Here's an interesting article.

Mucilage as a functional food hydrocolloid: ongoing and potential applications in prebiotics and nutraceuticals - PubMed

Mucilage is a soluble dietary fiber used as a food additive to give foods a firmer texture, aside from its many health benefits and pharmacological properties. It is a polysaccharide in nature, composed of large molecules of sugars and uronic acid moieties. The extraction of mucilage is achieved...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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A list of mucilaginous foods include: aloe, slippery elm, chia seeds, irish moss, seaweeds (kombu, kelp, nori), flaxseeds, irish moss, aloe, marshmallow root, okra, figs, fenugreek, cassava, & licorice root. Several of which can be fed (are being fed) for various reasons and provide the same. Add that to high pectin sources and round out the soluble fiber sources.

 

Hay v Haylage – which is right for your horse? – Smart Horse Nutrition

smarthorsenutrition.com

I found this a good article on hay vs haylage. I think a balance of the two could be beneficial for most. Along with appropriate pasture. Finding that balance is the key. One thing I haven't mentioned about going all forage is that I order ground flax from Canada to feed when the weather is cool enough to prevent spoilage. I may need to rethink my summer feeding and add in another mucilaginous feed or beet pulp.


I think this from below sums it up whether horse or human.

With a high fiber content, the horse becomes more dependent on microbial fermentation and VFAs from the hindgut.

 

Good Vs. Bad Fiber: How Each Affect Your Horses
Fiber is the largest and most important component of your horse’s diet! Learn how to evaluate the fiber quality in your horse’s hay and horse feed.

tributeequinenutrition.com

Advantages of High-Fiber Diets for Horses - Kentucky Equine Research
With a high fiber content, the horse becomes more dependent on microbial fermentation and VFAs from the hindgut.

Consider Soluble Fiber for Exercising Horses - Kentucky Equine Research

Recent research suggests that soluble fiber provides adequate energy for exercising horses and could be a healthy alternative to cereal grains such as oats, corn, or barley for horses at risk for colic.

ker.com

 

The list from


The list of benefits from soluble fiber - at least for humans - is quite staggering.

This has got me thinking again about the bagged haylage. Combined with a source of soluble fiber! Double whammy. Haylage provides the bugs, soluble fiber feeds them.

 

I'm really liking what it's done for mine. I had concerns about spoilage but I keep it in a plastic bag large trash cans. The dairy was getting deliveries often enough and m cans are in a shed that stays shaded on clay bricks that stay cool year round. The Alfahay, when I used it, was kept in the same cans and one bag I forgot I opened but was still good after a week. Now that was fairly recent so cool temps.

At 5 pounds a day it isn't what a full serving would be, not close considering %fed of hay is on DM but it does the job. They get 4 to 8 of a legume hay, free fed grass hay. Always on pasture and like I added earlier I do put ground flax which would be a mucilage source. I've done that gor years. Adding the haylage made the difference. Now I also balance for our overload of iron. And looking at the AppleADay - they do as well. So I'm not going to bother finding Farnam's product. I'm sure I knew that at some point and it was in the back of my head, swimming around list in a sea of minutia.

 

I'm really liking what it's done for mine. I had concerns about spoilage but I keep it in a plastic bag large trash cans. The dairy was getting deliveries often enough and m cans are in a shed that stays shaded on clay bricks that stay cool year round. The Alfahay, when I used it, was kept in the same cans and one bag I forgot I opened but was still good after a week. Now that was fairly recent so cool temps.

At 5 pounds a day it isn't what a full serving would be, not close considering %fed of hay is on DM but it does the job. They get 4 to 8 of a legume hay, free fed grass hay. Always on pasture and like I added earlier I do put ground flax which would be a mucilage source. I've done that gor years. Adding the haylage made the difference. Now I also balance for our overload of iron. And looking at the AppleADay - they do as well. So I'm not going to bother finding Farnam's product. I'm sure I knew that at some point and it was in the back of my head, swimming around list in a sea of minutia.

Chaffhaye is another bagged, fermented alfalfa product. We've got a local source for that.

 

Basically same as Alfahay. Glad there's something close. Price wise how does it compare?

 

50# Chaffhaye

Chaffhaye is a premium Non-GMO Alfalfa, sold in 50-pound and 20-pound bags. It captures the key characteristics of alfalfa, while also offering a guaranteed level of nutrition. Chaffhaye is ideal f…

www.concentratesnw.com

 

Just $3.00 difference. Not bad if you would have to drive for the Alfahay but not for the Chaffhaye. Could be they'd in up costing the same.

