[jumpers4me]

what exactly is flax seed fed for? also, what is the difference between the whole seeds and the ground up stuff? how much of each is usually fed?

[salemvot]

Flax is for the fiber and the oils it contains. I use it mostly for skin and coat health but it is a mild laxative so start with just 1/4 a cup at each feeding and work up by 1/4 cup a week to 2 cups per feeding. If you see any soft stools back off untill your horse adjusts to it. I feed ground, whole flax, Unground is ok too but I think the horse gets more benifit if it's ground.

[jumpers4me]

thanks a ton

[Shotgun93]

Flax seed has 22-26% crude protien, it has mild laxiative properties and is mostly used for it's antioxident and Omega 3 fatty acids. To get the what flax seed is intended for out of the seed, it really needs to be boiled first.
Studies have shown that feeding whole dry seed really does for the horse and actually can do the opposite of a laxitive. It is usually fed in a bran mash once or twice a week and it is not recommended to be fed daily.

Which is why I don't really like it, although we do have some clients that insist on feeding it to their horses. It's not good to only feed a horse something, like bran mash, once or twice a week, as doing this can mess up the bugs in the stomach. So, instead, it should be fed every day, which is not recommened for flax seed, so I would prefer not to feed it.

That being said, the little stud that we have had on flax seed is so far doing fine and shows no adverse side affects.

[Sue B]

Flax is generally fed for the oils to improve coat/skin/hoof quality. However, it also has many other helath benefits. It is an immune system booster and thus is helpful with many allergies...espcially those involving bug bites (summer sores), thread worm, neck/mane/tail itching and even breathing problems similar to "heaves". If fed whole, the fiber from the outside makes mucilage that has properties similar to physillium (used to clear sand from the gut) and also acts as a "prebiotic" that helps support/feed the gut bacteria used in digestion. It can be used for weight gain, but not generally recommended as it takes more than the recommended doses and high amounts can interfer with thyroid rather than support it like smaller amounts do. Flax is also generally helpwith with skin issues such as rain rot and recurring infections of bacterial or fungal origin such as thrush. If you feed the meal, you will not get the fiber benefits of the whole seeds.

The omega-3 fatty acids that are found in high amounts in flax are essential (not created by the horse during digestion) to the horse's nutrient intake. The primary source is fresh grass and horses with limited to no grass generally suffer from omega-3 deficiency. Fish oil and flax are the primary sources of omega-3 fatty acids...there is a fish oil product recently marketed for horses, however, IMO, feeding herbivors plant sources of nutrients makes a lot more sense than feeding animal sources.

You can feed it whole or ground. Research indicates that even if some of the seeds pass through whole that the majority of nutrients have been extracted from them. In general, it is recommended to feed 1/2-1 cup (2-4 oz) per day to an average 1000 lb horse. Althougth humans often report a laxative effect when eating the seeds, this doesn't seem to be common in horses unless fed too much of the oil instead of the seed or meal.

I have fed both the whole seed and the pre-ground meal and I prefer the whole seeds just because they don't sort them out...sometimes they let the meal fall out to the bottom of the dish and don't eat it all. If you grind it fresh, it needs to be fed asap and not stored. While you can store in athe freezer, it looses nutrients if stored in the fridge and will quickly spoil if not stored in a cold place. You can purchase the pre-ground, stabilized meal that doesn't require specaial storage from www.horsetech.com. Whole seeds can generally be purchased at local feed stores...sometimes you have to tell them to special order ahead.

[Sue B]

Originally Posted by Shotgun93

Studies have shown that feeding whole dry seed really does for the horse and actually can do the opposite of a laxitive. It is usually fed in a bran mash once or twice a week and it is not recommended to be fed daily.

