Hay soaking for dust and weight control

HoHum

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I need to soak both for dust and to reduce calories in hay. I've read many different views on length of time to soak and implications of keeping wet hay hanging around before feeding
I can't steam, no electricity
It is a sizeable amount as turnout reduced due to wet ground so still in slices from bale, ie tightly packed. I always think takes ages for water to get into middle.
As a big lump, also takes ages to drain enough to tie in stable.
Currently soaking overnight, draining and feeding most following night, some the following morning.
But horse is coughing, although no discharge and a history of winter cough.
Even though its winter could the relatively mild weather mean that soaking too long and draining too long is causing an issue.?
I'm limited to how I change things as full time working and on DIY, so limited time morning or evening, but any ideas, gratefully received.
 

holeymoley

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An hour is the minimum I would soak for to remove sugars etc. There’s really not much more benefit for going over a few hours as it then begins to sit in its own rubbish and go bad. Especially in warmer weather it will turn quickly. Are you using small squares or the huge big square bales? They are a nightmare. Smalls are easier to split up in to batches. Haycubes are good too!
 

be positive

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I have never found it takes ages to get the water in or out from sections of hay however tightly packed unless the hay is badly made and has become damp and mouldy so it will not pull apart, in which case it should not be fed soaked or not, it does need to be well rinsed through after removing from the water and the water must be changed after each use, if I soak it tends to be overnight for day time use or all day to use in the evening, it is never an issue in winter and rarely too hot in summer to be of concern.

In my experience with horses that have an ongoing cough they are usually 100% better by changing to haylage rather than soaking hay, it may not help the weight issue but it is easier to work the weight off a healthy horse than to deal with one doing damage to its lungs that eventually requires expensive treatments to help.
 

GoldenWillow

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I have a horse with equine asthma as COPD now seems to be called. Soaking hay didn't work for him, swapping him to haylage and he has no problems through the winter. He also reacts badly to pollen and needs meds to control it then. What bedding are you using?
 

HoHum

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It's small bale hay, quality is OK, apart from dust.
Bedding is shavings, stable completely mucked out every day and de cobwebed every few weeks.
I have tried haylage in past and it sent him loopy, but maybe there are newer, less sugary options?
Turnout is between 3 and 8hrs per day, dictated by farmer depending on ground conditions. Usually I turn out, but have to get friends or family to bring in as its mid afternoon. I usually have some hay in stable to cover time until I get there in evening, when I then put in enough til morning.
The hay cubes look similar to home made way I am doing it, my difficulty is timing I think. If it goes in to soak in morning for an hour whilst I'm doing stables and riding, it is then sitting around for up to 24hr as damp hay.
But in evening I would need to wait for an hrs soaking plus draining time, but maybe this is just what it has to be.
 

MyBoyChe

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Im soaking mine for the same reasons as you. I put a net in the soaker at night if I need it for the morning, and pop one in it in the morning for the evening feed. I leave a single section of hay in the stable in case my friend brings him in before I get there at night. I use one of those heavy duty plastic water troughs as a soaker, fill a hay net and dunk it in, turning it over so it all gets wet. I tip the whole thing over to drain the water out then tie the net on a gate and chuck a bucket of water over it to rinse off the sugary water. If you cant hang the net to drain, balance it on a water bucket and the water will soon run off, usually takes about 10 mins. They are heavy but I can usually manage to drag it into situ then give it a shove up with my knee. Each net will be in soak between 9 and 12 hours and as long as they are rinsed off they are doing the trick
 

Lucky788

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I used a really good equine America supplement airways extra to help alongside soaking and that helped my cob with his winter cough
 

irishdraft

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I soak a small bale in a bath for about an hour am then pull the plug & leave to drain & feed in evening it's always soaked thru
 

PurBee

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Vitamin e for a coughing horse, worth trying as its low in winterd due to less turn out, and not in hay, and in very inadequate amounts in most balancers.

I use hot water mix with cold to soak. I first use pure hot water to spray all over the hay and kill spores, then i have hot and cold filling up until hay covered. 5 mins, i squish it up and down, pull out, rinse with water spray and hang up...5-10 drain time, and fed straight away.

When i use cold water only 1 hour soak will turn the water colour reddish. Indicating sugars leached out.
When i left it longer, i was worried of leaching everything out and wasting nutrition completely. Also it smelt ‘fermented having soaked longer. If kept draining overnight to feed in morning same yukky fermented smell, so i stopped long soaking and long draining times.
I certainly wouldnt soak for more than 2 hours.

I now just soak, if just cold water, one hour, then drain 10 mins, and feed straight away.

If i have to soak hay due to ‘dust’ i dont consider that quality hay to be honest.
‘Dust’ is a term interchangeable with mould. If hay is mouldy on outside of bale i rip that off and dont feed it, leaving a 15kg bale down to 12kg. I weigh all bales and never ever have had a 20kg bale. Best has been 18kg, 2 end pieces mouly immediately thrown, outside mouldy and thrown leaving 14kg. Small square bales are a con in my opinion. So expensive for what you end up with.

