Just feed it. The only time I would soak it was when I fed beet pulp in the winter and the purpose of the soaking was so Mr Fussy would eat everything as the oats was easier to mix in than dumping dry oats on top then mixing.
I have heard of cooking oats but not soaking oats. Even racking my brain I can not come up with a single reason to feed oats at all however.
[QUOTE=Laurierace;8766091]
I have heard of cooking oats but not soaking oats. Even racking my brain I can not come up with a single reason to feed oats at all however.[/QUOTE]
I know you’re a seasoned horse owner - so what are your reasons against feeding oats?
IME, oats are a staple for long-format, eventing, endurance. Slow energy release. Excellent palatability. Great for ulcery horses. Moderate to high starch makes them unfavorable for horses with metabolic issues but the starch is incredibly digestible for average horses. Easy to store and feed. Their nutritional profile is lacking which is why it is important to feed quality hay and supplement additional calcium (or just feed alfalfa), but oats are also an excellent way to plump up a hard working horse.
Not every horse has a metabolic sensitivity and they are a great, easy, and cheap resource for the right horse. The old staple was ‘COB’ - corn, oats, and barley – and even most modern horses would do just fine on that regime with good quality hay and T/O.
Personally, when I fed oats I noticed a big change in their outward appearance; very glossy coat, good hair regrowth, no skin funk, very shiny periople/new hoof growth. Mine got 1lb 2x a day with 1lb alfalfa and 1lb Blue Seal Sentinel LS. I ended up dropping the $entinel because not only was it expensive, it was doing absolutely nothing to help him put on weight. Dropped the Sentinel, upped the oats and later added 1lb Poulin Fibremax with a huge difference. I do think for most horses in a decent amount of work that the sugar in oats is not at all harmful; they do need that energy to perform long distance work.
[QUOTE=Laurierace;8766091]
I have heard of cooking oats but not soaking oats. Even racking my brain I can not come up with a single reason to feed oats at all however.[/QUOTE]
I’m sure my horses would love oats. Many times I’ve looked into feeding them. But I want something with a lower glycemic index, as I worry that two of my horses are breeds that could be predisposed to metabolic issues.
So aside from the yumminess factor, I also can’t find a reason to feed them. Which is a bummer because whenever I eat oatmeal, I think - I bet my horses would love this! 
[QUOTE=vxf111;8766063]
That is undoubtedly more work than just buying crimped though ;)[/QUOTE]
Well yeah. I can’t find crimped or rolled oats here, strangely enough. Not that I fed oats much or actually buzzed them myself, but if you wanted to eke out every little bit of them and couldn’t get crimped, it’s an option.
[QUOTE=Mosey_2003;8766185]
Well yeah. I can’t find crimped or rolled oats here, strangely enough. Not that I fed oats much or actually buzzed them myself, but if you wanted to eke out every little bit of them and couldn’t get crimped, it’s an option.[/QUOTE]
Huh? That’s odd. They seem relatively common at feed stores around here.
I do NOT think you want to food process a couple pounds of feed a day. Even gringing flax in a coffee grinder gets old quick, and that’s maybe a cup worth. You’d be at it all day feeding a few horses hand-ground oats done in a food processor!
[QUOTE=beowulf;8766120]
I know you’re a seasoned horse owner - so what are your reasons against feeding oats?
IME, oats are a staple for long-format, eventing, endurance. Slow energy release. Excellent palatability. Great for ulcery horses. Moderate to high starch makes them unfavorable for horses with metabolic issues but the starch is incredibly digestible for average horses. Easy to store and feed. Their nutritional profile is lacking which is why it is important to feed quality hay and supplement additional calcium (or just feed alfalfa), but oats are also an excellent way to plump up a hard working horse.
Not every horse has a metabolic sensitivity and they are a great, easy, and cheap resource for the right horse. The old staple was ‘COB’ - corn, oats, and barley – and even most modern horses would do just fine on that regime with good quality hay and T/O.
