
        half pound a day and they are bouncing all over the place.
    
                                       Karen

    After having (and loosing) a very precious horse through Colic problems
    (it was later found out that he had thickening of the bowel, something
    the vet had never seen before and sent a report off to the Vetinary
    College) I sympathize  with some of the problems you seem to be
    facing.  The vet used to recommend bran mashes for him when he was bad,
    made with hot water and left to stand for a while until warm enough to
    eat and had swollen up a bit as well.
    
    We also feed bran mashes after a hard day's riding, ie hunting or a
    show followed by hay as this helps to relax them.  In this case we give
    them tit bits in the mash such as apples and carrots (my first horse
    also loved mangle worzels and was well known for getting out the stable
    and going to the farmer's store).
    
    To keep horses warm in England my old riding instructor recommended
    soaked barley, made in the same way as sugar beet and we have done this
    once or twice but found it more difficult to obtain and do.  We feed 
    sugar beet in the winter for warm together with complete feed mixes, 
    either heating or non heating according to the amount of work they are
    getting.
                                                        

    re .4
    
    Yes, bran mashes are "old-fashioned" and less effective than Psyillium
    but until recently bran mashes(preferably with corn oil or the like) were 
    the only prevention tool available to horse folk.
    
    As for sweet feed keeping a horse warm, I think you're talking about
    the wrong kind of heat! The high sugar content of sweet feed may make a
    horse hyperactive but that has little to do with their body temperature.
    
    According to feed experts like Hintz, ordinary hay is a good source of
    keeping body temperature up. The activity of the stomach and gut in 
    digesting the hay keep the body temperature relatively high without making
    the horse hyper.
    
    Another good source of high energy is cracked corn(maize to those in
    the UK). Many horse folk dislike to feed corn because of old
    prejudices. However, when feed in appropriate amounts it is a good feed
    for horses as any endurance rider can tell you. The energy content here
    comes from oil and complex carbohydrates rather than sugar. So the
    horses don't get hyper from it unless overfed.
    
    

    The reason I posted my original note was because on some occasions the 
    weather totally tricks you and your horse goes out without a New 
    Zealand rug on.  And "of course" it rains, then as my horse has quite a 
    fine coat she gets very cold, and in the past it has taken upto 1 1/2 
    hours for her to warm up.  It is on occasions like this that feeding a 
    bran mash might be a good idea.  
     
    It has been suggested that I put linseed in my bran mashes???  Firstly, 
    What is it and what does it do?  and secondly,  Do you have to prepare 
    it in any special way?
    
    I hate the rain!!!!!!!!!!

    I didn't know what linseed was so I had to look it up. Since nobody
    else has responded, I guess none of us knew.
    
    Linseed meal is what's left over after the oil is extracted from
    flaxseed. The flaxseed is ground and then either pressed mechanically
    or soaked in some solvent that draws the oil out. 
    
    Linseed meal is supposed to have a high fat content with the old
    fashioned pressed stuff being a bit higher in fat than the soaked
    stuff. Apparently, the pressing didn't get as much oil out of the flax.
    
    My reference said that linseed meal has been replaced in horse feeds by 
    soybean meal(at least in the US) because it's more available. They also
    gave an interesting reason as to why linseed meal is less available: a
    change in flooring! It seems that linoleum has been replaced by vinyl
    flooring and that flaxseed oil was used in the manufacture of linoleum!
    That sounded so bizarre that I checked in my dictionary. Sure enough,
    linoleum was made by pressing a mixture of flaxseed (aka linseed) oil,
    rosin, powdered cork and pigments onto canvas/burlap backing.
    
    I don't know *exactly* what you mean when you say your horse gets very
    cold. Is she shivering? 
    
    Anyway, what we do with ours when they get rained on is to scrape the
    water out with a sweat scraper, towel dry them a bit and, if it's cool,
    put a lightweight wool cooler on them. I don't know what you call them
    over in the UK. What we call a cooler is a sort of rug that covers the 
    horse from ears to tail. It's cut rather squarish compared to a regular 
    rug and has no straps under the belly or legs. It just ties at the 
    chest & neck (actually the ties break and we used spring loaded clamps 
    to hold the things closed). There are also loops that one can put over the 
    ears and under the tail but they're not much use.
    
    No matter what you call them, the cooler wicks the remaining water out
    of the coat *and* keeps the horse warm. Ours dry quickly that way and
    never get a chill. We also use that trick after giving them a bath in 
    cool weather. I just mentioned that because of the similarity in our 
    climates, cool & rainy. Check out my personal name on this note and
    you'll see what I mean!
    
    Actually, some people here use the lightweight NZ rugs(except we
    call the lightweight ones sheets) all summer long even in the finest,
    warmest weather. There's one pasture we pass on the way home that I
    don't think I've ever seen the horse without its sheet even when the
    temperature was 80! (Fahrenheit of course!)
    
    Good luck

    She does actually "Shiver" when she gets cold *and* wet, to dry her off 
    I rub her down with a towel, then I put her sweat rug on (A big string 
    vest), with straw tucked under it to warm her up and absorb the 
    remaining water, and then I throw her stable rug over the top, and it 
    still can take upto an hour for her to stop shivering.  So I thought I 
    could try warming her up from inside her belly.

    A hot mash at that point does sound like it would help. Let us know how
    it works out.

Lyn,

	I have my Chaps on Linseed , but it was'nt in a meal form it was actually 

	seeds ....I was always told that you should cook linseed until the seeds

	pop ( you will find lots, the insides are white , so no trouble in 

	spotting them in your pan) I used to cook the stuff for about 4-5 hours 
	
	I think ;-).. All I am aware of with Linseed is that it gives them a 

	healthy shine to the coat ....and it another form of getting oil into them

	My chaps love it ...:-)))))

        If there is something else pls let me know .:-)


	As with Flaked Maize its good for putting weight on but if you 

	feed it too much I believe (dont quote me on that)it can push the 
	
	horses Blood pressure up high..:-(


	And can someone pls tell me the truth about BRAN ,...Is it or is it 

	not a laxative ????????
 	

