Hay steamer

S

sam72431

Well-Known Member
Joined
4 April 2008
Messages
971
Location
Hampshire
Visit site
Sorry if this has been asked a million times before but how do you make a home made one? I've tried boiling kettle and putting hay in an old chaff bag but the steam doesn't get right into the middle! So is there a more effective way without spending ££££? Thanks
 
i am lucky enough to have a large haygain steamer amazing piece of kit well worth the money , before that we had a dustbin with a hole drilled in bottom and attached a wallpaper stripper hose worked really well and the strippers are really quite cheap
 
Not meaning to divert the topic, but I'm fascinated with the different way people manage their horses in the northern hemisphere, compared with here in South Africa. Soaking hay/steaming hay: I've read about it and please excuse my ignorance but I'm not sure why it's done. I asked our vet this today, by chance, and he's never heard of hay being soaked here.

Please would some kind person tell me a bit about it? I'd appreciate it, as it's a bit of a mystery for me (as is most of the universe!)
 
AH - we soak or steam hay for different reasons :)

With horses that suffer breathing probs (ie COPD) soaking or steaming hay swells the spores that cause coughing/irritation so they attach to the hay stem rather than being loose in the hay (which is the irritant)

If you soak hay for 12hours it removes all the sugars, so is more suitable for fatties/laminitic sufferers - sadly steaming doesn't have this benefit, but after falling over countless times on the ice trying to soak La's hay (and ending up with hay lollipop :rolleyes:) we've decided steaming is the way forward! Hot hay!

Someone should be able to give more detailed explanation, but that's a quick summary :) Or am happy to be corrected if wrong! :)
 
Ancient Hacker said:
Not meaning to divert the topic, but I'm fascinated with the different way people manage their horses in the northern hemisphere, compared with here in South Africa. Soaking hay/steaming hay: I've read about it and please excuse my ignorance but I'm not sure why it's done. I asked our vet this today, by chance, and he's never heard of hay being soaked here.

Please would some kind person tell me a bit about it? I'd appreciate it, as it's a bit of a mystery for me (as is most of the universe!)
Click to expand...

soaking/ steaming hay is done to remove /kill off dust and any mould spores and helps reduce respiratory problems in horses
soaking for 12 hrs or so can also help to reduce sugars in the hay and make it safer to feed to fat ponies / laminitics
 
dd haygain are researching into double steaming and results are showing that after steaming twice sugars are reduced , so if you steam and have a fattie you might be able to avoid haysicles . not sure of the exact percentage of sugar reduction but if you wanted this info drop them an email i'm sure they'd be happy to share
 
Donnie Darco, Fuggly, thanks so much for the explanation - it makes sense. I'm actually tempted to try soaking to get rid of dust, but if it reduces the sugars for my chubbier horse, that will be great. He is a veritable Hoover and since I bed him on hay, not straw, he tends to eat his bed at times :eek: He's just a hog, really.
Thanks again for the helpful info.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top