Could feeding this years hay now harm my horse?

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Princess P

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Strange numpty question...

One of my horses is a real fuss pot when it comes to hay (well he was last winter, I only got him last summer so could have just been last years rubbish hay weather...).

I am keen to find some hay he will eat for the winter asap so I can stock up. Am getting some to try at the weekend, it's this years hay so won't be 'ready' until late Aug / early Sept, which is when the yard make us bring in so I want to be sorted by then.

Will it harm him if I give him some to try, and if I do give him some and he does like it, is the taste etc likely to change when it is 'ready'?
 
I own a large hay farm so here's a handy tip. Grass is grass. Hay is hay. Not sure what you mean by 'ready', if it's hay that has been cut, baled and stored correctly then it's hay and can be fed now.
 
6 weeks "curing" time is traditional (in the States hay is baled so dry that it rarely "heats" or goes mouldy or fusty like it can here, so it is safe to feed right away), but if you can mix it with some of last years hay or even some clean straw it should be OK. Oh, and feeding it now won't tell you if your horse "likes" it as it will be quite different after being in the bale for a while. If it smells sweet and isn't dusty, mouldy or hard then it should be good; when the grass is gone he will eat it in the winter as long as it is well made and stored.
 
Mine still have the odd pile of last years hay. I have a couple of bales left and if they have to stand in for whatever reason they eat it. Once they start going off it that's my cue to chuck it out. They're horses - if they are put off by it I know it's no good.
 
Feeding this years hay, baled last week, to my horse. Hay is dry and made very quickly in a heatwave. Some lovely hay made this year and ready to eat.
 
I am speaking as a farmers daughter and I really can't see the logic in this old wives tale. Correctly made hay should be dry when baled. This is why there tends to be quite a blitz on haymaking when we get a week of good weather forecast. As already said, hay is hay, grass is grass. There is nothing that happens to hay in the 6 weeks after baling that would make it any less risky to feed than the day it is baled. The only risk I can think of is that horses being horses may gorge on the fresh, tasty stuff so, like any new feed it should be introduced gradually. Feeding a section or so to 'test' certainly won't do any harm at all..
 
I thought you were meant to wait at least 3 months before feeding new hay? I was led to believe the sugars in it slowly decrease over time, hence if you feed it too soon then it can trigger laminitis and colic. I've always gone by that anyway... you can see how green new hay is when its baled and sweet it smells, it goes browner and duller smelling the longer you leave it so something must change within it.
 
sugar content as far as i know does decrease over time in hay, so you would tend to give lamanitic's older hay or soak it, however, don't see how hay freshly cut is worse than them being on the high sugar grass they graze in the spring and with all this sun.
 
Thanks for replies everyone. I spoke to the farmer yesterday and he said it won't be ready to feed for several weeks, but it sound like it won't hurt to test a bit. :-)
 
So out of interest, if a farmer advises not to feed his baled hay until after a specific timescale does that mean he is not baling it properly? Could he be baling it too quickly, maybe before the bad weather comes? But if he left it out to dry out properly it could be eaten straight away?

Just curious!
 
Princess P said:
Thanks for replies everyone. I spoke to the farmer yesterday and he said it won't be ready to feed for several weeks, but it sound like it won't hurt to test a bit. :-)
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If he said that he knows something probably teamed it down during the drying time, hopefully unlike like my neighbour he didn't cut and bale the same day:(
 
I recently bought a few bales of this years hay which I was told not to feed for at least 6 weeks. I ignored and introduced slowly, all fine (my boy is laminitic so I am careful and fully aware of the impact that feeding can have on him) bhowever I got to the third bale and it was pretty much solid and mouldy all the way through. obviously baled slightly damp. thought it strange but when same farmer came to make hay at the yard I realised why. he didn't turn the hay between cutting and rowing it up for baling, so it was dry on top but damp underneath (even in this heat) don't they teach them how to do it properly these days?? I'm sure my dad was out there turning it on a daily basis between cutting and baling!!
 
my farmer cut hay a couple of weeks ago and the horses stopped to test it a couple of days later and they were fine, they've both given him the seal of approval!
 
heebiejeebies said:
So out of interest, if a farmer advises not to feed his baled hay until after a specific timescale does that mean he is not baling it properly? Could he be baling it too quickly, maybe before the bad weather comes? But if he left it out to dry out properly it could be eaten straight away?

Just curious!
Click to expand...
Well being a hay farmer it would certainly raise a red flag if anyone said that to me. If they said it because it's 'traditional' to leave bales for however long, then I'd suggest they get an education about making hay. Any decent hay farmer should have a moisture/heat probe and check the hay before they even consider baling it. They should also do random checks on their bales. We make thousands of bales of hay each year and every single one is handled and checked before being stacked and offered for sale. Any that are borderline never make it to the stacks in our barns. They are stored completely separately in another barn and are not offered for sale. We seed our hay fields down with alfalfa and trefoil so once in a while there may be a bunch of alfalfa in the outer rounds which are shaded for longer during the days and don't get so much wind. Alfalfa in particular takes far longer to dry than the grass species we grow so more care needs to be taken over here than may be necessary compared to the UK hay growers who just grow grasses in their hay meadows. Grass hay fields are kinda simple to know when the cut hay is ready to be baled though so there really isn't a valid excuse for dodgy hay as most hay farmers are in tune with the 'feel' of the weather and are addicted to weather forecast channels ... or is that just me?! :)
 
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I once rread article regarding feeding new hay by a too vet . His comment was "the only thing that needs to be left to mature is a good wine not hay " as others have said if cut and baled correctly it will be fine but as with any "new" delivery of hay or new feed introduced gradually to be safe.
 
I always feed our new hay pretty much straight away but ours is never baled until it is totally dry and have been known to turn up to 6 times to achieve this. By the time it goes into a bale it is yellow with a slight greenish tinge then doesn't really change from that all winter. I just treat it like any new feed and introduce gradually and I soak it well for the laminnitic. Only time I would possibly concerned is if you have a horse that colic's at the slightest excuse then would just introduce very gradually. Being a farmers wife I strongly suspect that the old wives tale originated from farmers needing to sell the last of their old hay first! You know- you can't feed this lovely new stuff now so you need to buy the last few musty bales from the back of the barn. Not a problem for us as we have a stock man who buys any surplus I don't deem fit for the horses.
 
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