09/15/08 Sweet feed and sour horses

Is your young horse a handful! Might be what you're feeding? I'm Susan Allen we are talkin horses today here on the American Rancher radio program so stay tuned until after the break to learn how a new study revealed that sweet feed could make young horses more difficult. Many of us feed commercial mixes with corn, oats barley and molasses, basically what we call sweet feed to keep our horses in top shape. I for one love to see my horses fit and shiny but a new study from Montana State University found that might not be wise when starting colts. There is no doubt that some horses can get hot even when fed small amounts of grain but Wade Black a graduate student and horse trainer at MSU colt starting program has presented evidence to the American Society of Animal Science showing that young horses fed only hay were easier to start than those fed a mixture of hay and grain. The study does not recommend withholding all supplements, rather to cut back during the initial 30 or 60 day training period. A group of closely related quarter horses from one ranch were used in this research and the MSU team found that the young horses on grain experienced more separation anxiety, were less submissive and frisker than the horses fed hay. So if you have a difficult youngster on your hands evaluate what your feeding, and that holds true for horses and kids. I'm Susan Allen