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All About Mashes

What is a mash?

A mash refers to a feed that is soaked prior to feeding. Mashes are often made from fibre-based ingredients but can also contain cereals and other ingredients such as herbs.

Historically, bran mashes for horses were fed irregularly after harder work such as a day’s hunting, as it was believed that it helped prevent digestive upsets by acting as a laxative. It is now much less popular as findings from research show that there is little or no laxative effect and making a sudden change to the diet is not desirable at any time and arguably least of all after a period of hard work when the aim should be to aid recovery.

Bran mashes also have an inverse calcium to phosphorus ratio and so can unbalance the ratio in the total diet. Although this can be counteracted by supplying other calcium sources, nowadays bran is very rarely recommended by nutritionists as there are much better alternatives available.

There are now a wide range of mash feed for horses available on the market. These range from those that can be used to promote weight gain, which are often based on highly digestible fibres such as alfalfa, sugar beet pulp or grass, to those that are low calorie which usually contain less digestible ingredients, such as straw.

Pelleted Range Fibre Feeds

Which of the Dengie fibre feeds can be soaked to a mash?

Alfa-Beet

Click here to learn more about Dengie Alfa-Beet.

 

Pure Grass Pellets

Click here to learn more about Dengie Pure Grass Pellets.

 

Alfalfa Pellets

Click here to learn more about Dengie Alfalfa Pellets.

Feeding a Mash for Dental Issues

The increase in the number of horses of all ages with dental issues such as diastemas means that many horse owners are seeking alternatives to chopped fibre feeds. As forage should make up the majority of a horse’s diet, it is no surprise that when they simply can’t eat it as easily anymore, issues such as weight loss and colic can occur. Providing forage in a form that horses and ponies can easily manage, such as a high fibre mash, ensures they are still receiving the fibre they need to keep them healthy. Some mash feeds for horses can be fed in large quantities and used to entirely replace a horse’s hay or haylage. More information on forage replacers can be found here.

Feeding a Mash to Aid Hydration

Feeding a mash can also increase the water intake in the horse’s diet, helping to aid hydration. This can be particularly beneficial over the winter months when horses are stabled for longer periods of time and eating conserved forages such as hay which have a significantly lower water content compared to fresh grass. Horses are also often reluctant to drink when it’s colder; research has shown that horses tend to drink 6-14% less in colder weather so feeding a mash can help increase water intake.

Travelling and competing can also increase the risk of dehydration which can compromise both performance and recovery. In addition to this, some horses can become fussy about drinking when away from home. By feeding a high fibre mash, you can get moisture in without requiring them to actually drink from a bucket. Electrolytes can also be added in this situation to aid recovery.

For horses who don’t have any dental issues requiring a completely soaked ration, it’s important to still include a chopped fibre alongside a mash, as this is important to slow your horse’s rate of intake. Whilst pelleted fibres and mashes supply fibre, they don’t perform the same important role of slowing the speed at which the horse consumes their feed. Recent studies have shown that even when relatively small amounts of feed are fed as ‘meals’, as would be the case with a balancer, a horse with underlying insulin dysregulation experiences a more exaggerated insulinaemic response (Macon et al., 2022). Other studies have shown that feeding straw can slow the rate of intake to such an extent that no discernible insulinaemic response results (Jansson et al., 2021) which makes sense when we think about the basic principle of the horse being a trickle feeder. Slowing the rate of intake so the horse consumes a trickle of feed should therefore be the aim for all horses.

If you would like the Dengie nutrition team to review your horse or pony’s diet and help you select the most appropriate feed, get in touch by calling us on 01621 841 188 or by completing our feed advice form.

References