If there’s mould in the middle of the flakes, its thrown and not fed. Not worth it...for the health issues mould ingestion causes, aside from breathing difficulties.

For the time, effort and energy of obtaining, transporting, handling, moving and storing and then soaking, draining before actually feeding hay - its cheaper and more time effective to buy grass nuts, haylage and other bagged dry mould free forage in tonne bulk pallets if mould is a consistent issue with your hay supply. Im not implying it is for you. It is for me, and maybe others on here.

If you live in an area where outside humidity is over 70% all year round, keeping hay dry and mould free is impossible in standard storage barns, the outside always goes mouldy.
Sometimes it feels like i throw away more hay than i feed!

Ive worked out the costs constantly, and time/labour...price per kilo to feed 12kg bale hay is 33 cents/pence...not including costs/time of many days of fetching it from all over the country, stacking/handling and storing it, sorting through it, checking for weeds, throwing it out, soaking it etc.
haylage is 30-40cents depending on supplier. No storage issues, its compressed. Doesnt go mouldy. Split bag, weigh and feed. (Haylage needs introducing really slowly switching from hay as it promotes a different hindgut bacterial balance, so a sudden change to haylage will cause behavioural issues due to the environment of the gut rapidly undergoing a change in bacteria, the fermentation of haylage uses up sugars to ferment, hence the sweet smell due to this exchange of sugars being eaten by fermenting bacteria, so is actually lower in sugars than meadow hay)
Bagged pellets of grass/hay - a tonne on a pallet...delivered. 40-50p per kilo depending on supplier. The bonus being many many days per year free time to actually enjoy the horse, and a healthier horse!

Today ive spent hours removing tonne bags of ‘rejected’ hay from the past 6 weeks of hay use. Its pure mould on the outside leaves of round bales, and the ends. A 200kg bale, 100kg rejected, costing 35euro each, and im having to soak what i can use. 35 cents per kilo not including transportation costs, time handling/sorting etc etc.
Its okay once in a while but throughout the year becomes a pile the same size as my muck heap!

Tonne price of hay to soak is 350. I need 5 tonnes per year, yet transport 10 tonnes, to throw away 5!
I’ve spent 800 a tonne happily on compressed bagged hay just to free up time and money, than deal with conventionally made sub-quality hay costs.

Save time and money and improve health of horse, by obtaining the best quality forage. Work out your actual money and time/fuel/vehicle transportation costs dealing with variable quality hay verses buying in bagged forage - its an eye-opener!
 

PurBee

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Regarding excess weight of your horse and wanting to reduce calories.
If the horse is just on forage and no concentrates and finding weight hard to shift no matter what, you could look into the minerals shes getting in the diet.

My mare was prone to fat, fat pad shoulders and tail fat pad that wouldnt shift, just being on forage, and the minimum of 1.5% BW. I was soaking hay, reducing turnout, nothing worked regarding me changing her forage amount or sugar levels, fat pads remained.

Then while looking into minerals on horse nutrition websites and reading articles from equine nutritionists from the uk primarily, many saying uk and eire have high iron in soil, so the hay and grass is high in iron, throwing out mineral balance in horses. i sought to balance this high iron load with other minerals suggested by industry ratio recommendations, as high iron without adequate other minerals in a ratio causes mineral imbalances. My mare also is black, but she wasn’t exactly black, more tinged red. She’s homogenous black so shouldnt be anything but. Another indication of copper inbalance.

When i added copper, zinc to her diet, and magnesium oxide, the black returned to her coat, and as a side effect, her fat pads disappeared and she now actually loses weight, like a normal horse should if on restricted diet/calories!
I was amazed, this issue of her weight was ongoing for 4yrs.
She was on a hay mineral balancer before adding the additional minerals but that also had iron in it, and very low levels of magnesium, copper and zinc, in comparison to the hugely high levels of iron.

My gelding being grey also got the same mineral balancing, and dapples appeared for the first time ever, and he put on weight, being prone to being skinny!

So it seems mineral balancing will help both underweight aswell as overweight prone horses.
I changed nothing else at all except minerals.
 

Leo Walker

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Regarding excess weight of your horse and wanting to reduce calories.
If the horse is just on forage and no concentrates and finding weight hard to shift no matter what, you could look into the minerals shes getting in the diet.

So it seems mineral balancing will help both underweight aswell as overweight prone horses.
I changed nothing else at all except minerals.

That hasnt been my experience across multiple horses feed very low iron diets with balanced mineral supplements, and its not something I have heard anyone else say, so I'd be very, very vary of suggesting minerals will aid weight loss.

If I was getting hay that needed the ends throwing away due to mould every time I'd find a different supplier!

OP can you feed your horse the small high fibre bagged haylage? I used that and chopped straw when I needed to get weight off mine previously.
 

HoHum

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I have considered grass nuts and /or a mollichaff type product to reduce the amount of hay needed daily, But I think that I need to further consider some more bulk products like LW suggests. Not seen chopped straw for sale at usual supplier, will investigate that too

My haylage would have come from the farm, hence my thought it could be rocket fuel.
 
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