Because I have gone off the deep end... cooking oats

[Texarkana]

You may or may not have read my whining, er, I mean “constructive posting” about my one ridiculous picky horse. Long story short, as far as feed goes, she will only eat oats with a few other mix-ins. That’s it. She won’t touch anything else. But that’s not what this post is about…

She just went through a minor illness and lost some hard earned condition, and it’s not coming back as quickly as my impatient self would like. (side note: it’s amazing how some TBs can go from plump to gaunt in a matter of hours, yet take weeks to gain it back, what I wouldn’t give for that metabolism!) Which got me wondering how I could get more bang for my buck out of what she’s currently eating… which led me to experimenting with cooking a portion of her oats.

So this oat cooking thing is more or less new to me. I’ve worked for some trainers who did it, but I was never directly in charge of it. They also had big fancy oat cookers that looked like giant pressure cookers so they could cook for the whole barn.

I’ve looked through some of the old threads on the subject, but I still have a few questions.

First of all, whats the best way to cook the oats? A lot of people said they let them go in a slow cooker all day, which is what I’ve been doing. But I’m not too keen on leaving the slow cooker on all day every day when I’m not home. Is there a better (read: faster) way?

Along the same lines, what about cooking in bulk a few days ahead of time and refrigerating? Will they keep?

If cooking oats does wonders for her, I am willing to cross the line from crazy horse lady to utterly insane horse lady and do it for her. However, I’d like to make this as practical as possible, because the last thing I want to worry about when getting home from work late is cooking dinner for the horse.

TIA!

[IPEsq]

I think you can cook them faster using a rice cooker. You can probably cook ahead and refrigerate, but would that satisfy her??

[Hermein]

You could cook ahead as long as she didn’t find out about it. :lol:

[Lisa_Preston]

You can certainly store cooked oats in the fridge for a few days- be warned some horses won’t eat fridge-cold food. (Whaaaaaaaaaat? says da pony.) I’ve hit overnight-soaked, cold beet pulp/alfalfa pellets with scalding water to warm my girls’ chow.

To clarify, you said shBig heae only eats oats-does she really not eat forage daily? No hay, no grass? Also, you said she lost condition, which to some means weight, to others means fitness. She lost weight?

I completely commiserate with the TBs ability to get skinny while you stare at them. Big needy hearts. My guys had 'em, too. Re getting that weight up, fat is a healthier choice than grain, to whatever extent you can get a fat sup down 'em.

[Texarkana]

@Lisa Preston;8745035

To clarify, you said shBig heae only eats oats-does she really not eat forage daily? No hay, no grass? Also, you said she lost condition, which to some means weight, to others means fitness. She lost weight?

Whaaaat? Horses are supposed to eat forage? I knew I was missing something! :lol:

Of course she has forage. That’s why I said, “Long story short, as far as feed goes, she will only eat oats with a few other mix-ins.” I made the mistake in assuming “feed” was self-explanatory enough that I meant supplemental hard feed, my bad. This time of year she has free choice lush grass, as well as a few pounds of alfalfa at night.

And yes, I just mean she has lost weight. Dropped from a solid 6 BCS to maybe a 4 or so thanks to a 12 hour mystery fever while I was on vacation a little over a week ago. You know, the kind that comes on out of nowhere after 5pm, but is fully resolved by the time the vet can make it out, leaving everybody shrugging their shoulders. She’s slowly regaining the weight she lost from missing like, two meals… emphasis on slowly.

Horses. :sigh:

[Texarkana]

[QUOTE=IPEsq;8744958]
I think you can cook them faster using a rice cooker. You can probably cook ahead and refrigerate, but would that satisfy her?? ;)[/QUOTE]

I’ve never used a rice cooker… don’t even own one. How much faster are we talking? And would the $15 Black & Decker one from Target do the job, or would I need to get more serious?

@Hermein;8744968

You could cook ahead as long as she didn’t find out about it. :lol:

So you’ve met this horse??? :lol:

[stryder]

I own your mare’s sister. The management of her feed could be a fulltime job. But here are a couple tips.

