A numpty question about soaking hay.

LaurenBay

LaurenBay

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Ruby gets 2 small nets of a night, both are soacked for 30 minutes and then hung up to drip dry. If she is fed dry hay she coughs so does need the hay soaked (knowone has heard her cough in about a month since I have been soaking it)

Anyways its a bit of a pain as it takes about half hour to drip dry, otherwise it soaks her stable. I don't want it to ice over in the colder months! So my question is, does soaked hay need to be fed straight away?

I do my jobs in the morning, so always end up just waiting around at the yard for the hay. It would be easier to sock it in the morning whilst I do my jobs, then hang it on the fence to drip whilst I'm at work. Then all I have to do is tie in stable. Would that be ok?
 
Tried that and she picks them up and moves them! Lol its just a bit of a pain, as I just have to stand around and wait for the hay, don't get in til 8ish :(
 
Could you not have a third haynet..So you will always have a drip dried net?.One in to soak,one dried and ready to be fed and then the third just come out of the soak to be fed on the next feed.
 
Soaking hay works because it causes the dust and mould spores to stick to the hay rather than floating around and into your horse's airway. If the hay then drys out the spores will once again get into the air. I tie my horse's hay nets to a ring over their doors so the drips drain away out of the stable; keeps them interested in the comings and goings while they eat too.
 
I put the hay in to soak as soon as I get to the yard in the evening. It gets a minimum of 30 mins while I do jobs, 10 mins draining and then hung up in her stable still dripping. I then shove a couple of handfuls of shavings under it and this absorbs the drips quite well (I just take the shavings from the dirtier bit of bed at the back of her stable as I kind of rotate and replace bedding.

If you soak in the morning and she is inclined to cough then the hay may well dry too much and the dust still go into her airway - I guess you could just trial this especially as now it is colder the hay will stay damp for longer. The soaking doesn't remove nearly all of the dust - it removes some and the rest swells so that the particles sit on the hay and go into her stomach rather than being breathed into her airway. At least, this is what I have been taught.

Cross posted with Cortez!
 
Couldnt you steam it instead? My boy usually has haylage but had to go onto hay at the end of one winter and he coughed on it dry too. So instead of soaking it and risking icy patches on the yard(as we had to hose rather than dunk) i got an old feed bin and poured a kettle of water on before i started mucking out and making feeds etc. It was so much easier :)
 
Couldnt you steam it instead? My boy usually has haylage but had to go onto hay at the end of one winter and he coughed on it dry too. So instead of soaking it and risking icy patches on the yard (as we had to hose rather than dunk) i got an old feed bin and poured a kettle of water on before i started mucking out and making feeds etc. It was so much easier :)
 
Didn't think to put some mucky shavings underneath! Will give that a try :) thank you.

If I soaked in the morning then hun to dry it would roughly be fed 8 hours after soaking. Although in this weather I very much doubt it would totally dry off. If she leaves any hay it is usually still wet from the night before.
 
If you do not need to feed from a net you could soak the hay in a trug and then pour the water away and feed her the hay in the trug. She may move it around but probably only once empty. I started doing this because I had a pony with dodgy teeth who could no longer use a haynet and it worked well for her. She was quite tidy though and would never have moved it far.
 
I'm another who soaks hay net for about 15mins in the morning (9am) then leaves it to drain until pony is brought in (5/6pm). Ours are soaked & drained in a big tin sink kind of thing xx
 
I'm another who leaves hay draining all day ready to feed in the evening. Even in the coldest weather it only freezes on the very outside and a couple of hard drops on the floor breaks the small amount of ice.
 
Thanks for all your replies.

I am going to soak it in the mornings for the rest of the week and keep a close eye, if she begins to cough, will go with the mucky shavings underneath to drain.
 
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