Hygain News - Chaff or No Chaff

The HYGAIN Forum - Where the experts lend their advice and experiences Discussion: Chaff or No Chaff?
Danielle Harvey	Georgia Clifford		Greg Smith	Jenny Gehrke

	Danielle Harvey - Breeding/Eventing Horses are social, grazing, prey animals. They evolved as hindgut fermenters spending a large proportion (60 to 80%) of each day grazing. The stomach of the horse is relatively small and inelastic. (about the approximate size of a football.) Horses must be fed adequately before they can perform at their best. Correct feeding is both a science and an art - the science is in knowing what to feed to satisfy the requirements of the horse, and the art is in knowing how to feed to get the best results.
Horses only have one stomach. Because of this they must eat small amounts often. Horses must also chew their feed well before swallowing and so will take longer over their feed than will cattle and other ruminants. Horses vary greatly in their likes and dislikes. Factors such as the horses type, age and weight and the work a horse does will influence specific feed requirements. What does a horse need? Pasture, hay and/or chaff is essential for all horses as it helps maintain normal gut function, is a good energy source and gives the horse a feeling of fullness. Horses require an adequate amount of fibre (i.e. Chaff) to increase the bulk of ration and dilute highly concentrated energy and protein feeds. Carbohydrates. These provide energy to stay alive and do extra work, such as being ridden. Protein. This builds up cells and bones and helps with healing, growth and repair after illness or injury Fibre. For efficient hindgut function Fats. These help keep a horse warm and provide extra energy Vitamins and Minerals. These keep the body healthy and strong Different foods have different levels of the above nutrients, so it's important you are feeding your horse or pony the correct diet in the right proportions. The ideal person to speak with on this topic further is Stephanie Howe at HYGAIN who can offer professional advise on your questions. What are the different types of fibre? Grass, hay, chaff and haylage (haylage is hay that has been treated and sealed into bags when half-dry. Haylage tends to be more commonly used outside of Australia for example Europe due to the climatic conditions) Chaff is simply dried forage that has been cut into small pieces. Lucerne and oaten chaff are commonly added to concentrates before feeding but their use outside Australia is less common. As the forage is cut into short lengths it can be eaten quickly in contrast to hay and pasture. Good quality chaff should smell fresh, not be dusty and have no obvious contaminants. Main advantages of feeding chaff: Highly palatable when mixed with grains. Provides roughage Bulking agent Other advantages: Going into winter roughages such as soft hay or chaff will be fermented in the hindgut producing some heat as a by product therefore feeding more roughage (i.e. Chaff) will assist in keeping your horse warm and will help maintain condition. Disadvantages Often dusty Large intake causes "hay belly" Up to 12%-20% wastage as hay Horses out at good quality pasture 24 hours a day will not usually require the same amounts of roughage that a fully stabled horse would. This is where the important rule of little and often and in the correct proportions becomes very important. Many cases of colic and stomach upsets (e.g. Stomach ulcers) can be avoided by simply remembering that the horse has quite a small stomach. By feeding your horse regular small quantities each day as oppose to one large heavy meal you can begin to feed your horse the way nature still intends. Danielle Harvey Back to Top
	Georgia Clifford - Eventing This is a question that I have recently spent quite a bit of time thinking about myself. I don't really have the answer however I thought that I might give you an idea of some of the considerations that I am currently weighing up. Most of the world doesn't feed chaff to their horses with no ill effects. I spent several years living in the UK and no horses there were fed chaff. I believe that this is also the case in Europe. Therefore, superficially, it would appear that it is an unnecessary feed. However, before drawing that conclusion, it is important to bear in mind some of the basic principles of feeding.
