I've tried and tried but I can't get oat straw anywhere. Barley straw seems a bit easier to find. Can horses eat it? I want to put a bale in Ziggy's micro paddock so he has something low sugar and low calorie to nom.
The reason I took Belle off a straw bed. That was wheat straw but it didn’t stop her eating half of it through the night.Bought some straw and forgot to check it was wheat straw. It wasn't, it was barley. Albi and Jack munched through their beds every night. Lesson learned!!
As I understand it, there is two aspects, straw is much higher fiber content and coarser, so can cause impaction colic if they a) aren't used to eating lots of it and b) if they don't drink enough with it. From memory any straw should be mixed 50/50 with hay at the max to help prevent it. The other aspect is the seed heads, barley and wheat have spikey bits on the seed head and these can often end up in the straw after threshing, these are readily eaten and passed unless the stick into the lining of the throat or gut and can get infected etc. Oats don't have the same spikey bits the other do.Is it associated with more problems because of digestability? Ie, too coarse?? Just curious if anyone knows?