soaking hay..

[haycroft]

How long to soak hay for laminitic's..thought it was as long as possible overnite/12 hrs..but also read that an hour is efficient as this takes 60% of the sugars out which wont taste as sour if soaked alot longer

 

[Tezzy]

When I had the vet out to the little pony with laminitis, she told me to soak the hay for 12 hours. I have been doing this. The problem I am getting now is the hay is still wet the next day The weather is so cold for it to dry out. My pony eats it as soon as it is hang up for her lol
I have been told that you only need to soak it for an hour & then it is fine for them to eat. But I have stayed with the 12 hours or over night, just to be on the save side.
Good luck.

 

[0ldmare]

Haycroft, I'm glad you are confused too! I've asked the question and had a whole range of different answers! One vet said 1/2 hour is fine, another said 12 hours. And then I've searched this, and other forums, for old posts about it and seen more and more different answers. For my horse with laminitis I've ended up soaking for 12 hours, but its obviously pretty horrible to eat! (She absolutely hates it with a passion and only eats it when she is so starving she has no choice )

On the same subject, I'm soaking the haynet in an dustbin and I want someone to invent a product that would act as a clamp to hold the haynet down in the water so you wouldnt have to use so much water and then transform into a winch to lift the darn haynet out of the water. Any engineers out there? Waves credit card enticingly

 

[haycroft]

Haycroft, I'm glad you are confused too! I've asked the question and had a whole range of different answers! One vet said 1/2 hour is fine, another said 12 hours. And then I've searched this, and other forums, for old posts about it and seen more and more different answers. For my horse with laminitis I've ended up soaking for 12 hours, but its obviously pretty horrible to eat! (She absolutely hates it with a passion and only eats it when she is so starving she has no choice )

On the same subject, I'm soaking the haynet in an dustbin and I want someone to invent a product that would act as a clamp to hold the haynet down in the water so you wouldnt have to use so much water and then transform into a winch to lift the darn haynet out of the water. Any engineers out there? Waves credit card enticingly

yep this is what we do..put the hay in net then in abig black bin,i usually put a bucket of fill water on top to heavy i t down..theres three ponies on the yard with lami(not footy atm but does get lami freguently) we hang the net up to drain then feed..the ponies eat every scrap of hay..also by saving water we empty any un used water buckets into black bin then throw away once hay has been soaked

 

[0ldmare]

Oh good idea re the bucket of water! I'll do that tomorrow, thanks

 

[ISHmad]

Make sure you rinse the soaked hay well after it's been soaked. That gets rid of the horrible water it's been sitting in all night and helps it be more palatable.

 

[Burnttoast]

I just use something heavy - couple of bricks, whatever - to weigh it down. As ISHmad says, rinsing's very important, and using fresh water for each soaking session. For getting sugars out, the more water you use the better - with a small amount of water the concentration of sugars in hay and water will reach equilibrium while there's still quite a bit of sugar in the hay.