rockhillmanor wrote: Try learning all about the sugar content in a blade of grass and 'when' it is at its highest and when it is at its lowest thru out the year so you can decide whether or not to let your Cushings horse out on it!
Before you can do that you'd better know what grasses are in your field. My knowledge of grasses, the nutritional content, and changes in the nutritional content with the season, and how making hay impacts the nutritional content of each grass is very deficient.
rockhillmanor wrote: Try learning all about the sugar content in a blade of grass and 'when' it is at its highest and when it is at its lowest thru out the year so you can decide whether or not to let your Cushings horse out on it!
Before you can do that you'd better know what grasses are in your field. My knowledge of grasses, the nutritional content, and changes in the nutritional content with the season, and how making hay impacts the nutritional content of each grass is very deficient.
Ok Mark, I was impressed before, Now I'm really impressed! ...
rockhillmanor wrote: Try learning all about the sugar content in a blade of grass and 'when' it is at its highest and when it is at its lowest thru out the year so you can decide whether or not to let your Cushings horse out on it!
Before you can do that you'd better know what grasses are in your field. My knowledge of grasses, the nutritional content, and changes in the nutritional content with the season, and how making hay impacts the nutritional content of each grass is very deficient.
Sadly many owners are not aware of the vast difference of the nutrient value of processed hay, and how it can affect the health of horses, goats, and sheep. I had my hay analyized when 'all' my horses including all my goats, water intact drastically increased. The salt content was off the charts!! The farmer had spread salt on his hay to be able to bale it after a particularly wet season. And hay bales don't come with a nutrient label pasted on them.
If an owner just had one horse they would have been calling the vet suspecting kidney problems, not knowing it was the hay!.
I had the assistance of one of the finest vet med schools in my area. Learned way more than I needed to about glucose and where it all can be secretly hiding!
They gave my mare a year to live but with the help of some very fine instructors at the University she lived 10 more years and actually died from something different at the ripe old age of 34!
The jist of it all is owners have to be prudent 'nowadays' about where ingredients come from, how they are processed, what they are, and what is added in animals feeds if we are to keep them healthy and long lived. Sadly manufacturing/production has become an age of speed and greed with total disrespect to quality. IMHO, JMHO!
"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us".
Don't know if carrots were part of their previous diet. But do know carrots are quite high in sugar.
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Maggie and Dudley have been eating carrots for about 6 months or even longer now. I would think if there's any sugar in them it would be a natural sugar, and either one has never shown any problems with it. Thanks for your comments, actually this thread is getting very interesting.
Raw carrots are hard to digest and frequently come out in about the same condition they went in if fed to a dog. Most dogs chew them poorly because dogs aren't really designed to "chew" food as we are. Short digestive tracts meant to handle meat and bone (prey) do not efficiently break down tough vegetable matter. So they aren't getting all the sugar in them, and certainly aren't getting it quickly.
Cooked carrots would be a different thing. Feeding raw carrots to, say, a rabbit is also a different thing and when I went to the "bunny ranch" I learned that carrots are to be given in limited qunatities, because they do break down in a rabbit's gut due to the different flora, and that can release too much sugar and throw the flora balance off.
Ah, pasture discussions... reminds me of my time in Northa Dakoota, where the beef is grass fed and the venison is grain fed.
susan
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a wabbit, Fuzzy Wuzzy had a dandelion habit! RIP little Wuz... don't go far.
Susan we were a little concerned about the raw carrots at first, I chopped them up pretty small, and they do come out digested. Just as the rest of the poops do. Only half orange....... I watched them pretty close when we first started giving them, because I was also worried about them choking on them.
Anyway mixed the two foods half and half last night, oh my goodness they both had gas so bad, we wouldn't let them in the same room with us. Have to give them some Maalox tonight or something.
Plain yogurt is very helpful for gas. Of course, you have to be careful about added sugar and salt. You know, we have been talking about dog food for two pages already, and not a word from Walter...
Gary Shapiro
Col. Dash - GSD, DOTL Rainbow Division, in my heart forever
Spc. Lily - 10-year-old Greyhound (Racing School drop-out)
Spc. Molly - 9-year-old Shepherd/Husky Mix (aka Honey Badger)
Shadow - 1 1/2-year-old Greyhound 2011 Georgetown 280DS Class A
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Most dogs chew them poorly because dogs aren't really designed to "chew" food as we are. Short digestive tracts meant to handle meat and bone (prey) do not efficiently break down tough vegetable matter. So they aren't getting all the sugar in them, and certainly aren't getting it quickly.