 

I've never been to the TSC here, maybe about 25 miles away. But I suspect it's like our closer "farm store" which is tailored to suburbanites and grossly overpriced (I think), except on Tuesdays, when we get the 10% geezer discount! LOL!

Concentrates is a very unique local company that caters to organic growers, with a reasonable selection of feeds. I think they carry Chaffhaye more as a soil amendment than an animal feed. They're housed in an unheated warehouse, not far from Bob's Red Mill and Dave's Killer Bread, if you know either of those companies! LOL! It's about 15 miles away and actually, someplace I'd rather patronize. I can frequently find things there that aren't available anywhere else.

 

Very familiar with Bob's Red Mill....

 

Very fun tourist destination!

 

ok, I'm interested,but I am lazy. That's way too much info for me to 'digest'.
I don't have an IR horse, but oh wise ones, is there something I should be offering him in his vitamin supplements that would be good, and stick to the K.I.S.S. theory; Keep It Simple (for) Stupid people.

And do you all eat soluble fiber stuff for your own gut's health? I wonder what is good for that that also tastes good.

 

I mix mine in a breakfast smoothie. Totally tasteless that way. Ensures I get a mix of both soluble and insoluble fibers. I've added it up and calculated over 14 grams which is more than half the recommended for my age group. It's had a big impact on my diabetes and somewhat controls the "pre dawn surge" that is one aspect I'd never been able to bring under control. I'd do better if I switched that to my dinner meal but I can't stomach it at that point in time. Since I'm up at 3.30 most mornings and latest is 4.30 or 5 as breakfast I'm able to tolerate it better.

The horses get ground flax in the winter. Now they're getting haylage (since this past summer) and I'll likely add beet shreds once temps start warming and the ground flax would go rancid.

 

you are mixing in ground flax?

I don't want to derail this discussion from horse nutrition to human, tho.

 

Be my guest (derailing). That's what brought all my speculation on - about soluble fiber, insulin response, etc. - people health things that might also benefit horses. Especially those on fairly monocultural diets.

Oats have soluble fiber, but they've fallen out of favor under the shadow of insulin resistance. Wheat bran is also a prebiotic food, but not many people give a bran mash anymore - to my knowledge.

This is something a cardiologist I've been watching, prescribes and takes himself: Does Inulin Help Improve Gut Health?

For the horses, It's a bit speculative, but that one article suggested that the psyllium dose for sand colic did affect the insulin levels of horses in one study.

Another article suggests that everything we eat and inhale has millions and millions of bacteria on it. Some good, some bad. The health of the gut kind of determines which bacteria colonize. So in theory (and with all respect to the conversation about haylage), it just makes me wonder if I was to increase the soluble fiber in my horse's gut, would it enhance the colonization of good gut bacteria that would enhance her insulin sensitivity. The bacteria should already be on the food she eats, but maybe that food doesn't have enough of the right kind of fiber (soluble) to support a really healthy microbiome.

The more I think about it, the more systems it would seem to benefit.

 

It's all about ph when it comes to thriving bacteria. Give the good enough ground to stand on (pun inended dogpatch as soils are where it's at or not in most cases anymore) and they'll beat down the bad.

@tinyliny my horses get flax all cool season. As it's got a high fat content and ground it would go rancid in our warmer times. I'll replace it with shredded beet as that has a good amount of soluble fiber. I may add some psyllium for mucilage.

This was written 10ish years ago. It's been awhile since 8 read it but you may find it useful @dogpatch

Bacterial Communities Associated with the Surfaces of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Fresh fruits and vegetables can harbor large and diverse populations of bacteria. However, most of the work on produce-associated bacteria has focused on a relatively small number of pathogenic bacteria and, as a result, we know far less about the overall ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

The pH is why I've gone away from feeding any feeds with corn, oats or barley, any grain product that is digested before the hind gut. If you read about oats, it's said they are easily digested in the small intestine. But that's not a good thing. Racehorses fed large amounts of oats had a much lower pH in their feces than forage fed horses in several studies.

I'd never heard the concept that horses fed too much indigestible fiber will not have enough good bacteria in the system helping digest food. I've known that horses fed high lignin diets get thin and have a hay belly, but I assumed that was only because the diet was lacking in nutrients and the body was trying to ferment for a longer time. It does makes sense though that the bacteria themselves don't get enough to feed on, so can't proliferate.

I've called it "false economy" when people buy very cheap, low quality hay that is high in indigestible fiber. I've had friends that do this and then feed more complete feed to keep weight on the horses. In the end I believe the horses struggle much more to get nutrients and calories from the feed, and a big part of this must be due to the lack of fermentation in the hindgut.

