Alfalfa

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SWE

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What are peoples experience? I've only really heard the bad stories of feeding it but there must be some people who have had good experiences?

If you have fed it why did you chose it and what experience did you have??
 
I feed to my yearling welsh d and it makes absolutely no difference to his temperament. He’s been off it and on it twice now whilst I was tweaking feeds and there was no change in his temperament at all.

My friend also uses it to keep weight on her 16.3 late teens BWB again no issues with his behaviour or his barefeet :)

I had a cereal intolerant horse and alfalfa was pretty much the staple of his diet along with grassnuts and beetpulp. Again no issues with behaviour but helped with his weight.
 
In all my years I’ve only ever had one horse react badly and yes it turned him into a spooky idiot.

I think it’s a great base bucket fibre for working horses
 
It's a great food if your horse isn't reactive to it. Until I had one which is, I thought people were exaggerating. I know better now I've seen his eyes turn manic after getting 100 grams of the stuff! I'm surprised he doesn't grow horns too 😁. I've fed plenty of others with it with no effect at all.
 
SWE said:
What are peoples experience? I've only really heard the bad stories of feeding it but there must be some people who have had good experiences?

If you have fed it why did you chose it and what experience did you have??
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I had a WelshDxTB mare who we found was extremely intolerant of cereals and molasses. 30 years ago it was very difficult to find anything else to feed her on but we managed to get some alfalfa cobs, imported from Canada. It worked very well for her but we have had other mares who could not tolerate alfalfa, so we don't generally use it now. Horses digestive systems aren't really adapted to deal with legumes.
 
I fed it in HiFi ok to my EMS pony for years, but as Alfa A, it was a no. Footy within a day. My mare turned into an over reactive lunatic even in HiFi Lite, so I stopped feeding it full stop, so I could give them the same feed.
 
I fed alfa A successfully to a string of competition ponies and hunters over several years. Never had a single sensitivity. (And in that time I had 2 seroiusly feed sensitive lads) It worked really well and I would have no hesitation in reccommending it. I do now have a Connie Hunter who happily ate Alfa A for about 2 years before developing threshold sensitivity but he is the only one. I have no doubt that sensitivity exisst and if you have it then it is real pain. But also I think a fair few folk blame the feed when it isn't the real source. I've known several folk who claim their horses are sensitive to Alfa yet are someone able to continue a compound feed containing it.
 
I fed alfalfa for years, including as hay and had no problems with it, but my present horse started itching like crazy.... This was with HiFi.
 
I feed Alfalfa/lucerne hay as its called here every winter, its grown locally. Never had a problem with it and its great for keeping condition on and very palatable, however I know some horses don't tolerate it. Lucerne hay requires quite a skilled hay maker and decent weather. If staying away at competitions I will usually take it to mix with meadow hay as my horse will eat it up as its so tasty.
 
Mine is on a bit of Alfa a at the moment and hasn’t shown any changes in behaviour. What are the signs if they are sensitive to it?
 
Bernster said:
Mine is on a bit of Alfa a at the moment and hasn’t shown any changes in behaviour. What are the signs if they are sensitive to it?
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The odd one will get lumpy/itchy and/or they get really daft/spooky/hyper reactive.

It’s pretty uncommon though, I had a very feed reactive mare who basically went bat-shit on most things, including linseed etc, but Alfa was my safe go to for her!
 
One of mine is grass allergic so could only be fed alternatives (until I worked out which species of grass was the problem). I fed HiFi Lite by the tub trug full, Horsehage alfalfa, and sugar beet as her entire diet. She was fine on it.
I have since found the problem grass is ryegrass, so give her timothy, and meadow hay as well as alfalfa which makes life much easier, though.
 
My mare itches like made on alfalfa. However, I have fed it to several other horses with no problem at all.
 
I can't feed it it at all as my lad gets behavioural issues, becomes very itchy and it triggers his head shaking symptoms. However, he has issues regulating potassium, which causes a whole host of issues unless treated and managed!
 
Have fed dozens of horses and ponies on it and it has been the best feed ever never had a reaction to it yet. It is great for growing youngsters and hard working adults
 
My Arab has no behavioural problems on it but it seems to flare up his skin sensitivities. He has been much better since I've eliminated it, got to be careful though because many horse treats contain it
 
I fed Alfa A Oil (plus a few other things) to put weight on my ribby TB over the winter and it did wonders! She was a bit of a prat to ride at times, but I think that was more due to being in overnight and the sheer volume of hard feed I was shoveling into her, rather than the alfalfa itself.
 
I've fed alfalfa , usually alfa a oil, for years and really like it. The only problem I've had was that it got stuck in my old pony's diastemas so I had to change to a pelleted , short fibre one.
 
I have used it for years, especially on TBs, and am currently feeding it to my 2yr old for its calcium content. However my new horse is sensitive to it and gets vasculitis on it. The 2yr old knocked his bucket over the other day, new pony hoovered up and now has a patch on her white sock. I think I may have to switch the 2yr old to sugar beet instead to avoid that happening again.
 