Personally, when I fed oats I noticed a big change in their outward appearance; very glossy coat, good hair regrowth, no skin funk, very shiny periople/new hoof growth. Mine got 1lb 2x a day with 1lb alfalfa and 1lb Blue Seal Sentinel LS. I ended up dropping the $entinel because not only was it expensive, it was doing absolutely nothing to help him put on weight. Dropped the Sentinel, upped the oats and later added 1lb Poulin Fibremax with a huge difference. I do think for most horses in a decent amount of work that the sugar in oats is not at all harmful; they do need that energy to perform long distance work.[/QUOTE]
Same reason kids shouldn’t live on fruit loops. It’s the equine equivalent of living off of bread. Sugar is terrible for ulcery horses.
[QUOTE=vxf111;8766194]
Huh? That’s odd. They seem relatively common at feed stores around here.
I do NOT think you want to food process a couple pounds of feed a day. Even gringing flax in a coffee grinder gets old quick, and that’s maybe a cup worth. You’d be at it all day feeding a few horses hand-ground oats done in a food processor![/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t want to soak them, either :lol:
Interesting thread. I have heard of cooked oats (very old school) but never soaked oats. I feed rolled oats to two horses that are fine with the starch. I like to buy oats from a particular farm as their oats are clean, big, plump and beautiful. However, they do not always get around to crushing the oats and when they don’t, I buy the whole and either feed them whole or take them to my trainer’s barn to crush as she has a mill. That, however, is a big giant PITA as it takes time and the oat dust makes me very itchy.
I do notice more whole oats in the manure when I wimp out and just feed them whole. As it happens, these two horses also get beet pulp. I am now thinking I might just buy the whole oats an soak them with their beet pulp. The other advantage to this is that they charge the same for a bag of whole as they do for a bag of the crushed and the bag of whole is significantly heavier.
Food for thought!
[QUOTE=Laurierace;8766221]
Same reason kids shouldn’t live on fruit loops. It’s the equine equivalent of living off of bread. Sugar is terrible for ulcery horses.[/QUOTE]
Respectfully, it is not the equivalent of fruit loops or bread. There is a huge difference between the sugar derived from a fruit like an apple and the sugar derived from a concentrated juice. Or, if we want to compare horse feeds - there’s a difference between the sugar in molasses and the sugar in oats.
That sugar/glucose spike is needed for extreme activity or effort. There’s a big reason why many eventers and race-horse owners supply oats to their horses. The slow release of energy and the glucose from oats is a huge boon in long distance efforts.
as far as grains go, there are extensive studies done on the palatability of oats and the NSC - it is lower than corn and barley and surpasses nearly every modern grain in palatability and NSC content. The starch is incredibly digestible.
is it appropriate for IR or metabolic horses? Probably not. But it isn’t the equine equivalent of ‘fruit loops’ either. The equine equivalent of Fruit Loops is probably a molasses sweet feed like Purina 10:10 or Equine Senior.
Here’s the sugar /starch and NSC values from TC. Oats Sugar 4.8% Starch 44.4% NSC 54.1%
I’ve been feeding steamed or crimped oats to particular horses for years. One had a corn allergy, and I struggled to find something that worked for him. Once I switched him to oats, he was a happy camper.
Current horse is also eating oats. He’s clearly allergic to alfalfa, and also tests allergic to corn and beet pulp. His Grade 4 bleeding ulcers improved when we switched him off of all that and onto oats.
For the average horse without issues, I’d rather use something balanced and avoid supplementing vitamins/minerals/protein as needed - but it works when there isn’t a better choice. I also might not choose it for a horse that needed to eat a lot - both of these horses eat relatively small quantities of oats such that the absolute quantities of NSC don’t worry me.
Two small points to ponder:
-
Whole oats is a great source of silica and silica is needed for good hair growth and does more for hoof growth and condition than additives. The amount needed isn’t huge, just enough for a good taste every day.
