[China Doll]

Just curious if any one has heard anything regarding a lady that promotes these systems and all of her horses got deathly ill? She is posting on the CDL and in one post says 3 of her horses died and then a post a day or so later says that 2 died. Something about eating wheat. She has not updated any of her promotional info that it is deathly so not sure if she fed them something she wasn't supposed to or what happened.

[Judysmom]

I haven't heard anything, but maybe ergot poisoning?

[China Doll]

The wheat was poisionous so not sure why she was feeding them wheat. Sounds like the wheat absorbes the moisture and turns into a ball of goo that cannot be digested.

[Judysmom]

The wheat was poisionous so not sure why she was feeding them wheat. Sounds like the wheat absorbes the moisture and turns into a ball of goo that cannot be digested.

Weird. Like a gooey gluten ball?

Do I even want to ask why this person was experimenting with hydroponically growing horse food?

[deltawave]

More than likely if she was feeding sprouts they got contaminated with bacteria. It happens. Not sure what is meant by "poisonous" wheat.

[JB]

It's not the fault of hydroponics, it's the fault of whatever was being grown/fed.

Eating sprouts that have been sitting in the hopper at Panda Express for a few hours and becoming ill from it, doesn't mean it's the fault of the sprouts, but how they were grown and cared for. Possibly also even the kind.

[China Doll]

Weird. Like a gooey gluten ball?

Do I even want to ask why this person was experimenting with hydroponically growing horse food?

She actually promotes and sells the systems. That is what had me baffled that she is posting about these deaths on another list but not changed any info on her promotional sites or warning those people .
http://kekbfm.com/feed-your-livestock-hydroponically/
http://pets.dir.groups.yahoo.com/gro...age/1366?var=1

[mbm]

there was a big article in out local paper recently about growing your own horse feed hydroponically. it is an interesting idea - esp with hay prices over $20/bale.

i would be interested in knowing what went wrong.

[JB]

One of the systems someone posted on another board said it took 1lb of seed to make 6lb of forage. So, one could start some math to figure out the cost, but you also have to add in the time, the set up costs, fertilizer, etc, to see if it's cheaper than hay.

[CDE Driver]

If I remember correctly, she posted on the CD-L that the horses broke through a fence and got in to something they shouldn't have. What they ate turned in to that goo that made them sick and killed some of them.

So I think they ate something that they were not intended to eat.

Pretty sure she isn't negligent and uneducated about the subject.

[fivehorses]

I think you have misunderstood her posts on the cd-l.

They ate the wheat seed which from the gluten turns into goo and impacts.
It also dehydrated the horse.
It is not wheat but the seed which caused the proble
.
Do you have an issue with the person or hydroponics?
I ask because you have so grossly "misunderstood" and in a veiled attempt tried to disparage the person.

[Ghazzu]

One of the systems someone posted on another board said it took 1lb of seed to make 6lb of forage. So, one could start some math to figure out the cost, but you also have to add in the time, the set up costs, fertilizer, etc, to see if it's cheaper than hay.

Is that calculation on a DM or as fed basis?

[JB]

I don't know for sure, but based on the context it was as fed, "grass".

[Guilherme]

I fellow I know in AZ was looking at one of these systems. In his area rain is sparse and hay expensive. So he thought of this as a viable alternative. At the end of the day his cost for hydroponic grass was 6-10 times higher than buying hay on the open market.* The wide variation is based on market fluctuations not the relatively fixed costs of the hydro. system.

A healthy, normal, adult horse in light work will eat about 3% of its body weight in grass. Easy keepers a bit less, hard keepers a bit more. Looking at how the grass is produced you get a tray of grass, analogous to a flake of hay in size. That gives some idea of how many trays/day you'll have to "serve" (depending, of course, on the actual weight of the edible grass in the tray).

If I were a "prepper" getting ready for the zombie apocalypse (or whatever) I'd have one large ones of these things in a heartbeat. But for the average horse owner, even in a very arid climate where grass growing is difficult, they look like a very expensive answer to the questions about equine feeding.

G.

*He also noted that the salesman he dealt with was VERY "cagey" about actual costs of production. That made him nervous.

[CoolMeadows]

They are *crazy* expensive. This guy built his own system but you'd have a harder time with climate control: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hes3ZhvjtqY

[China Doll]

I think you have misunderstood her posts on the cd-l.

They ate the wheat seed which from the gluten turns into goo and impacts.
It also dehydrated the horse.
It is not wheat but the seed which caused the proble
.
Do you have an issue with the person or hydroponics?
I ask because you have so grossly "misunderstood" and in a veiled attempt tried to disparage the person.

Neither Trying to learn what happened as the posts just showed upabout horses dying and didn't say how it happened. I went back through the posts previously for a week or 2 and couldn't find anything about it. From my understanding the systems would be in a basement or greenhouse so I wondered what happened and the info was vague. If the seed is that dangerous I thought it would be appropriate to alert people as to that.
I did think it odd though that 3 horses stated to have died 1 week and the next week just 2 stated had died.

[fivehorses]

China doll, I think you need to go back and read the posts, since you have grossly misinterpreted them and added to misinformation about hydroponics.

[China Doll]

China doll, I think you need to go back and read the posts, since you have grossly misinterpreted them and added to misinformation about hydroponics.

Just curious if any one has heard anything regarding a lady that promotes these systems and all of her horses got deathly ill? She is posting on the CDL and in one post says 3 of her horses died and then a post a day or so later says that 2 died. Something about eating wheat. She has not updated any of her promotional info that it is deathly so not sure if she fed them something she wasn't supposed to or what happened.
As you can see from my post I wasn't sure what happpened so I did not grossly misinterpret anything. My point was that if someone that is knowledgeable has an accident like this I would be warning others as to the dangers so that care could be taken to avoid this happeneing to someone else. So if the horses got into something they should not have I am hoping steps would be taken to avoid that again. My guess is she didn't know the dangers of what they ate or more safety measures might have been taken and hopefully others will do the same. So if using the word poision was incorrect that was not intentional but if it is eaten and it can kill you then that is the word that comes to mind.