How long after eating??

[horsemad]

How long should you leave a horse to digest its food before riding?

Am I right in thinking you should leave it for at least an hour after a hard feed? And what about haylage? Is it ok to ride straight after a horse has been eating haylage (or does it depend on how much haylage it has eaten - ie is it ok to ride if a horse has just had a handful of haylage?)

[Piaffe]

You are right in thinking it is an hour after hard feed - at least! I ride my horse straight after eating haylage - I do tend to give him a bit of time to de-bloat though when I bring him in off the grass in summer to ride - usually about half an hour - I tie him up with some hay, which he doesn't normally want!!

Haylage isn't a concentrate like hard feed, therefore I believe it's ok to ride straight after eating it - I always have and haven't had any problems.

Hope this helps!

[ponyvet]

After eating hay, haylage or grass a horse should be fine to be ridden pretty much straight away. It's a good idea to give them a bit of a rest to stop them from bloating, but probably not strictly necessary.

I bring mine in and tie them up with hay whilst I groom them and tack up, which probably takes 15 minutes or so.

After Hard feed an hour or more is good. The type of colic related to exercise soon after eating is an impaction. This is because when exercising the gut slows down and food passes more slowly through it. Hard feed will swell up with the moisture in the gut and becomes impacted. This type of colic is fortunately one of the milder ones, and most of the time can be made better simply using a drench of a mineral oil (lots of it) to ease the passage of the food. A vet needs to do this since the amount needed is a lot, and must be given by a stomach tube.

In some caes impaction colic may be caused by sand, or other factors (such as grass sickness) may be involved, in which case surgery is usually necessary, and it's not related to when you rode anyway!

[Wally]

Ponyvet, I read somewhere that liquid paraffin used frequently caused liver problems, any truth in this?

[Mossy]

Pony vet
Where does chaff fit in with this? Connie lives on enormous quantities of hay and her winter 'hard feed' is two scoops of Good doer twice daily and a vit and min supplement. I always give her a while to get her head together after saddling anyway and all our work is slow. Thanks

[ros]

Hi all

It helps to get things in proportion if you remember that horses are flight animals, and that they are designed to "trickle feed" so that they can gallop off if they're attacked by predators.

I've never worried about getting a horse up straight from the field to ride, but I usually adhere to the old adage "walk the first mile..." (it goes on "trot the second and do what the hell you like after that!"). If you're feeding unnatural quantities, like a hard feed, or your horse has stuffed back a load of chop which he'd usually have to spend half an hour grazing to accumulate, then obviously you have to be a bit more careful.

[ponyvet]

Absolutely ros. As far as chaff goes I think it really counts as hard feed. The reason is it's a very short fibre length and so it can "bung-up" the system better than long fibred hay. So I'd treat any non hay, haylage or grass feed as a hard feed, and leave it a while after eating.

Wally, liquid paraffin would cause problems if fed as a feed supplement so I wouldn't advise it, but just on the very odd occasion to relieve colic I think it's fine. I'd be more worried about feeding cod liver oil as it has high levels of vitamin A which is stored in the liver and can be toxic. However as long as it's being fed according to instructions most horses shouldn't have a problem with it.

[artgirl]

The reason you have to be careful after your horse has has feed before riding is the stomach only holds effectively approx 2 litre capacity and when its full the stomach puts pressure onto the lungs= thus full belly+fast work hard for horse to get required oxygen and blood intake. I ride my horses straight off grass no worries has liked mention above earlier horses are adapted to taken small amounts in all day and ready to run if need be safely. Hay i believe can full the belly so is probably not best to let your horse have a large haynet say before a xcountry round but otherwise i think its is the heavy concentrate feeds u have to allow hour and a half if possible . Horses here are generally kept outside all year round but stabling would mean more concentrate feeds= more caution.

[ponyvet]

No, sorry but that's not true.

