I soak the skinny one's hay for approx. 20 mins as he needs the nutrition without the dust and the fat one's hay for about 6 hrs to get rid of some of the sugar. I'm not sure how much effect this difference has, but he's not putting any weight on atm! and it's the way that works for me.
Thanks both it seems everyone has different times im planning on leaving mine over night and then rinsing hanging up and leaving for the night time ...
The Horse I might be getting (vetting is this afternoon, she will be coming straight home if she passes) will be having a soaked haynet, the reason being is that her current field has no grass, my field does, I don't want her to baloon up (she is a good doer and my grass is very good) so I have already made a haynet up that will have been soacking for 12 hours by the time she gets it, to take any goodness out of it.
I just have the one horse on hay, the others have haylage- the one that gets soaked hay has his soaked for about 20 mins before feeding as he needs the goodness from the hay as young- he is not laminitic or anything which is why there is no need for me to soak longer than that.
My boy has two soaked haynets at night. In the evening I put one haynet in to soak over night, in the morning this gets taken out and hung in the stable and another haynet goes in to soak during the day. Both probably get 12 hours each (7.30am -7.30pm). I was under the impression that 24 hours was the optimum time for getting rid of spores?
Also, is there anyone that doesn’t change water each day? I tend to leave my water a couple of days (worried about YO’s water bill, although she’s never mentioned it..) Is this bad???
Apparently using the water again is the equivalent of dunking the hay in sewage! That's what a website told me. I used to work at a riding school where they wouldn't change the water for a week!
Apparently its supposed to be fresh water every time. A 5 min soak reduces 97% of the bad particles, 24hr soak largely reduces the nutritional content and your supposed to drain and then feed straight away as if the hay dries its as bad as just feeding dry hay. However, all this is not always practical. We soak one in the morning for 5mins then leave out to dry to be fed for evening feeds...and we try to use clean water each time!