It could be that your mare is a little dehydrated. A little loose salt in her hard feed might encourage her to drink more. I add about an ounce.

I add a shy teaspoon of whole fenugreek seed to her hard feed. It causes her to eat more of everything.

[Texarkana]

[QUOTE=stryder;8745098]
I own your mare’s sister. The management of her feed could be a fulltime job. But here are a couple tips.

It could be that your mare is a little dehydrated. A little loose salt in her hard feed might encourage her to drink more. I add about an ounce.

I add a shy teaspoon of whole fenugreek seed to her hard feed. It causes her to eat more of everything.[/QUOTE]

Thanks! And I’m sorry for you! I’ve actually been all over those two suggestions, though… great minds? Loose salt in her feed is a big no go for her, however I have given her paste e-lytes. As for the fenugreek, I tried it with her maybe a year and a half ago. It worked great for a few weeks, then one day she said, “nope, get this crap out of my feed.”

I don’t mean to sound closed-minded on this thread. I’m open to suggestions, unfortunately I’ve tried most a time or twelve.

So I really just want to know the fastest way to cook oats, since that’s what I’m trying this week. Her current diet is working pretty well for her, with the exception of the recent blip. The only thing driving this madness is that I’d like to put a little more “umph” in her weight re-gain. I’m hoping by cooking a portion of her beloved oats, they’ll be more digestible with less calories passing straight through her.

[stryder]

as long as you’re going completely off the deep end: what about a pressure cooker? Seems it takes about 40 minutes from start to finish.

Or a slow cooker. I was stuck on a plane next to a woman who had an evangelist’s zeal about her crockpot. She cooked eggs in it. I think she cooked everything in it.

[sk_pacer]

Just about an hour of soaking in hot tap water will achieve almost the same result as cooking - will soften both hull and kernel and far less labour intensive than cooking. Just tote the hot water to the barn with you and do the rest of your evening chores while the oats are soaking. Used to soak them right with the beet pulp when I was still racing and even in the days of hot bran mashes, everything except vitamins soaked together for a good while before the mash was fed.

[ozjb]

I don’t cook oats either, but rather soak them in hot water. A friend just throws them in and doesn’t bother with soaking or cooking them as she tells me the soaking/cooking makes it easier to digest, but isn’t totally essential. Not too sure about that, but her horses don’t seem to have any problems.

I do use a slow cooker for the horses who get barley.

[Simkie]

What volume of boiled oats are we talkin about here?

If small enough, how about just microwaving? I used to do that with a small amount of beet pulp. Worked great!

[Mouse_amp_Bay]

I don’t cook my oats but we are fortunate to have scalding hot water available at the barn. I mix the oats with the hay cubes, blast with hot water and let them sit for about 30 min to soften. I then feed still quite warm and soupy, especially in the winter when I’m trying to get more water in them. They love it.

[IPEsq]

I love my fancy Japanese rice cooker. It has a porridge setting which may be what you need for oats.

Not sure about whole oats for time…maybe 45 min? But some of them have timer functions so you can set it to start cooking at a specific time as well as a keep warm setting. On mine, I think it will hold warm for up to 6 hrs.

They aren’t cheap but if you get one you’ll never cook rice or quinoa or a bunch of other grains any other way again.

Pressure cooker would probably be fastest but is not something you can set and forget like a slow cooker or rice cooker.

[Texarkana]

For those who soak their oats in hot water for ~30 min-1 hour: do they actually change and texture and gelatinize the way they do when you cook them?

In the past, I’ve tried soaking the oats in hot water from the tap for the same amount of time as I soak her hay cubes (about 30 min to 1 hour). In that amount of time, they were nothing like the oats I’ve been cooking. They did swell a little and seemed the tiniest bit softer, but the difference was not great. And then I always had all this leftover water in my bucket. I didn’t like the idea of just dumping it out, as I worry some of the smaller water-soluable vitamins and minerals would be lost that way. But I can’t dare give her soupy oats… she won’t touch anything with that much water. I tried playing with the amount of water, but I always had a lot of excess.

