Rye grass hay 8% sugar still soak for a good doer?

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scewal

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As title says, would you still soak for 12 hours? My mare is a good doer but vet thinks her weight is ok.
Soaking the hay is a huge inconvienence so wondered what you would do?
 
A lot depends on her routine and how greedy she is. If she is the type to munch through her overnight hay ration in a couple of hours and is left without anything to eat for most of the night, then soaking the hay will reduce the calorie content and allow you to up the hay quantity a bit. Alternatives to soaking it are mixing in some straw for extra bulk, feeding from a tricklenet or similar to slow consumption or giving a small net when she first comes in and a bigger one later at night. (Assuming she is part-stabled).

8% is not a very high sugar count, relatively speaking.
 
It says on the results sheet 8% DM and 7% as fed. So i'm guessing its 7%? She is out 24/7 and fed via a small hole net.
Vet checked her weight and said as she is a big girl in general he thought her weight was good going into Winter. Am currently feeding her at 1.5kg per 100kg.
 
Are you worried about laminitis or weight gain or both? As regards laminitis, the general thought is that less than 10% water soluble carbohydrates is regarded as 'safe'. However, this figure is for sugar and starch combined.

As your horse is out, presumably there is always some grass to pick at so you don't have the same worry about leaving the horse without forage for too long at one time that you would if stabled, which might make soaking more necessary. Instead you can just adjust the size of the hay ration until you find a level that keeps her weight constant.
 
Both i guess, i lost my last mare to laminitis that she came down with in her loan home. So quite paronoid about it.
Their field is pretty bald so hardly any grass. The DE is 7% as fed.
Mare is currently in light work hacking out 1 hour x 3-5 times a week.

IMG_1008_zpsf376f6f5.jpg
 
scewal said:
The DE is 7% as fed.
Click to expand...

Now I am a little confused - are you talking about the 'calorie count' which is expressed in terms of digestible energy (DE) as in the hay has 7 MJDE/kg OR the sugar content which would be expressed as 7%?

They are rather different things!
 
Ah, so it has a 'calorie count' of 7.5 MJDE/kg AND a sugar content of 7%. I would say that is on the low side of average for both sugar and DE, so probably a late cut hay.
 
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