Preservatives in hay

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Gingerboyz

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Has anyone else heard of the amount of preservatives that are being used to stop hay from heating up/going mouldy? They contain a substance called propionic acid which has the effect of coating the hay with sugars to preserve it. Not good if you've a laminitic and is there any relation to this and the high incidence of EMS in recent years. Maybe some clever person out there knows all about it?
 
Gingerboyz said:
Has anyone else heard of the amount of preservatives that are being used to stop hay from heating up/going mouldy? They contain a substance called propionic acid which has the effect of coating the hay with sugars to preserve it. Not good if you've a laminitic and is there any relation to this and the high incidence of EMS in recent years. Maybe some clever person out there knows all about it?
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As someone who was brought up on a farm and is now married to a farmer I have to say I've only ever heard of 'propcorn' being used on grain - never on hay. Not round here anyway.
 
This is a new one on me. I have never heard of any farmer spraying hay to preserve it, so far as I am aware, my hay is just dried grass - simples.

Surely the cost would be enormous to spray it evenly.
 
This would appear to be expensive US Technology
http://www.harvesttec.com/pdfs/AcidTreatedforHorses.pdf

Suspect it will be very rare in UK except with large commercial hay producers who would have to explain the smell to customers
Think most of us buy hay by appearance and smell so not likely to catch on unless we get more unreliable summer weather when treated hay with low mould may be better than no hay.
 
You'd be lucky to get haylage with an additive - there is ecobale and ecogold, but both add an extra £1.50 to the cost of production, so not used much

I don't know of anyone made enough to make hay cost more to produce - so zero chance of hay being treated.
 
I overheard a farmer in Dobbies (of all places) a few weeks ago discussing a deal. He said he had spent £600 spraying his hay with acid to stop it heating, and used this to justify charging £35 a round bale. He said the quality was guaranteed whereas you could pay the same elsewhere and hay could heat up and go black / mouldy. He infewrred this was good standard practice.
He managed to seal the deal at 90 tonnes of hay for horses.
This was a big hay producer in the central belt of Scotland.
I'd never heard of it before now.
 
my local farmer sprayed the field we norm buy from this yr and still only charged £3 per bale but i didnt like the idea of it and it smells like vinegar,although he asures me its safe etc,i brought 20 bales to use as back up but decided against my norm 200,and brought haylage instead.
 
I had heard that haylage is sprayed at baling and wrapping time and had also wondered about the effects on horses health. My gelding has low grade lami or something which makes him sore and is still a mystery. I have had to soak all his haylage this year and the drum I soak in gets a grey/buff residue which sticks to the bottom and I did wonder if that was what it had been sprayed with.
 
There is stuff, that was used around here this year, manufactured by a UK company called 'Agriking'. Its a powder and can be added to hay or haylage, it is sprayed on the rows by a machine on the front of the baler and adds approx 2 euro to the cost of baling (big bales). The powder alone costs 1.80 euro a bale. It is supposed to have been used in the UK for the last 14 years or so and has been used in Ireland in a couple of places for the last few years. A contractor I know used it this year for the first time, the last few years have been very difficult hay years in this area, no heat waves here, and a lot of bad hay has been made with hay seeming all right at baling but heating badly afterwards, this powder is supposed to sort this out as long as , I understand, the hay is 97/98% right. I'm very interested to see what the results are, as if it works there will be a lot of it used in our area alone. There is going to be an official opening of the first bales as long as the visitors bring the booze!:D. The salesman says its 100% safe for all horses including in foal mares but then he would wouldn't he. (Although I guess it'd leave the company liable if it wasn't true)
 
TBB said:
There is stuff, that was used around here this year, manufactured by a UK company called 'Agriking'. Its a powder and can be added to hay or haylage, it is sprayed on the rows by a machine on the front of the baler and adds approx 2 euro to the cost of baling (big bales). The powder alone costs 1.80 euro a bale. It is supposed to have been used in the UK for the last 14 years or so and has been used in Ireland in a couple of places for the last few years. A contractor I know used it this year for the first time, the last few years have been very difficult hay years in this area, no heat waves here, and a lot of bad hay has been made with hay seeming all right at baling but heating badly afterwards, this powder is supposed to sort this out as long as , I understand, the hay is 97/98% right. I'm very interested to see what the results are, as if it works there will be a lot of it used in our area alone. There is going to be an official opening of the first bales as long as the visitors bring the booze!:D. The salesman says its 100% safe for all horses including in foal mares but then he would wouldn't he. (Although I guess it'd leave the company liable if it wasn't true)
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I work for Agriking and the stuff is 100% alright for horses. Company has thousands of customers across the UK and Ireland and is growing all the time. It's actually an American company. As part of the package when you use the product they will also do a forage analysis. There are quite a few large stud farms, bloodstock operators and competition yards using the Silo-King over here. I know very few places that use Propionic Acid over here any more....it's considered dark ages on forages! I have fed Silo-King Haylage and had massive resuts from it and also have a boss who used it on big round bale haylage and was only feeding two horses last winter. He was able to have the round bale open for three weeks and didn't have to throw anything away. The company do know a bit about horses....they make a horse mineral supplement though not a massive seller in Europe as we are concentrating on the Dairy/Beef nutrition end of things which is what Agri-King actually do along with forage treatment. The Silo-King has been going for 40+ years in the states!! And if anybody has any "chemical concerns".....I have two clients that are Organic Farms and it complies for them to use it on Haylage & Silage and anything else they want! Not only does it prevent heating and mould growth bt it also increases digestibility and protects some of the palatable sugars that are lost in fermentation without restricting the fermentation
 
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