Brownmare said:
I have used it for years, especially on TBs, and am currently feeding it to my 2yr old for its calcium content. However my new horse is sensitive to it and gets vasculitis on it. The 2yr old knocked his bucket over the other day, new pony hoovered up and now has a patch on her white sock. I think I may have to switch the 2yr old to sugar beet instead to avoid that happening again.
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That’s interesting, my cob has recently started on it and I noticed today he has a few patches of what I initially thought was mud fever, even though we have no mud, on his white socks. Didn’t connect the 2 things at all, will swop him back to beet and see what happens, very useful, thanks :)
 
I know this thread is a few months old but thought i’d pip in with some info as I’ve been looking into alfalfa for my horses.

The fizziness caused by alfalfa could be due to feeding it suddenly without introducing it to the diet very slowly. It’s easy to think it’s just another forage source and we can just start feeding kilo’s of it, yet the difference is huge with alfalfa due to the way the proteins are digested compared to grass hays.
Grass hays proteins get mostly broken down in the small intestine, some in the large. Whereas with alfalfa only around 30% of the protein content (which is higher than grass hays) gets broken down in the small intestine, with the remaining majority of protein broken down in the large intestine by microbes to feed on.

As we know with horses, anything , food, medication etc which drastically alters their gut microbes will cause symptoms of behavioral change, stool changes, more gas, colic and also the tell-tale sign of gut change/imbalance is heat in the feet, and soreness, footings, laminitis attacks to full blown ‘founder’ depending on severity of imbalance. You wouldn’t notice the initial subtle heat feet changes so much with shod horses, unless it was a severe sudden case. My leisure horses are barefoot and I’ve noticed them become more footy even with a change of grass hays!

So alfalfa will suddenly alter their gut microbe balance due to the way the proteins are digested.
Due to their digestive system being so huge, a sudden change in microbes reacting due to feed change really is horrible for horses to go through. It’s like us humans suddenly changing our diets, our gut microbes change and we bloat, get gas etc, solely due to us not yet having ‘grown’ the right microbes to consume that food. It doesn’t mean the food is bad for us, it’s just that we don’t have the right microbes or amount of microbes to digest that food.
All food is broken down initially by acids, in the stomach, then microbes extract the goodness from the food in the digestive tracts.

For laminitics, alfalfa has great low sugars...very low compared to grass hay, and should be a good option. It’s high protein content from 16-20% is much higher than grass hays of 6-10%. Proteins repair the entire body and are a fuel, carbs are a fuel only.

It seems that alfalfa shouldn’t be fed to horses as their ONLY forage option however due to the high calcium to phosphorus ratio UP TO to 8:1.....some being lower than this.
Beet pulp is equally terrible with having an extremely high calcium compared to phosphorus content...despite is being good fiber.
Both of these feeds would need a serious addition of phosphorus to the diet to balance this foundational health ratio.

Sport horses can seem to reduce their performance by being fed high amounts of alfalfa due to the amines from the proteins releasing heat, causing initial bursts of energy, but the side effect is high ammonia production, hindering the energy system, and slowing down their ‘peak athletic metabolism’. This would be seen more in horses fed 40+% of their diet in alfalfa.

The take-home message I’m getting from all the research I’ve done so far on alfalfa is that it’s a great addition to the horses diet, certainly for growth of young horses, lactating mares, starvation cases, weight gain, but should definitely not be their ONLY forage source no matter the type of horse, eating 10+ kilo’s a day, primarily due to the high imbalance of calcium to phosphorus and the protein metabolism difference compared to other forages.

If feeding 2% body weight in forage a 500kg horse, that’s 10kg forage, just maintenance, no ‘work’. I wouldn’t feed more than 2kg alfalfa. Yet due to hays being so low in protein the additional alfalfa would give a nice boost without wrecking their Calcium/phosphorus ratio. A horse in light work is probably needing 15kg, so 4kg of alfalfa could be given.

I know we like to keep feeding horses simple but the truth is that for any mammals, us included, ‘mono-diet’ of only one food ingredient will always yield health issues. So just ryegrass hay/haylage, or just alfalfa is not the way to go. A mix of grasses is what horses eat when wild, aswell as barks, berries, tree leaves, herbs etc, so trying to mimic that diet, to provide adequate energy for what we demand of them, is the best way.
 
I guess that horses like everything else may have allergic reactions to things but basically it is a great fibre feed for those that are not. I do however agree that a lot of problems occur when only one type of food is available and would never exclusively use alfalfa or any other food
 
Feeding Alpha A to my tb at the moment and no difference in his behaviour and looks good on it. Sometimes he will pick out his mix from his feed, eat a little of the alpha then turn to his net. I tip the rest out for him then and he will eat the rest through the night.
 
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