Yes, you can feed complete feeds that are digested as roughage. But feeding 15 lbs of hay that is highly indigestible and then adding 5 lbs of digestible fiber is never going to be as efficient as feeding 20 lbs of highly digestible hay/forage.

Something I've also learned from hay analysis is that the poor quality hay with more indigestible fiber does not necessarily have lower NSC than high quality hay with more digestible fiber. I've seen results from the more yellow, stemmy hay where it had a NSC of 14% and the green, leafy hay had an NSC of 9%.

 

Something I've also learned from hay analysis is that the poor quality hay with more indigestible fiber does not necessarily have lower NSC than high quality hay with more digestible fiber. I've seen results from the more yellow, stemmy hay where it had a NSC of 14% and the green, leafy hay had an NSC of 9%.

Soils again! When we were raising grassfed lambs, I went crazy deep into why the hay grown here is so worthless. I have a friend who puts up hay all around the area and one year the junk tested 20% sugar. That didn't include starch.

Soils here are very leached and places like ours, on the old Barlow Road branch of the Oregon Trail, were exhausted within a generation or two of settlement. There are still huge dairy barns from the 1920s around the area (two were taken down right across the road from us since we've lived here) and I don't think dairying has been practiced here since WWII. The land will in no way support dairy cows without imported hay.

Anyway, we launched a huge soil remineralization project here on the farm and the results were staggering. I got a crude protein reading of about 26% on fresh (not hay) feral grasses and forbs one year. But unfortunately, with our climate - perpetually late harvest - and being at the mercy of the guy who cut the hay, the nutrition dwindled to practically nothing in the hay. It all went into the seed and fell back to earth. We had to quit. It was costing us a fortune for absolutely no return. However, we still have the greenest, longest lasting grass in the neighborhood in summer. Now it's just a nuisance that we have to mow several times a year.

But you could draw a strong parallel between healthy soil and a healthy gut. The microbes need the right food to bring the host organism up to optimal health. In the soil the food is minerals.

On another tack, one can rarely find low carb hay on the west side of the Cascade Range, due to the leached soils. In order to get "low carb" hay, the growers on the east side are harvesting late, or letting it get rained on before baling, or something. It's what there is. We're always playing a game of whack-a-mole to determine how to keep the EMS epidemic in check. Would a stronger gut biome help? I don't know. The sugar's still in the hay - but is it the only culprit? Soluble fiber DOES seem to increase insulin sensitivity. But it's probably not enough of a fix. We're trying to keep horses in an environment that was never meant to sustain them. I liken it to trying to keep saltwater tropical fish in a freshwater tank.

 

Horses are, or let's say, should be genetically equipped to handle seasonal laminitis episodes due to their evolution. We've taken them out of nature and try feeding in a way they aren't accustomed to year round. It's why I stopped fighting to get either bermuda (preferanly) or bahaia established and let the centipede take over. I overseed with annual ryegrass, lime but rarely fertilize except to keep spreading manure and added a clover mix that had pasture "herbage" for horses. It's not natural mix but it's not a monoculture. I mow (boys do at any rate) the heck out of any noxious weed patches or pull individuals that pop up.

 

This is so confusing. What is indigestible fiber? Soluble or insoluble?

Changing the subject, I've been watching vids and reading a bit about Regenerative grazing, or AMP grazing (Adaptive Multi paddock grazing). This so far has been a new approach to rebuilding tired soils where cattle are raised . But I wondered if it could be used for horse husbandry.

Basically, it means keeping the grazers on small paddock/pastures for a day or so, allowing them to fully graze the grass down, then moving them to a new paddock. The grazed down portion is allowed a good amount of time to rest. While the herd is there, they pee and poo all over it and their hooves break up the ground. Then when they are off, long dormant seeds germinate. I don't know if this wouldl work for the smaller groups of horses that we tend to keep, but these farmers use a sort of following system. After the cows move on, they put sheep on the same paddock, then run chicken tractors on the paddock. It's really fascinating.
Check out CarbonCowboys on YT>

 

This is so confusing. What is indigestible fiber? Soluble or insoluble?

Changing the subject, I've been watching vids and reading a bit about Regenerative grazing, or AMP grazing (Adaptive Multi paddock grazing). This so far has been a new approach to rebuilding tired soils where cattle are raised . But I wondered if it could be used for horse husbandry.

