Feeding Grain Safely to Horses: Cooked vs Uncooked and Why It Matters (a lot!) for Gut Health

Podcast #45

Grains are one of those ingredients that get demonised in the horse world… or fed completely on autopilot. And neither is an ideal situation.

In this episode of the Happy Horse Nutrition Podcast, Dr Nerida digs deep into her PhD research and explains why grain itself isn’t bad — it’s more like a power tool. Used well, in the right horse, grains are incredibly useful. Used carelessly (wrong type, wrong form, wrong amount), and grains can rapidly destroy hindgut health… and in severe cases, even cause death.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why the real issue is starch, and why starch must be digested in the small intestine (and not dumped into the hindgut)

• How uncooked/poorly processed grains can drive hindgut acidosis, microbial dysbiosis, leaky gut, inflammation, behaviour changes, colic and laminitis risk

• Why cracking, grinding, and soaking don’t solve the core problem

• What “cooked grain” actually means and why extrusion tends to win on digestibility

• Where oats fit and why uncooked corn/maize is a hard no!

• Which horses should avoid grain altogether (including insulin dysregulation/PPID/EMS, PSSM/tying up) vs when grain is genuinely helpful (including thoroughbred racehorses, high-performance athletes)

Grans are incredibly useful ingredients IF you know how to safely feed them. This episode helps you understand why grains are often unsafe AND how to make them safe to feed in appropriate situations. 

Want to see how your current feeding program stacks up for gut health? Pop your horse’s diet into MyHappy.Horse and check the gut health score (7-day free trial availabile): https://apps.apple.com/app/myhappy-horse/id6633422324  

If this helped, share it with a horsey friend who’s feeding grain “because that’s what we’ve always done” — and hit follow so you don’t miss the next episode. 🐴💛