-
someone mentioned molasses and a bit of molasses every once in a while provides enough copper to allow use of free iron in other feed. I am not talking about huge amounts of molasses as found in sweet feed but a handful of dry a couple of times a week. That was given to both horses and cows here, dad didn’t know why, just said it makes them look better and they had always done it.
Oh for the good old days when I fed my horses whole oats. For years I could do that. For the last 2 decades, I’ve had the easy keepers who couldn’t have whole oats. Plus, these horses have oats pass through in their manure, which my horses never had when I was younger.
So watch out if you have horses where whole oats in the grain you buy go right through the horse.
[QUOTE=invinoveritas;8766336]
Oh for the good old days when I fed my horses whole oats. For years I could do that. For the last 2 decades, I’ve had the easy keepers who couldn’t have whole oats. Plus, these horses have oats pass through in their manure, which my horses never had when I was younger.
So watch out if you have horses where whole oats in the grain you buy go right through the horse.[/QUOTE]
This ^^^is why i wont feed whole oats…
I had a TB mare I fed a mix of Special Blend and oats, soaked the whole shebang just before feeding, in the winter I added soaked BP to it. Or alf, can’t remember. New owners are feeding oats and soaked BP I believe. She does great on them.
I’ve seen a lot of unthrifty horses turn a massive corner when oats are added to a diet :yes:
[QUOTE=Mosey_2003;8766231]
I wouldn’t want to soak them, either :lol:[/QUOTE]
Well, me either!
[QUOTE=tazycat;8766085]
Rolled oat here are 28$ for 50 lbs, no way i’d pay that for a bag of oats. Just feed the whole oats lots of people do without issue,no need to soak. I personally won’t buy or feed oats,when there’s better options.;)[/QUOTE]
Wow. Where I live whole oats are $11 for 50 lbs, and crimped oats are only a dollar or two more. Feeding a mix of oats and beet pulp is way cheaper than any of the complete extruded or pelleted feeds.
[QUOTE=Scribbler;8766747]
Wow. Where I live whole oats are $11 for 50 lbs, and crimped oats are only a dollar or two more. Feeding a mix of oats and beet pulp is way cheaper than any of the complete extruded or pelleted feeds.[/QUOTE]
Same here. I don’t use oats but I buy crimped barley. Its $13 for a 50lb bag. Normal complete feeds are closer to $20ish per bag. IIRC oats were priced similarly to barley.
Many horses in work do very well on moderate amounts of oats, and oats are a far better grain for horses than corn or barley.
Where I live, there are basically three choices.
One mill makes no-grain extruded or pellet concentrates, with different formulations that are based on alfalfa meal, beet pulp, soy hulls, oil, etc (the modern low-NSC alternatives). They have fixed ingredients and show them on-line (though not on the feed sacks)
The other mill makes the old-school extruded or pellet feeds, based on grains. They don’t have fixed ingredients, don’t show them on-line, and when you request the ingredients, the first ingredient is “oats and/or corn and/or barley and/or wheat.” They also make sweet feed. The NSC levels are high in all their products, even their “maintenance” feed.
For both these companies, a 40 or 50 lb bag of feed runs about $20 and the recommended feeding level to get all the vitamins and minerals is about a bag a week.
The third choice is to buy the components as you please (oats, beet pulp, alfalfa cubes, salt, flax, vitamin/mineral supplements, etc) and then mix your own mash. Oats and beet pulp run about $11 a 50 lb bag, alfalfa cubes about $15. This way, you can keep the vitamin/mineral supplement stable and feed as much or as little of the mash as you want.
I realize there are places in the USA where the complete extruded feed might work out to less than buying the components and mixing them yourself, or where you can only get a complete feeds. But where I live, mixing your own mash makes sense on cost, on nutrition, and on quality control.
And oats work really well as part of that. Obviously if you had an IR horse, you would want to skip the oats. But for healthy horses in work, especially lazier horses :), they are great as part of a balanced diet overall.