A 2 litre stomach capacity could not apply such pressure to the lungs, it takes a lot to compress the lungs, and if the stomach could do that we'd never get away with turning horses upside down to anaesthetise them! :)

LIke I mentioned before the reason is that during digestion there is increased bloodflow to the gut. There is also (obviously) increased movement in the guts too. Now if you expect a horse to eat a meal of concentrated food, this is a large increase in bloodflow and motion, compared to a slow trickle of graws, when grazing - so you can consideer the guts to be either very very active (hard feed) or just sort of moving along nicely (grass).

When you ask a horse to work it's bloodflow needs to be redirected to keep oxygen flowing to the muscles, so the guts are always slowed down during exercise.

Now if the horse has only got a bit of grass in there and the guts were just trickling away anyhow, this is not such a drastic thing to happen, and the % change is very small, so things don't really matter. However if they are full of conceentrated feed it's a different story. The concentrated feed for a start is drier, so sitting there in the gut it can absorb any moisture around and will swell up (uh-oh!!), secondly the high energy food can ferment (depending on whereabouts it's got to in the gut) producing lots of gas (uh-oh! again!). Therefore you either get an impaction where the food is physically obstructing the guts, or you get a gas colic (which is the more common one).

I woulld agree that hay is a drier and more energy dense than grass, but I don't think it makes much difference, unless the horse has had a huge haynet full and stuffed it down, so it forms one big mass. Most horses eat hay in a similar way to grazing rather than stuffing it in like a hard feed. Haylage is not so dry so less likely to cause obstruction, but more energy dense so could cause gas buildup.

It's all theoretical anyway, since it's very uncommon to see colic as a result of exercise, since we are all taught not to exercise after eating. It's also not something we'd think of anyway, as it's not natural to us to want to run about after eating either. And also we like to feed our horses a breakfast first thing in the morning, and tea last thing at night, so it doesn't usually fit in with our riding times either.

[ros]

Sorry to be a pain, Ponyvet, but since we've touched on the subject of what actually goes on inside Neddy's tum, what do you reckon about feeding salt in the feed itself? I used to feed a little salt with each feed, but then I read ages ago that that can speed up the digestive process, so nowadays to be on the safe side I just make sure my horses have access to salt so they can suit themselves. However, they don't really seem all that bothered at all, except during very hot weather in summer, and I do sometimes worry that they don't know what's good for them!

[ponyvet]

You're not a pain ros!

On a complicated biochemical level all animals need a little salt to help nutrients move in and out of cells, so salt is needed to help absorb digestion products. As far as adding it to speed up digestion goes I think that's probably un-neccesary as there should be enough natural salt in the diet to manage this adequately, and since horses have managed to survive for millions of years without it, I wouldn't bother. I don't think it makes enough of a difference to help anyway!

Having salt licks available is something people like to do, but actually horses (and any other animal) can get addicted to the taste, so if your horse licks it a lot, it may not be because he instinctively knows he needs it, but just because he likes it. A bit like me and chocolate - I want it but I don't need it!!

Horses are no better at knowing what their bodies need in terms of food than we are. And it's a commonly held belief that your horse does know what's going on inside - why should it?

[ros]

So, then, what's the verdict? I stopped adding salt to feeds because I thought speeding up the digestive process would have an adverse effect, but it doesn't seem to be too much of a problem. At the same time, I can't trust my idiot horses to know what's good for them! Help! Do I start adding a little salt to feeds again on a regular basis, or do I just add a little now and then if circumstances dictate (like if Merlin has been to Auntie Hev's and sweated up a lot in the horse box) or do I just carry on as I am and let the little dears decide for themselves, on the grounds that they aren't stuffing it back like a couple of addicts anyway?

