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  Discussion on Veterinary opinion on slow feeding
Author Message
Member:
mcashman

Posted on Wednesday, Feb 27, 2013 - 8:43 am:

Hi, Dr. O!

I have started to test a slow feeder from High Country Plastics (https://www.highcountryplastics.com/products/slow.html), in order to have my horses' inside and outside hay feeding experience be closer to grazing. To test the feeder, I am rotating my two horses through a "hotel" stall and then giving them access to floor fed hay in their stalls and turnout.

So far, the horses appear to take to the feeder.They eat from it, seem distracted enough by it that they no longer miss the other horse when he leaves to work in the arena. My reining horse actually refused to leave the stall when I came to rotate him out. This happened twice and is unprecedented behavior.

I put one horse in the hotel stall last night, watched him with a camera and he seemed to be eating normally. He was sleeping at about 3AM with hay still in the feeder. He still had hay this morning and was eating when I checked the camera in the morning (6:30AM) and when I came in. I turned him into his regular stall with floor fed hay - he walked around, showed only mild interest in the floor fed hay, and showed none of the "wolfing" I'd expect if he were hungry. It appears he ate about 7+ pounds of hay overnight, which would be normal, but would usually be gone in the first 2 or 3 hours after night check.

Both of my horses are Western performance horses and while I would expect this feeder to smooth their eating pattern and thus be a digestive benefit, one is a hard keeper and both are in moderate to heavy work five or six days a week. Is it your opinion that slow feeders can be used with horses that are not easy keepers and still give them them calories they need for performance and muscle building? Has there been any veterinary research on the benefits or issues for performance horses?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide...

- Mark
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Feb 27, 2013 - 5:44 pm:

Hello Mark,
I have not had experiences with restricted feeding in horses that are not easy keepers but keeping them from inhaling their hay makes sense. You should monitor there intakes to see if they conform to the historical amounts that have maintained good condition and keep the weight tape handy.
DrO
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