over feeding oats

Question
Hello ma'am. may i know how come over feeding oats leads to colic?

Answer
Hello Caine,

Thank you for your question.  Over feeding any cereal grain can increase the risk of colic in horses, oats are not alone in that respect.  In fact, compared to other cereal grains oats runs a much lower risk of causing gas colics.  A horse's digestive system can only safely digest cereal grains in the stomach.  A horse's stomach is quite small for the size of the animal holding only about 2-2.5 gallons of material.  The rate of passage through the stomach can be quite quick.  Overall, this means that the stomach has only a limited capacity to digest cereal grains.  If too much cereal grain is fed in one feeding, it can pass through the stomach without being digested.  

If undigested cereal grains make it to the horse's cecum, they will be fermented by bacteria.  This fermentation process generates gas (hence gas colic) and lowers cecal pH.  If the pH of the cecum lowers too much, forage digesting bacteria can be destroyed and cause additional digestive problems.  

Even though oats are relatively digestible, 85% pre-cecal digestibility in ideal conditions, feeding too much at one time can still increase the risk of gas colics.  Having said that, oats are still a better choice of cereal grains that corn or barley which have pre-cecal digestibility levels below 30%...which means that even in ideal feeding situations 70% of unprocessed corn and barley make it to the cecum where they will be fermented.  If you have to feed a cereal grain, oats are your best choice.

Thanks, Corlena