Do fresh grass clippings give horses colic?

[Spotty_Pony]

Is this true? If so, how/why?

Thanks,
SP

[skye06]

Biggest problem is grass clippings that are starting to wilt. As the process of wilting relaeases chemicals that can cause colic. Fresh clippings shouldn't cause colic but may cause choke if very short. the worry is that some would be left and eaten later when they have started to wilt.

[doris]

I think under certain conditions grass cuttings can also start to ferment.

[Jessey]

They also clod together and cause impactions, general rule is you should not feed fresh cut grass because the various risks are to high.

[Mareish]

Grass cuttings should not be fed, they start fermentation process in the gut causing the horse to colic, which can result in death

[Afellpony]

Agree with others here. Not a good idea to feed grass clippings. Better to turn him out in a properly managed field if you can for a while.

[Wally]

Also the weeds in lawn clippings plus any chemicals from the lawn mower or gardener won't do horses any good at all.

[puzzles]

deinition of 'weeds'?
:-)

[Wally]

A weed is anything growing in the wrong place, so a weed is anything that could poison the horse in this case, Most gardeners wouldn't know what weeds are in their lawns and throw clippings over once they are all mashed up and unidentifiable to the horse.

[Afellpony]

There are no weeds in nature. Man only uses that terminology as he cant make them look pristine and ordered on a sickeningly tidy lawn!!!!! We had a garden full of lovely wild flowers earlier in the year. Cant stand manicured lawns and rows of unaturally highly coloured flowers but then that's me. I'm certainly not a well ordered person!!!!! LoL.

[Wally]

Around the airport here was the most fantastic wild flower meadow, nothing allowd to graze it, but it was kept mown and the wild flowers were fantastic to see. Truly beautiful..........then they got a new manager in whi got the whole meadow sprayed and killed all the flowers (and some were very rare and only grew in that area) because it encouraged insects, which encouraged birds and he thought there was an increased risk of bird strike at the airport! Not that there had been an incident since the aiport opened before the war! :( :( :( You can imagine the outcry when the newspaper found out!

[becs]

Afellpony, I took on 5 acres with that attitude lol. Overall I agree - you should be our orchard in spring, wild flowers everywhere.

But...a few hundred miles of brambles later, my view is beginning to change! Left to their own devices, some plants become much more rampant & dominant over others. If my captive animals have to graze, I have to move in with my lopper chasing my defined "weed"!!

Back to topic, I thought the 2 key reasons why horses shouldn't eat grass cuttings was, as stated, the fermentation and the clumping / stickiness.

[Spotty_Pony]

Thanks guys! The reason I asked was cus we just got our feilds topped/mowed and I wasn't sure if it would be safe to put the horses in there or not :)

[becs]

we just got our feilds topped/mowed and I wasn't sure if it would be safe to put the horses in there or not IMHO it depends on weather & how it has been done. If it's cut when wet and falls in lumps - not good. If it's topped when dry and short pieces spread wide, okay.

The view round here seems to be, if fields are topped, usually in dry summer weather, keep horses off for about a week to let the cut grass dry out (like hay). You can wander round and kick / spread it out, to ensure it's not sitting in clumps, helping it dry out completely.

But as our fields are small, and I'm neurotic (with a colicky old pony), we use the box on the back of our ride-on mower and take all the cuttings away.