Why are oats so popular with horses?
Horse owners who prefer to feed whole grains have good reasons to make oats that grain. For starters, oats are considered the “safest” grain to feed horses. That is because their starch is more easily digested in the horse’s small intestine than the starches in com or barley. This minimizes the potential for undigested starches to reach the horse’s hind gut where they can cause colic. Oat digestibility can be particularly critical for performance sport horses or racehorses in training whose daily grain ration may approach 50 percent (by weight) of their total diet. Oats are also less susceptible to contamination by molds producing mycotoxins than other whole grains such as com or wheat. This means horse owners can buy, feed, and store them with greater confidence. Compared to processed grains or processed mixed feeds, whole, unprocessed oats can maintain their nutritional value almost indefinitely when stored under proper conditions. Horses like oats as much as their owners. Oats are e
