Spent grains to horses..

Rob2010SS

Anyone have experience with horses eating spent grains? Any issues? Obviously, if there's mash hopping done, it's a no-no. But just the grains by themselves, any problems?

lumpher

It's fine to feed it to them under 2 conditions:
1: You feed it to them quick, before it starts to spoil. Remember, used grain spoils FAST.
2: It's supplemental, not bulk feed. It provides fiber, but you can give them too much.
I've also made dog treats out of them for many years from spent grain, eggs, flour, and peanut butter, and my dogs LOVE them.

Rob2010SS

Appreciate the info.
We've done the dog treat thing but man, when you have 60-70lbs of grain, that's too many dog treats to make, LOL.

SmoothBrews

I’m gonna need you to drop that dog treat recipe RIGHT MEOW!
Edit: Never mind. A quick google search turned some up, along with recipes for cookies and bread. Spent grain baking could be a whole thread or sub-forum on its own.

bellhp

I'll try to remember to ask my wife who is a Veterinarian and owns horses tonight when she gets home . I know our horses get a very regimented diet and changes to that diet need to happen slowly to prevent Cholic which can kill a horse easily ... I'm gonna guess her answer is no . Also remember spent hops are toxic to dogs.

Rob2010SS

Yep, 100%. We have 2 dogs and are very careful with hops. We just automatically assume that hops are toxic to all animals so we treat it as such.

bellhp

Yeah she was not hip on the idea , like I said when horses cholic it can be fatal . Cows , goats, pigs ? they can get away with it.

PCABrewing

I would expect that the spent grain has little nutritional value. If your mash was efficient then the endosperm is mostly gone and replaced by sugar. That would leave fiber from the hulls and the residual sugar and some starch.
Doesn't sound to me like a very nutritious feed and possibly harmful to the horses kidneys?
Just a guess.

bracconiere

horses eat grass normally though don't they?

PCABrewing

Right, but we are talking about grain that has been processed to extract the maximum amount of sugars thus leaving them with the fiber and some proteins.
So if I get a mash efficiency of 70+% then I am leaving the horse with a lesser energy factor. I don't know that the remaining components justify the mass they consume.
I seem to recall racing thoroughbreds being fed a grain mix that was high in Oats and Molasses.
I don't know if that still happens.

ba-brewer

A neighbor has horses and allows me to feed them my spent grain. The horses know the sound of my car and watch me every time I drive past to see if I am going to slow down. As soon as I start to slow down they go crazy and start making noise.
He used to get grain from a local craft brewer and feed them that too. Horses are pretty smart, when the grain started to go sour they would not eat it.
I recall people giving horse a treat mix of raw grains that had molasses or something sticky mixed in with it. Sugary spent seems to be in the same category.
With all that said, if I had horses and was thinking about feeding them spent grain I would check with my vet.

bracconiere

i thought they lived off the bacteria like a cow chewing a cud? but lower in the proccess?

bracconiere

+1 someone just posted a meme, in 1920 only rich people had cars and poor people had horses. in 2020, only rich people have horses, and poor people drive cars...kinda like eating lobster....

PCABrewing

They are smarter than we give them credit for.
I use to pass a couple horses stabled near the road and I swear the watched me drive by without any reaction but when the owner showed up in his Jeep Comanche they knew the difference.

PCABrewing

Yeah they are a pretty expensive experiment.

camonick

Cows are ruminants, horses are not. Different and sensitive digestive system.

bracconiere

had to look it up ~$4k for horse?

bracconiere

yeah but instead of a cud they have a hind gut for the same purpose i thought?
Hindgut
The hindgut of the horse comprises the cecum, large colon, small colon and rectum. The cecum consists of 12-15% of tract capacity and the colon 40-50% of tract capacity. The major functions of the hindgut are the microbial digestion (fermentation) of dietary fiber (structural carbohydrates primarily from forages in the horse’s diet). Important end-products of the fermentation are volatile fatty acids (acetic, propionic and butyric) which can serve as an energy source for horses fed mostly forages such as pasture or hay. Fermentation also produces methane, carbon dioxide and water, as well as most of the B-vitamins and some amino acids. Another function of the hindgut is water reabsorption.

camonick

That’s a cheap one.

bracconiere

that's what i thought when i read it, i was thinking like $10-15k at first...

bracconiere

missed this on my first read, but being the starch is removed?
The diet composition affects the makeup of the microbial population. When starch is delivered to the hindgut the starch fermenters (amylolytic bacteria) begin to rapidly ferment the starch, producing large quantities of lactic acid and volatile fatty acids (VFA). Because of the acidic nature of these products of fermentation, the pH in the hindgut begins to fall. A low pH favors pathogenic bacterial which can then contribute to serious diseases such as, laminitis or founder, colic, endotoxemia and metabolic acidosis.

cn0frky4mfe.png

the cecum, never knew the word, like a lower level cud?
Digestive Anatomy and Physiology of the HorseHorses are non-ruminant herbivores, meaning they eat mainly plant material. The horse’s gastrointestinal tract consists of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine and the highly developed large intestine composed of the caecum, large colon, small colon and rectum (figure 1). The Mouth...

www.extension.iastate.edu

PCABrewing

I used to bugle at reenactments. I was once talking to one of the cavalry guys. Cavalry, artillery, and infantry each have their own unique calls due to different needs and functions. This fellow tells me he was once on the field and heard the bugle signal the command to turn to the right, but his horse would have no part of it. In frustration, he looked up and around to and noticed that the others were going left. At that point, he realized that the horse was correct; he had misinterpreted the bugle call, but not the horse!