When contemplating a particular diet for each of my horses, I try to break down their diet into three components, first the roughage element, secondly the concentrate element and third the supplement element. The concentrate element and the supplement element are topics for another day - in this article I thought I would discuss the roughage component of a horse's diet. It is absolutely vital for a horse to have sufficient roughage in their diet. This can be through either chaff, hay or pasture. My horses generally come into stables at night so I always ensure that they have plenty of hay to eat overnight. Horses that are living in the paddock all day around will get supplementary hay depending on the quality and quantity of pasture in their paddock. My current thinking is that the amount of chaff that should be fed to a horse should be dependent on the other quantity of roughage that it has in it's diet. For a horse that is in a good paddock with good quality pasture who is fed additional good quality hay, it should not be necessary to feed it much chaff, if at all. I feed a lot of hay and my horses go into good paddocks, so I am personally looking to reduce the quantity of chaff that I feed to my horses. The other reason for feeding chaff is to dilute the concentrates in the horse's feed. This is especially important for a horse that really bolts it's feed as this kind of horse may ingest too much concentrated feed in a short period of time to properly digest. One of my horses in particular can be very guilty of eating his feed incredibly quickly and I think that adding chaff to his feed assists in making him slow down and chew his feed a little more. These are only my relatively uneducated views and so consult the nutrition experts at Hygain to better understand what you should be feeding your horse! Georgia Clifford Back to Top
	Greg Smith - ShowJumping Chaff or no chaff really depends on personal choice, the type of horse you are feeding and the availability of good quality hay. When I was first introduced to horses as a child there was no such thing as pre-mixed horse feeds. Growing up on a dairy farm my family was able to grow its own meadow/grass hay and dad had an old chaff cutter enabling us to make/cut our own oaten and lucerne chaff, etc. The chaff formed the basis of the horses feed, to which we would add grain's, bran, pollard, vitamins, salts, electrolytes and mix it all up with some molasses in water. Obviously the amount of ingredients would depend on the type and temperament of the horse you are feeding.
When I went to England in the mid 80's it took a while to get used to their feeding system, it consisted of totally pre-mixed feed combined with meadow hay, not a bag of chaff to be seen. The pre-mix feed was full of grains..oats, maize, barley, peas, corn, sunflower seeds, and vitamins, etc. The other type of pre-mix feed would be in a pellet form which wasn't so easy to get the horses keen on. The horses would only get a small amount of pre-mix feed but the meadow hay was always in plentiful supply. When I was over in Europe in 2002, the feeding system was still the same, pre-mixed feeds with plenty of meadow hay to be eaten with morning and evening feeds, so my horse didn't find himself out of place and picking at his feed at meal times and totally licked out his feed bin. In Australia, meadow hay isn't always easy to acquire especially in New South Wales and Queensland, so the bulk in a horses diet has to be substituted with lucerne hay or chaff's. Grass is always a good bulk feed but in a dry climate this is not always possible. If you are lucky enough to live in a location that has a good supply of quality pasture, and your horse is well rugged, wormed and teeth regularly maintained, then chances are your feed bill won't be too large. Adding chaff to your horses pre-mixed feed can sometimes slow his eating habits down if you think he is eating too quick. Since the eighties, equine feed science has developed enormously and no matter what type of horse you have there is a specific blend of horse mix on the market to cater for them. With the range of pre-mix feeds that Hygain produce, you will be able to find one that suits your horse for the type of work that it does and also when it is out resting. So find the right pre-mix for your horse, add a hay net full of good quality hay and in most cases this will probably be sufficient. If you are a little old fashioned like me then add a couple of dippers of chaff to the horse mix, stir in a little bit a molasses water and I guarantee your horse will love you forever. Greg Smith. Back to Top
	Jenny Gherke - Dressage Chaff is essentially finely chopped hay of any description. We usually feed hay as a source of roughage for the horse. In Australia we can usually readily obtain oaten, wheaten and lucerne chaff. Lucerne is quite high in protein so is possibly not ideal as a source of roughage. It does also contain high levels of calcium which can be valuable for the horse in areas where the soil is calcium deficient and the horses do seem to love the taste! It is essential to feed plenty of "roughage" to horses as it is required for proper gut function. Chaff is certainly not the only way to provide roughage for your horse. If your horse has access to sufficient grass then there is little need to feed extra roughage in the form of chaff or hay. Clients of mine run there horses in large individual paddocks. They feed them Hygain's "release" with no chaff and the horses are thriving.
My horses have some grass but not enough to sustain them. I add a mixture of 75% oaten chaff/25% Lucerne chaff in with their Hygain feeds. I travel with my horses often so I think the chaff with their hard feed will reduce the risk of colic and promote healthy gut function when they don't have ready access to grass. Some horses go off there feed when they travel and I find that they go off their roughage last. This is another reason why I add plenty of chaff to their feeds. As with all feed, the quality of chaff is important. If it is dusty or mouldy it can make the horses really ill. Whether or not you feed your horse chaff will depend on the horse, his type and tastes, what he is used for, and what conditions he is kept in. When you are deciding on what's best for your horse to eat always get advice from a professional. Stephanie Howe at Hygain can help you with your horse's feeding requirements. Happy feeding! Jenny Gherke Back to Top