Basically, it means keeping the grazers on small paddock/pastures for a day or so, allowing them to fully graze the grass down, then moving them to a new paddock. The grazed down portion is allowed a good amount of time to rest. While the herd is there, they pee and poo all over it and their hooves break up the ground. Then when they are off, long dormant seeds germinate. I don't know if this wouldl work for the smaller groups of horses that we tend to keep, but these farmers use a sort of following system. After the cows move on, they put sheep on the same paddock, then run chicken tractors on the paddock. It's really fascinating.
Check out CarbonCowboys on YT>

I follow the Carbon Cowboy videos. I first became interested when I worked for a rancher who preached the importance of healthy soil. Then met a couple who rehabbed a sizable ranch on the California coast.

Since unintentionally getting into reclamation with the small landfill and discovering how difficult it is to find good hay, I've been preparing to address my soil's needs. My local extension office isn't interested, but a couple agents from the county south are.

This year, re-mineralization of the soil in both the "prairie" plot and on what should be "oak savannah" is the goal.The agents are interested in plant/insect/bird diversity. I want to find the balance between rest and use by horses. It's a three more year project.

I'm finding all the articles, and the discussion, interesting.

 

I can leave horses out year round. I feed hay while they are on pasture. New grass has more moisture and very little nutrition. If you look at the feral horses, they eat grass buried under the snow, grass that has frost on it, trees, bushes etc. Most of those horses have great feet. I think if you over fertilize , plant to rich of pasture grass etc , over feed grains you are asking for more issues .

 

Regenerative grazing is the new buzzword for good, old fashioned rotational grazing done right. You're basically using a high-intensity, low-frequency grazing technique. Put large numbers of any grazing animal on a small field and move them frequently. The trick is knowing how many you can put on the smallest possible field so you have a number of fields in some stage of grazing or rest to perpetuate the natural cycle. It's going to vary based on your grasses and your climate. This is what the buffalo did on the American Prairie for centuries. They traveled in large herds, grazing a portion of the land down to the ground and moved on. While they occupied a spot they tilled the soil with their hooves, fertilizing with their leavings. Add another animal in their wake and another after that, presto, you have AMP. Neither are new concepts. Not by a long shot.

@boots So many of our soils have been stripped and burnt out. Rebuilding isn't a quick process. Kinsey and Chandler both started their own labs to identify those things that are necessary to rebuild soils. Kinsey Agricultural Services (Charleston, Mo) and Texas Soils Lab (Edinburg, Tx). WK Soil Mapping is a good resource. @dogpatch has worked with Kinsey while I worked more with Chandler, sadly he passed away 15 years ago. I knew them both and can highly recommend both labs. A good book to start with is Kinsey's Hands On Agronomy.

@tinyliny You need both soluble and insoluble. All that refers to is whether it dissolves in water or not. Really I'm not sure we should say that soluble fiber disdloves as it more attracts water and forms a gel. It doesn't necessarily get fermented or digested and passes through as well. Most insoluble is also indigestible meaning that your body doesn't have the means to ferment it and it passes through intact. They perform different jobs. If you really want to be confused look up resistant starch.

 

This is an outstanding conversation! I'm on my phone and can barely type, so will write later but as far as regenerative ag goes, another important name to look up is Allan Savory and Holistic Management.

 

What about Masanobu Fukuoka? He was on my list of my favorite reads. One Straw Revolution. I heard him, Wes Jackson and Bill Mollison speak in '86 at the International Permaculture Convention in Washington State. First trip with my X. Cemented his interest in sustainability.

 

Most of this is very far over my head! I now know I'm not smart enough to feed a horse.😆

I can't find the Alfahay at tractor supply stores anywhere around here. I'm really disappointed, because I really wanted to try it.

 

See if anyone carries the Chaffehay

 

@Slave2Ponies: Nutrition (animal & human) has and continues to evolve. It can be an interesting and challenging subject for sure.

In the 1980s, I worked for a small vitamin company who's founder was so far ahead of his time. About 5+ years ago, some of his same practices from back then started to be picked up by the more mainstream vitamin companies. That made me giggle.

The one thing I adore about HF is that if you have a specific question, just put it out there. You might get a lot of different answers, but you can always ask for clarification.

I'm a former registered dietitian and a lot of this information, specific to horses & soil, is very unfamiliar to me.

With the help I've gotten here on HF, I was able to adjust my horse's feed and additionally address his FWS. I'm currently 2 months in to a supplement adjustment to see if can help with his skin 'ick' rather than medicate for it. I won't know how that transpires til March or April when Chuck generally starts his cycle of skin issues.

 

@Slave2Ponies: Nutrition (animal & human) has and continues to evolve. It can be an interesting and challenging subject for sure.

