My bad, JB doesn’t make mistakes, JB just “misses” things. Apologies.
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Why are you so hateful all the time? When you miss something in a paragraph and make a “silly” comment, I merely point out that you missed something. You never go “oh, you’re right, thanks!”. No, you just make me the bad guy for pointing it out, saying “not my job, let that poster tell me”.
I do miss things (and have quite a few times), and unlike you, I acknowledge it. I’ve also gotten things wrong, also quite a few times, and also unlike you, I acknowledge it when corrected.
But you, well… 
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Use flax/linseed oil, cook the seeds or grind them, I find it hard to believe that the gut can adjust to digest the hull.
if you’re not finding seeds in the manure in the field it’s more likely that they’re being eaten by birds or rodents.
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The hulls aren’t (well) digested. It’s not hard to find those on the manure. But the gut does break the hulls open. Yes, I’ve gone manure diving and found the degraded but still recognizable hulls, no guts inside :lol:
The proof is in the fact that horses fed whole flax do change in a variety of ways, whether it’s lessening allergies, shinier coat, and in some cases, weight gain, not from the calories (which are really small), but the Omega 3s likely helping decrease some inflammation that was keeping the rest of the feedstuff from being utilized well enough.
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Ya know, I like the ‘simplicity’ of just throwing whole flax in maresy’s feed, BUT. (Always a ‘but’, right?)… My thinking has been that the “whole” seed is beneficial, not just the innards… LOL. Sort of like whole wheat vs… whatever they call it when they’ve removed the hull, the germ, the bran… you get the idea.
So, even if all the hull contributes is a touch of fiber, I dunno… I grind it…
That would be “white” bread/flour.
My understanding is that no part of the flax is removed when it’s ground.
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Correct, grinding, or the “slicing” doesn’t remove any part of the flax. That processing is nothing like the processing of whole wheat to get to white, crappy flour.
The hull is still not digestible, even after its ground or crushed or whatever. It’s just in tiny pieces.
For people, that undigestible fiber (like in whole wheat) is important for moving stuff through the gut. Horses get plenty of fiber from hay for that, so a small amount of nondigestible flax hull, whether it’s whole or in tiny pieces, is pretty immaterial. Grinding may improve digestibility of the innards slightly, but it’s not like you get extra benefit having the hull be in tiny pieces after grinding 
FWIW, I used to use TC ground flax because it was convenient but switched to whole when the price went up. Feed the same amount, horses still look great, don’t see any flax growing in the field. Works for me! 
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I’ve always fed whole and yes there’s an occasional bloom or two but I suspect that’s more from them dropping it while they’re eating. I can tell the difference when I get a new horse in start them on it so it must be doing something. It’s not like whole flax is akin to rocks- I eat it quite often myself
I read it exactly the same way and was also confused. So, settle down, sometimes words get missed, it was a fair question.
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We will have to agree to disagree. The piles of manure in my field are untouched by anything but time and the elements until we drag it once a year. There is nothing sprouting in the piles, ever.
Plus, the results I see in feeding flax speaks for itself.
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Horses can digest pine board fences, very tough old hay like sticks, etc. I can’t see why they’d necessarily have trouble digesting a flax seed hull. Now some horses digest things better than others. Some horses poop out whole oats that sprout in the paddock. So there is some indidivual difference here.
Why do you think horses are digesting those things versus just chewing them up and having them come out the other end?
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well, they do ferment cellulose in the hind gut quite effectively. They don’t get all of it obviously. But I think many maybe most horses can at least break open the flax hulls. And yes they might even chew the flax first.
Totally agree that the flax hulls get broken into and the innards digested. But that’s a long ways from pine boards and sticks being digestible.
The reason coarse, stemmy hay isn’t suitable for a lot of horses (and IS suitable for particularly easy keepers) is its low digestibility.
So why do you think pine boards are digestible?
Only because my horse munches down on them so eagerly
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Horses consume all sorts of crap. That doesn’t mean they get anything from it
Thanks. That explanation makes actual sense to me… :lol:
Edible and digestible aren’t the same thing. Remember the old formula Greenie bones that were causing all sorts of problems for dogs? Pretty edible, pretty indigestible which was the problem. The formula changed a couple or so years ago, and now they are much more digestible.
All horses poop out some portion of their edible, but indigestible hay and grass. All forage has some indigestible portion - that’s the beneficial “keep things moving” fiber.
Wood may be edible, and some of it may be digestible, but most of it isn’t.
I feed a couple handfuls of whole seeds and his coat is softer and shinier but one of the best parts is that the birds break down his manure into practically nothing. That alone is worth the cost of the flax seed.
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