[artgirl]

It wasnt meant to sound as if that was all the stomach can hold, i worded that poorly!:) just that there is a approx mamium amount AT ONE TIME that a horse should be given as a feed. I have always been taught that the horses stomach as a small holding capacity(for effectively and comfortably digesting food, though i guees can hold more but then other problems would arise?) and that therefore any hard feeds given shouldnt exceed 2kg in volume at one time. A full stomach that is busy digesting does take more required bloodflow for effective digesting in the stomach to take place which is harder for the stomach to carry out when the horses whole body is under hard physical work. If a horse has a full load in the stomach i have been taught that it does widen the stomach to accomadate the food and thus is pressing closer to the lungs so a horse in full hard work straight after a feed as less room in the chest for full lung action to take place with an unnatural heavy concentrate feed like say barley etc in its stomach.Horses are customed made to carry only small amounts of food in the stomach at any given time to be able to take flight when neccessary. Ponyvet i would luv to hear what the actual stomach is capable of holding:) while still being safe to perform say a xcounty course etc.

[ponyvet]

I wouldn't bother ros - even if he gets all sweated up. his own body is desigend to regulate his salt balance and it should be fine on normal food.

Artgirl. what I meant is the stomach doesn't compress the lungs. That was the bit that's wrong. The horses stomach can expand a little, but not much, though I think overall the capacity can be anywhere between 2 and 10 litres, depending on the horse.

I would agree that you shouldn't feed more than 2 l ish in any one feed, imagine how huge that would be when it's soaked up lots of fluid in the gut!

The only time horses guts compress their lungs is during anaesthesia when they are turned on their backs, and all the guts and contents (about 100 l capacity or more) can apply pressure. That doesn't happen during exercise. When it does happen in anaesthesia it's usually huge horses (e.g. shire etc) and only after a fair while.

[artgirl]

ooppps i wasnt meant to type 2L on my first post!! it was meant to be 2Kg comfortably at one time. Ive just gone back and read through my pony club manual that i had - "STOMACH - small in horse.Capacity approx 14 litres.Food remains for 1 1/2 hours time to be churned up and mixed with digestive juices.Feed little and often. If horse is worked on a full stomach = stomach presses against lungs and interfers with their functioning. Thhe vigourous muscular action of the stomach requires a blood supply, which is curtailed by the needs of the lungs and the muscles when in full locomotion." This is what i have been taught and passed my pony club horsemastership when i did it. We always say what our horses should be feed in kilograms, not sure if its the same here??
I think rock salt should be avaiable in the paddock cause the work a horse does is unnatural and alot of sweat can be lost in a very short space of time. But there is of course no guarantee that the horse is using it!!! but i dont from my experience see my horses over using it excessively, i find my tb will lick it for a bit after work.And i quess it depends what work your horse is doing -endurance,eventing,showing,pleasure........
While talking about salt intake etc, I luved to know a bit more about electrolytes ponyvet, as i dont know a great deal about this. Some herbalist say that adding electrolytes to a horses is harmful and that intake naturally is better but for example my friend is a endurance rider(i dont know much on endurance but i am aware that great amount of sweat is loss rapidly, and continously.) She gives electrolytes, to help hydrate and replace the minerals etc lost excessively due to a hard ride. Can u tell me about electrolytes?Thanks for any help.

[Shadowfox]

A recent article in Equus says you can ride right after graining. Providing it is light, such as trailriding.

Personally, I ride right after haying, walking the first ten minutes or so. I wait 1/2 hour after graining to ride. I do not ride hard, my horse does not sweat (I make sure after graining), and he is fed average horse feed (nothing for high performance.

[ros]

Well, I for one really wouldn't want to risk it. (I assume "graining" is the same as what we call a "hard feed" - cereals etc.?)

[Shadowfox]

Yes. But with no supplements or sweet feed, he's not a performance horse. I only ride for maybe 1/2 hour or 45 minutes at a trot and walk. I would like to wait longer, but sometimes they don't feed until 11:00 or after.

[ponyvet]

hmmmmmmmmm. 45 mins would be ok, but I wouldn't ride sooner than that!

Artgirl - electrolytes.