I’m guessing my tap water just isn’t hot enough?

I’ll admit I have not tried just soaking the oats with the cubes, which would be logical. My hesitation is that when I’ve soaked stuff together for her in the past, it homogenizes into mush, and she hates that homogenized mush. The PITA has to be able to pick out the different textures in her feed, because she eats them one at a time like some equine savant (I’m not even joking, I wish I was). But I suppose it can’t hurt to try.

[Texarkana]

[QUOTE=Simkie;8745185]
What volume of boiled oats are we talkin about here?

If small enough, how about just microwaving? I used to do that with a small amount of beet pulp. Worked great![/QUOTE]

I’ve been cooking about a quart of oats at a time, which is just shy of a pound. But a quart of oats swells up to be a lot of volume after 3-4 hours in the slow cooking. Maybe I could try cooking about half that amount in the microwave…

[QUOTE=IPEsq;8745385]I love my fancy Japanese rice cooker. It has a porridge setting which may be what you need for oats.

Not sure about whole oats for time…maybe 45 min? But some of them have timer functions so you can set it to start cooking at a specific time as well as a keep warm setting. On mine, I think it will hold warm for up to 6 hrs.

They aren’t cheap but if you get one you’ll never cook rice or quinoa or a bunch of other grains any other way again.

Pressure cooker would probably be fastest but is not something you can set and forget like a slow cooker or rice cooker.[/QUOTE]

If it turns out to take about 45 minutes in a rice cooker, that wouldn’t be a big deal so long as I wasn’t tied down to the kitchen the whole time. I can’t see myself buying a fancy Japanese one to cook horse feed, but I might try a low end one.

Anything I have to supervise for an extended period of time would be less than ideal, so that’s a good point about the pressure cooker.

[Texarkana]

[QUOTE=ozjb;8745157]

I do use a slow cooker for the horses who get barley.[/QUOTE]

Total change of subject- where do you get your barley? It’s something I’ve never tried with her, but suspect she might like it more than other things, seeing as how she prefers plain whole grains and hates most pelleted products. My usual feed stores don’t seem to carry it, but I suspect it must be pretty easily available with the whole microbrewing obsession.

[kashmere]

@Texarkana;8744912

(side note: it’s amazing how some TBs can go from plump to gaunt in a matter of hours, yet take weeks to gain it back, what I wouldn’t give for that metabolism!)

Ok, I don’t have anything helpful to add, but omg this speaks to me. I watch my mare scarf down her incredible quality hay and really nice extruded feed in the morning and then go tear around the field like a bat out of hell, and all I can think is “well, there goes that breakfast…”

[RJC]

[QUOTE=kashmere;8745644]
Ok, I don’t have anything helpful to add, but omg this speaks to me. I watch my mare scarf down her incredible quality hay and really nice extruded feed in the morning and then go tear around the field like a bat out of hell, and all I can think is “well, there goes that breakfast…”[/QUOTE]

I wish I had these problems… my TB mare is muzzled 24/7 on pasture, ridden 5 days a week, given no hay and only a ration balancer each day, and still looks like she’ll foal any time now…

[IPEsq]

My 45 min estimate is based on some recipes I found for steel cut oats. The general consensus is that it takes a little bit longer in the rice cooker than on the stovetop but that the rice cooker is easier.

My fancy rice cooker has a “quick cook” option, which appears to just mean it heats up to a simmer faster. I’ve only used it for white rice (20-30min), and it’s no different in the result than when I use the regular setting which takes more like an hour. I haven’t used it for things like brown rice that probably wouldn’t be cooked enough by the end. The “porridge” option appears to be slower than average but is supposed to have better results if you are making rice pudding or oatmeal. So, it is possible you could get good enough results with a quick cook setting, but you’d have to experiment.

Here’s one with a timer, hold warm setting, and a porridge setting but no quick cook for $100 -

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/zojirushi-5-1-2-cup-micom-rice-warmer-cooker-in-white/1018923521

The good thing about these with the hold warm option is that it follows a program and stops cooking when done and then goes automatically to warm mode. It’s a bit easier to set and forget.