Soaking hay - does it affect the nutritional value?

Sooty

Sooty

Well-Known Member
Joined
19 April 2004
Messages
22,480
Location
Brussels sprout country
Visit site
Question as per title. Does soaking alter any part of the calorie/nutritional content of hay, or does it just remove the dust? And what length soaking time would people be looking at? Will be interested to hear opinions.
smile.gif
 
Well, I soak hay for Marius under the impression that it takes out some of the sugar and therefore lowers the calories and I can give him more. I understand that soaking for about two hours is the optimum time for removing the sugars and any more is counter productive and removes other nutrients whilst not affecting the calories. Having said that, I do soak the hay all day if I go to the yard in the morning, and feed it that night.
I always rinse it well before feeding it, much to the amusement of my yard companions, as I want to wash out all the sugary water and any impurities.

I am interested to see what other people say about this. Thanks for raising it, Sooty
smile.gif
 
It will be interesting to hear what's said on this thread, as my horse HAS to have hay soaked, he eats it straight from the water in a huge bin, but he is a very poor doer in the winter, and although He is rugged, stabled and fed twice as much as the other horses I cannot keep any weight on him during the winter months.
 
I've always been taught that soaking hay for 15 minutes removes most of the dust (about 98%), soaking it for longer won't make much difference to dust content. But soaking it for long periods will reduce te calorie content, soaking it overnight would reduce calorie content significantly. So if you only want to remove dust but not calories you only need to soak for 15-30 minutes. I was also taught that steaming hay, though good for removing dust destroys the nutrients as well as they can't cope with the heat (correct me if I am wrong), which is why I've never steamed hay for my own horses as they work hard so need all the nutrients they can get!
 
I think it depends what you mean by 'soaking'.
If you refer to getting the whole lot wet (by hose or by submerging in water) this method is fairly efficient at wetting dust particles (which will stop the plumes of dust when you shake it, although it rarely actually washes dust away so if you have a horse with allergies it wont help and you should investigate haylage as an alternative).
If you are referrring to leaving it submerged in water for protracted amounts of time (some leave hay soaking for 12-24hrs) this will reduce the amount of calories as the sugars get washed into the water, but it also massively effects the nutritional value and will need to be supplemented with vits/mins
 
If you soak it for long enough it will leach out the sugars and reduce its nutritional content, although the time needed is rather disputed. This is what is recommended for laminitics.

If you just want to get rid of the dust and dirt then 10 minutes or so is sufficient. Although even this is disputed and some people say 30 minutes.

I find that if I let mine get thoroughly soaked and leave it, not always even for 10 minutes, it prevents any coughing. But my horses don't have a problem, I feed them the soaked hay to prevent them getting problems in the first place and have done ever since they were young.

However, if allowed my horse always prefers unsoaked hay and he will make a beeline for the hay stack if let out in the yard.
 
Yes it does.

I soak mine for at least 2 hrs...usually all day or overnight for my laminitic.
If I soak the hay I can feed ad lib, if not he puts on weight.
 
Yes.

I feed soaked hay, usually soaked overnight, to keep mine's weight down. He has soaked hay when he comes in during the day (ie, every day) to give him something to chew on and keep his gut active, but without giving him any extra calories. He gets enough calories from the grass overnight without needing to give him anymore from his hay.
 
I was under the impression that the soluble sugars get leeched out when hay is soaked, thus reducing the sugar/calorie content of the hay!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Yes it does.

I soak mine for at least 2 hrs...usually all day or overnight for my laminitic.
If I soak the hay I can feed ad lib, if not he puts on weight.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto for my borderline laminitic
 
Thanks everyone. We have been soaking hay (net in large tub in the morning, drained in the evening) for years to make it less calorific for portly pony. My instructor friend laughed at me at the weekend when I told her this, and said that it was equivalent to believing in the tooth fairy and soaking does nothing. Other than remove dust. So you can see why I asked...! Thanks JM for the link, too.
 
Im not sure there is going to be any definitive answer to this in regard to the amount of nutrient lost over time because each bale potentially has a different calorific value.

However for dust problems a good hosing or soaking for twenty minutes should allow most of the spores to swell and some will be washed out. This means that instead of inhaling them the horse eats and digests them so for an allergic animal its vital to know if the problem is caused by inhalation or if exposure through the digestive esytem is the problem. I would be inclined for all but the most slight cases to go over to a bagged hay or haylage from a reputable company as opposed to 'home made' (unless you have the facility to test/analyse it).

For weight loss how long is a bit of string.....same problem, we cant analyse the finished product but most people seem to soak the evenings hay from the morning and the daytime hay overnight. if it starts to smell nasty then its soaked too long.

In ALL cases Im really amazed at the number of people who dont change their soaking water....its like sewerage yet they still dunk their horses food in it!! Strange!!!
 
[ QUOTE ]
In ALL cases Im really amazed at the number of people who dont change their soaking water....its like sewerage yet they still dunk their horses food in it!! Strange!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

shocked.gif
shocked.gif
 
I think it depends on the type and length of hay, ie long stalky, late cut hay it is less likely to make a difference in comparison to shorter june cut hay which is less coarse. However I would guess that early hay may have more sugars to lose.
 
Prolonged soaking will only remove WSCs, babybells, or Water Soluble Carbohydrates. Some long chain sugars are insoluble in water, but they are also harder to digest, so are less worrying. Main downside to me is that anything else water soluble (vits, minerals, some protein) is also removed. When feeding soaked hay to Henry he just gets a low calorie feed balancer, to compensate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top