Could you supply the source to this information/studies. I have been feeding flax (whole seeds) to many horses for many years. All of my friends feed it to their old horses for arthritis and now don't need any joint supplements. The omega-3 fatty acids in flax are an essential (needs to be included in the diet) nutirent. There are no ill effects from it unless it is fed in very high amounts. From my experience, there are only benefits from feeding flax...I have never seen a negative. It doesn't need to be boiled to be of benefit. In fact cooking...as with any food....destroys some of the nutrients. It also doesn't have to be fed in a mash....I just throw the seeds on top of their regular feed. I would be very interested to see the articles/studies where this information came from.

[Photochick]

I use flax seed oil on my boys food. Great coats. Very glossy and soft, even now that they are furry.

[Sue B]

Yes, I feed it to my broodmares and when we take them to my friend's big, high class breeding farm, they always keep saying how velvety my babies' coats are and how much bloom the mares have. I have feed many, many different types of oils and supplements for coats in varying amounts over the years and nothing except rice bran can come close to flax. Now I feed both and cannot believe the why their coats feel...dense, shed water, and even stay cleaner because dirt doesn't stick as much...way easier to clean off mud.

[ejforrest]

Flax seed is:
A natural fat supplement
For an increase in essenatial fatty acids and magnesium feed 2 to 8 oz daily
Protein-many oil seed meals, including flaxseed(linseed) are added protein sources. Such seeds naturally provide desirable amounts of protein; once the oil itself has been extracted, the protein proportion increases.
Colic-if a horse is prone to colic, a suitable supplement can help, as can wetting feed and adding four onces of soaked whole flaxseed to the feed to lubricate the mix.
The "laxative" effect is usually do to a sudden change in diet. Same for a "bran mix". When horses are fed a bran or flax mix once a week, this will cause a mild digestive upset do to a change in diet and this in turn will cause loose stools.
Keep in mind that wheat bran has an extremely inverted calciumhosphorus ratio and as a result, it should never be fed in large quantities on a daily basis, as it is likely to trigger "bran disease", sometimes called "big head". A condition in which the horses system leaches calcium from the bones in order to try to balance the high concentration of phosphorus being taken in. The result is porous, brittle bones, and it can be irreversible. Bran should never be fed to the young, growing horse, and in adult horses diet it should make up no more than 10% of the total grain ration.

[AFab]

Whole Flaxseed can not be digested properly by a horse (IMO) because of their metabolism and ground or milled flax has a limited shelf life as the Essential Fatty Acids break down. Boiling does not take away any nutrients. It is not like boiling vegetables and dumping the water down the drain, it is more like making oatmeal.



Excert From Study:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...i?artid=227015

The significantly lower AST scores on day 21 in treatment animals suggests that there may be a reduction in inflammatory processes when horses are consuming flaxseed. This is in agreement with the observed average reduction in skin test reactions. With this exception, biochemistry and hematology screens failed to identify any other significant systemic effects of the treatment. There has been some concern over feeding flaxseed to horses, as the plant is a source of cyanogenic glycosides and enzymes (16), which can interact, releasing cyanide. When consumed in sufficient quantities, flax is widely suspected to be potentially toxic, possibly causing cyanide poisoning in animals. For this reason, it is common practice in the field to boil flaxseed for a minimum of one hour, to release the highly volatile cyanide. Cyanide poisoning does not become symptomatic over a long period of time, and there is little difference between toxic and lethal levels of cyanide in the blood (17). Poisoning would be recognized in the blood as changes in the oxygenation status of venous blood, accompanied by rapid, laboured breathing, foaming at the mouth, and dilated pupils. These symptoms were not observed in any of our research subjects. Due to the ability of stomach acid to inactivate the enzymes contained within the seeds, which are required to interact with glycosides in order to form cyanide, it was not expected that signs of toxicity associated with cyanide poisoning would be observed in this study. All changes identified in the biochemistry and hematology profiles remained within the normal physiological range, so statistically significant changes were not considered to be of any clinical significance. This study suggests that feeding flaxseed to horses did not elicit any negative side-effects when consumed at this dosage over a period of 42 d.