In the 1980s, I worked for a small vitamin company who's founder was so far ahead of his time. About 5+ years ago, some of his same practices from back then started to be picked up by the more mainstream vitamin companies. That made me giggle.

The one thing I adore about HF is that if you have a specific question, just put it out there. You might get a lot of different answers, but you can always ask for clarification.

I'm a former registered dietitian and a lot of this information, specific to horses & soil, is very unfamiliar to me.

With the help I've gotten here on HF, I was able to adjust my horse's feed and additionally address his FWS. I'm currently 2 months in to a supplement adjustment to see if can help with his skin 'ick' rather than medicate for it. I won't know how that transpires til March or April when Chuck generally starts his cycle of skin issues.

A lot of the stuff that's being discussed is pretty esoteric and wouldn't be sought by anyone without a specific problem to address. Only to be found by accident.

Who would know...@QtrBel and I are talking some soil stuff that has it's scientific origins in the mid 20th century, before the sciences of agronomy and nutrition split. In the early 20th century agriculture was booming with "improved" breeds of livestock that delivered vastly more meat and milk, but at a much greater demand for nutrition. So scientists were putting their efforts into learning what the soil needed to produce higher nutrition in crops. But then universities discovered that big grant money was available from chemical companies and there was a thing going on called the Green Revolution. Nutrition as a science split away at that point and began to study fractionated nutrients more so than the whole picture of healthy soil = healthy plants = higher plane of nutrition.

Yield trumped all consideration of nutrition, so anything that added cost to the bottom line without greater profit was ignored. Plants are now developed to live in vegetable slums. In the 1920s, feed corn had about 13% protein and now it's about 6%, of mostly indigestible zein - which has lots of industrial uses. I can recall feed tags on bags of alfalfa pellets reading 18%. Now they're going about 13%. But by golly, the crop survived being sprayed with Roundup. To suppress the weeds that invade desolate soil.

We practice what's called extractive agriculture. We harvest crops that have mined a great deal of mineral nutrition from the soil and we haul it away without replacing the minerals. A grass plant needs 18-20 soil minerals in order to meet its metabolic potential for delivering maximum nutrition to a grazing animal. But we fertilize pastures with three - nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. All capable of producing great quantities of carbohydrate rich biomass. But without all the minerals in balance, the plant produces its primary substances for its own growth - sugar and starch - and fails to catalyze those starter compounds into valuable nutrients for grazers. And we supplement minerals directly to the animals in the form of ground rocks, keeping it alive, but completely missing out on the nutrition the animal would get if it got the minerals from its forage.

I used to flog this stuff on EMS forums 20 years ago and I was attacked relentlessly by horse owners who refused to grasp the concepts, by Chinese herb gurus, by Kellon, by Watts. By anybody who made a buck off of the emerging panic over equine metabolic syndrome. And all these years later, pretty much nobody's the wiser. Except maybe Watts.

 

http://alfahay.net/dealer-locator/

You could try this @Slave2Ponies

 

IF you are buying bulk hay , remember the test is done on just a few bales. Here is what a hay test shows.
ESC.. sugars. WSC Fructan . NSC - 10-12 % . Lower for pssm ppid etc. STARCH - less than 15% for ppid pssm etc.
Fat. CA/P 3:1 and 1:1 no longer than 1:1.ratio. DE Digestable Energy - 20 mcal day. NDF Insoluble fiber, neutral detergent fiber Under 65%. ADF Acid detergent fiber how digestible it is, Under 45% . Crude Protein 8-14% grass. GrasslLegume 14 -17% Legume 15-20 % (alfalfa would be legume )
Moister 10-15% max.
Most hays are .76 -1.1 mcal per lb of Digestible energy.

For pastures, you need to do soil samples to get a good pasture in . This will change each year as horses graze, fertilize etc. A good pasture is rotated. Also do not overgraze. Grazing down to the root is of course bad. Fescue has dangers to pregnant mares. The type of grass planted depends on your ag zone. I can plant giant bermuda grass . My horses love it. I am hot enough year round where it goes dormant maybe 2 months out of the year . I also supply hay when they are on pasture. You also have to add in if you irrigate or not. IF you rely on rain , and run off, you need to figure what is in your run off. What fields are next to your pasture . Also water has chemicals in it naturally. I have never tested my ag water. I comes through canals so who knows what is in it. It would change almost daily.
You also have to be aware of the type of grass used to make hay. Not all grass or legume is created equal. It can become mind boggling. Also clay soil will need different admendments then sand or sandy loam soils.