Our Feeds Suitable for Soaking to Mashes

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 replacers 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 mashes can be fed in large quantities and be used to entirely replace a horse’s hay or haylage. More information on forage replacers can be found here.

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. Some horses will refuse to drink very cold water so adding hot water to make the bucket or trough water lukewarm or tepid may also encourage drinking.

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 and it is also a great way to disguise the taste of added electrolytes. A bucket of fresh water should always be available alongside as adding additional electrolytes should also encourage your horse to drink.

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.