Feeding Pets

[newlifeforme]

I think I have finally found where to post! Thank goodness! I have posted before but I didn't get a response so I'm desperatey trying again. I am self diagnosed and VERY sensitive to gluten. I have many gluten eating animals that I feed everyday. Sometimes more. My 4 horses get bran mashed twice a week. My DH does this for me now but as I walk into the garage and see a bran "cloud" I wonder if this is causing me to get sick. I wear a mask when I am getting their feed together. Can I be glutened by inhaling? I'd really like to know. Dog food, bird food, horse food, duck food ALL have some form of gluten in them. Any ideas or suggestions? I'd appreciate any advice. I would love to know if any other Celiacs have horses. I can't possibly be the only horse owner self diagnosed Celiac!

[ravenwoodglass]

Yes you can be glutened by inhaling gluten. You shouldn't bake with wheat flour for others for this reason and we can't work in bakeries. If you can't get someone else to do the feeding, your DH or other family members or a kid you can hire for a couple bucks from down the street then you do need to take precautions.

A mask is helpful and it would be a good idea to either have coveralls, gloves and a pair of barn boots to keep gluten off your clothes or change clothes as soon as you get back to the house. You may also want to post a query that states horse owner in the topic title in the coping section. We have had some horse people here and they might be able to be of some help.

[Takala]

Heya!

The bran mash as a necessity for horses is a myth, try a warm soaked beet pulp shreds mash. If they have sand problems, use horse psyllium. Get that **** bran out of the garage!

Dog foods come in grainless and rice as the grain varieties.... some use potato or sweet potato as the carbohydrate - this is a no- brainer, you'll need to switch brands to a wheat and barley free version. Warning: oats in dog food is frequently contaminated, so avoid. Upside: the higher quality foods will make them healthier, and they eat less and poop less.

None of your birds really need wheat or barley, either. Take black oil sunflower seed and mix it with wheat free wild bird seed, and maybe a little cracked corn, and voila, you have generic bird feed. My chickens haven't eaten "chicken food" in years. My chickens have also eaten a "sweet mix" of just corn/oats with molasses in addition to the sunflower seed. Laying hens need a form of calcium mineral.

Horse feeds. When I lived in the midwest, with its not so great hay and lousy bitter cold winters, I mixed my own horse feeds based on a formula in the Merck veterinary manual, which basically said you add a lb of trace mineralized salt to a hundred pounds of corn/oats and a bit of dry molasses and powdered calcium supplement. Now we live in the west, where the hay is gourmet quality, the weather is warmer, and they don't really need grains because they are on pasture with hay all year - winter is our green grass season. In a bad rain year, I will give some alfalfa hay and some soaked beet pulp with the grass hay. I might mix oil and sunflower seed into the beet pulp if it is a hard keeper. But I cut back on all supplements and guess what - the horses are healthier. We have one horse with bad food allergies and bad insect allergies if he eats the wrong thing, and we feed only what he can eat, including the types of hay, so he can "have a life" in the pasture with the other horses. Alas I have to also mix up selenium tm salt with regular tm salt because almost all supplements have soy in it, besides generic "grains" which really does not agree with him. At all. I noticed the hoof quality of horses OFF of grains improved - we have a tough climate out here for hooves in the winter, with the moisture. My elder gelding's personality is MUCH better and less panic prone when he's off of commercial horse feeds. Wheat family proteins are not good for horses. Neither is raw soy, which contains something which inhibits the proteins from being fully digested. Many of those fancier, expensive horse feeds are full of ****, aka the milling/brewing leftovers from other production, plus a lot of molasses, and are just being pushed by slick marketing.

My very large adopted pound dog, who drools a lot, is very allergic to wheat, and we try to keep him and the one horse (his is barley, rye grass, soy, bermuda grass, etc) as far as possible away from any potential source of it, including the cat food.

I'm also allergic to a lot of hay, ( "irony" ) so I end up changing clothes a lot and worn clothing does not come into the bedroom - it stays out, in the mudroom. I change clothes again to ride and then change out of them afterwards, also, because otherwise I end up getting hay residue on the saddle pads and saddle itself, and that can welt me up if I carry it with a short sleeved shirt, if I do not rinse it off. (I turn on the hose and keep it nearby when I am working with any horses... ). I try to use biothane tack accessories because the stuff is so easily washable, and I'm also using neoprene waffle pads and girths in the summer because they can be rinsed or sponged off.