SolveYourProblem.com Article Series: Horse Care
Teach Me Horse Care Tips
How
Do I Choose the Best Hay for My Horse?
If you were to ask your neighbor what they
think the best hay for horses would be, you would get their
answer. If you then went to another neighbor and asked the
same question, you would get another answer. If you did this
ten times, you most likely would end up with ten different
answers. Maybe if you were lucky, one or two of those answers
might be the same. The same principal applies to buying hay.
There are as many different opinions on the best
hay for your horse as there are owners. The final decision should be based
on your horses age and nutritional requirements, which you
can find out from talking with your veterinarian. In addition,
consider what the activity level is of the horse. An example
would be, a mature horse will eat up to 2.5 percent of its
body weight per day. If your horse were a 1000 pounds they
would eat a minimum of ten pounds of hay per day.
Horses
have a natural instinct to graze continuously. To allow
this would not be healthy for them, so one way to ease the
desire to nibble constantly is to provide a high quality grain.
Choices of hay come in either grasses or legumes (alfalfa and
clover are examples of legume). You could purchase hay that
is a combination of these two. There are several factors that
go into the nutrition value and whether or not your horse will
enjoy the taste such as weed content, soil conditions, plant
species, and plant maturity at harvest, moisture content, and
method of storage.
If you have young growing horses, lactating mares, and performance
horses you may want to feed them legumes because they tend
to be higher in protein, calcium, vitamins and energy than
grass hays are. However, not all horses need this rich of alfalfa so you may also want to consider purchasing a mix of alfalfa
and grasses or alfalfa that has been harvested earlier in the
plants stage of maturity. If a young horse receives too much
nutrients they may be predisposed to developmental bone disease.
If you provide your horse with hay that has a high mineral
content you may find them drinking more water so be prepared
for frequent cleanings of their stall.
Grass
hays are a good choice for adult horses because they
are lower in protein and energy and higher in fiber. This combination
can curb the horse’s appetite and still provide the necessary
roughage thus maintaining the appropriate calories and protein.
You may want to consider adding a fortified grain concentrate
to guarantee that your horse is receiving the required percentage
of crude protein. Common grasses used for adult hay include
Timothy, brome and oat, along with others.
People evaluate hay differently. Most prefer to buy hay based
on how it feels, smells and looks, but that may leave out some
important considerations that are valuable to your horse’s
nutritional needs. Ask to look inside one of the bales that
the hay came from. You are looking for good quality hay. If
the hay smells moldy or fermented, that is not a good sign. You can tell the level of maturity by looking at the leaves,
stems and flowers or seedpods. Definitely avoid hay that has
excess dirt, weeds or debris. If you are purchasing alfalfa,
be careful to examine for beetles. If the bales appear excessively
heavy or warm to the touch, that is a sign that they contain
excess moisture and that is a definite problem you want to
avoid.
One of the biggest challenges in buying hay is to find
it free of dust and particles. Dust in hay can come from mold
spores and usually not from dusty roads. If your horse were
to fed hay that contained dust it could cause allergies and
inflammation in the respiratory tract and with repeat exposure
your horse could develop damage to their lungs. When considering
the best type of hay to feed your horse remember that the hay
makes up the majority of your horse’s diet so spend time picking
out quality hay that meets the dietary needs as specified by
your veterinarian. Hay is important to your horse, so seek
a high quality to met their nutritional needs. #
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SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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