I won't go into much detail since i'd have to give you a very complicated biochemistry lesson, and it'd be very boring. I think all you really need to know is that when horses sweat they lose electrolytes. Their kidneys are responsible for controlling the balance of electrolytes and so in most circumstances the kidneys cope more than adequately with restoring the balance, so long as the horse has plenty of water available.

However horses which do endurance riding travel for distances of up to (and sometimes over) 50 miles. That's a lot of riding in one day and they lose a lot of sweat (far more than any normal horse would in a week!). That's still enough for their kidneys to cope with, but giving them electrolytes in the form of a carefully balanced drink is often very helpful at setting the process going.

Only in those circumstances do I think it's worth anyone playing around with giving electrolytes. You can cause a lot of serious kidney damage if you try and don't know what you're doing.

Also back to the stomach pressing on lungs things. Well done for passing your pony club thing - but just because it's in the pony club book doesn't mean it's right (books can be wrong, and usually are at least out of date anyway)- And remember I passed my vet school finals, with specialism in Equine Medicine - which I like to think makes me a bit more qualified than the pony club manual!! :D

It's not uncommon for horse and pony books to have things written in that are incorrect. Usually it's because they are out of date, and often it's just that the author is writing down his own knowledge, which may not always be as well informed as he (or she) thinks it is!! :p

[artgirl]

I wasnt saying that p.c exams are more than vet!!!!!!!!!! I know that vet is extremely specialised and technical! esp since my friend is in the hard process of training to be a vet at university. Just that is what ive been taught but its great to hear a vets knowledge on the subject! I love to learn! Electrolytes are something that as always been something of a mystery to me that i get confused on a bit. I studied about mineral etc and their effects and stuff but yeah i was never sure how electrolytes come into play. Im glad u put the stuff about the kidney function with them. I had heard that incorrect supplementation of them can cause strain onto the kidneys.

[Mossy]

Ponyvet
I take your point about electrolytes and overdosing. However bearing in mind electrolyte imbalance is dependent upon water balance, how does that fit with traceclipped hairy natives who sweat buckets. I am talking about work to get endurance fit, ie three or four hour hacks on a regular basis. If you want to pm me feel free.
Also we have a discussion going at the yard as to the advisability of horses drinking from Moorland troughs. They are fed from automatic ballcocks. Some say any reasonable water is better than none and fluids are most important - if the water is rank the horses won't drink it anyway. Others are concerned about the bugs in the water bearing in mind moorland ponies, sheep etc all use them and I would not know about the cleaning regime, if any.
Thanks

[ponyvet]

I have a native who sweats buckets too, but I don't think electrolytes are necessary except in the most extreme circumstanceees. Also unless you really really know what you are doing I wouldn't. The horses body can easily readjust itself after losing 7% of it's body water. That's the point at which the skin tent response can be seen (if you pinch skin on its neck it will take a long time to spring back). After that the eye begins to look sunken, and at up to 10 % the animal have cold ears (difficult to tell if it's cold out!) heart rate becomes erratic and it will collapse. Endurance riders are trained to monitor signs of dehydration and know the parameters at which they need to intervene with fluid therapy.

I suggest that you don't try electrolytes, as I think natives are even better at managing their water balance, being hardy little things! Arabs are quite good at it too, which is part of the reason why they're so good at endurance.

What would be better is to let them drink from morrland troughs. horses drink water only if it's good enough, and I don't think there'll be too many bugs in it. Even if there are I think they'd be fine, their bodies can more than cope. Better than the chlorine filled stuff they get in buckets from the tap anyway! (I bet they'd prefer Evian!!!). If you are concerned about them losing electrolytes and fluid any water is better than none!

(artgirl - I know, I'm only teasing you :D )

[Mossy]

Thanks
I will continue to let my young man drink at water of his choice, likewise my dog, with a clear conscience. Don't know about Evian water I think mine with his breeding should prefer Highland spring! [ preferably flavoured with a good malt :D] No he is not getting any. He's shown no signs of dehydration, Iv'e checked.
Thanks again