Racheal 

    Bran is *NOT* a laxative. It is a source of fiber, protein and a small
    amount of fat.

From the December 1993(which I just got around to reading!) Cornell Animal 
Newsletter's "Questions From Our Readers" column:

"Q: Our barn management follows the practice of bran mashing all the 
horses once a week on Sunday evening. They believe it helps prevent colic.
I recently attended a nutritional seminar, in which I heard that this 
can be harmful. What are your recommendations on bran mashing?

A: It is true that a high intake of wheat bran can be harmful to horses.
Wheat bran contains a high concentration of phosphorous and a relatively
low content of calcium. Thus, when the ration contains a high 
concentration of wheat bran, the Ca:P ratio can be imbalanced and result 
in skeletal problems such as nutritional hyperparathyroidism. Feeding 
large amounts of wheat bran may also contribute to enterolith formation.
Enteroliths are stones that form in the intestines of horses. They are 
composed of nitrogen, phosphorous and magnesium, which are present in 
high amounts in wheat bran. The practice of bran mashing once per week, 
however, would not usually provide enough wheat bran to cause Ca:P 
imbalance or stimulate enterolith formation."

John

    How much is too much? My neighbors feed wheat bran on a daily basis,
    dry, mixed in with complete feed....about 2 quarts a day I believe. They
    claim it adds bulk without making the horses 'hot' (not that either of
    their horses are anyway, but that's they theory they gave me when I
    asked why they fed it).
    

    >How much is too much? 
    
    I've always wanted to ask the same question! I had read many years ago
    that large amounts of bran could cause phosphorus-calcium ratio
    imbalances but no one ever defines "too much" or "large amounts"...
    
    Personally, I wouldn't feed 2 quarts a day per horse. If I wanted to
    add bulk without making the horses 'hot', I'd feed more hay or give
    them extra pasture time.
    
    John

    I have suggested that these people try feeding more hay, and been told
    that they are getting all they can eat.  They have no pasture at all,
    only a small dirt paddock. One is awfully underweight, the other seems
    okay but is a recent arrival.  Ive also suggested more frequent worming,
    but I really dont know if they have done so or not. Maybe I'll try 
    mentioning the possibility of phosphorus-calcium imbalance, too.
     

    A girl at where I had been boarding used to feed her arab pony a ton
    of bran mixed w/ race horse oats every feeding.  This little pony has
    been looking awful!  Her vet was out to worm or something and we
    mentioned to the vet what the pont was getting for feed and she had
    a chat w/ the girl.  She said that the dry bran every day was a bad
    thing and that once in awhile it would be a good thing.  Can't remember
    the exact reason, but I believe it was the phosphorus-calicum balance
    argumant.  Anyway, the pony just gets it's race horse oats now.
    
    I like feeding a bran mash every now and then.....the horses like it
    too!
    

    
    Too much of anything is bad.  Small amount are fine!  Horses
    (like humans) can get addicted or relay on certin things.  If
    you feed your horse bran everyweeek, then he will become reliant
    on it and so will his system, when he goes w/out it for once his
    system is used to bran helping his system - his system can go
    into a type of shock.
    
    The same is said for people who use ex-lax/medimucial/nose spray/
    and other agents to help the system.
    
    Don't let this scare you.  I use bran about once a month during
    the winter (on cold terrible days)  I just dont use it on a
    regualr schedule.
    
    Louisa

    
    If they want to add more bulk to the feed, tell them to use
    beet pulp instead of the bran.  Beet pulp is used quite often
    for the large draft horses and for racing horses.....
    
    

    re: beet pulp.  
    
    Beet pulp, which comes in a shredded form and in a pelleted form, is
    also used for horses with heaves (COPD).  The pelleted form (and
    probably the shredded kind too, I don't know though) is mixed with
    water and it expands (a lot!).  One of my horses has been getting
    the pelleted form as a hay substitute and he loves it.  I mix his
    sweet feed with the pellets and he snarfs it right down.  Even though
    he now has horsehage (hypoallergenic hay) he still wants the pellets.
    And since he tends not to drink enough in the cold weather, I'm still
    giving him the pellets.  This way I know that he's at least getting
    2 gallons of water a day, in addition to whatever he drinks from his
    bucket.  (As a semi-hovering type, I like knowing that he has nice
    warm meals in his tummy too.  It's been pretty darn cold here!)
    
    gwen
    
    
    
    

    I looked up wheat bran in one of Dr Hintz's books on equine nutrition.
    He said that is a relatively poor horse feed because it's hard to
    digest so that many of the nutrients in it are not available to the
    horse. Experiments at Cornell showed that using hot water to make a
    bran mash did not increase the digestibility compared to dry bran.
    
    He also said that bran has no laxative effect on horses. They did
    experiments where 50% of the horses diet was bran and found that the
    moisture content of their manure was only slightly higher.

    I have been away from horses for a while now but we used to feed a bran
    mash every Sunday as a treat for the broodmares.  The regular working
    stock were given 2oz dry every day in their feed alone with a
    Phosphorus/calcium suplement.
    
    

    My wife is looking for recipes for a mash to feed as a special
    treat or even something that could be fed to the old horses along
    with their regular grain.
    
    Any ideas?
    
    Mike

    Try adding a little Guiness in the standard mash, she should gobble it
    down!

    If you feed it along with regular grain, just be careful of feeding
    bran daily -- it can upset the calcium/phosphorous ratio.
    
    Mary