Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter Archives

Linseed meal

From: Stan

Dear Jessica, let me add myself to the list of your fans. I hope to meet you in person someday. It's hard for me to believe that any one person can be so well-informed about everything to do with horses, but then I remember my own grandfather, who was our county's "old, wise horseman" and the man everyone came to with their horse questions. Grand-daddy would sit on a bench after church and folks would come to pay their respects and ask him questions about horses. He always answered patiently even if the question was, let's say, ignorant! I hope you don't take it wrong if I say that you remind me of him.

I was thinking about Grand-daddy the other day when my daughter mentioned that she needed to put a shine on her horse. I suggested linseed meal, because that's what my Grand-daddy always told folks to use on their horses, and I saw how well it worked on our farm horses. Cindy tells me that there's nothing special about linseed meal for shining up a coat, and she wants to use rice bran instead. Now it seems to me that bran wouldn't do much for a shiny coat, or am I missing something here? I certainly don't remember Grand-daddy ever telling us to feed bran, unless we were feeding straight alfalfa instead of mixed hay. I'm not sure why he wanted us to do that, but the horses always looked good.

How about it Jessica, can you tell me what the story is with linseed meal? Will it or won't it make a shiny coat, and shouldn't it be better than bran?

Thanks, and keep up the good work! Your fan, Stan (I'm a poet and don't know it)

Hi Stan! Thanks for the compliment; that means a lot to me. I'm sure the whole county was grateful to have your grandfather's help with their horses.

Your grandfather and your daughter are both right. ;-) That is to say, things have changed! In your grandfather's day, linseed meal WAS a great way to put extra oil into a horse's diet and an extra shine on a horse's coat. That's because in those days, the oil was extracted through a mechanical process, and it just couldn't get all the oil out of the flax seeds. The oil that stayed in the meal made the linseed meal riche and oiler than other meals. Your grandfather was right -- for his time.

But that's not true today. The process of removing oils has changed, and now it's done with solvents, which do a fine job of getting all the oils out of the flax seeds. Nowadays, linseed meal won't put any more of a shine on a horse's coat than meal from any other oilseed. So your daughter is right too, for her time. ;-)

Your grandfather was also right about feeding bran only when also feeding straight alfalfa -- this provides a good calcium-phosphorous balance. The bran your daughter is talking about is different -- it can still be used to help balance the minerals for a horse that's getting straight alfalfa, but it's also an excellent source of fat. Stabilized rice bran can indeed put a good shine on a horse's coat. Wheat bran won't do that. ;-)

Jessica

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