Soaking hay

H

Hayjay

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 January 2005
Messages
330
Visit site
My mare is having an occasional cough over the last couple of days. She has an all hay diet - stabled at night and on all weather turnout area during day. I'm going to soak her hay but how long to reduce dust but not nutritional value as she is a poor doer. I'm wondering if I should try haylage but she is turned out with an overweight shetland so don't want him getting fatter! I'm trying to avoid separating them as I like them to have space to wander. Tricky when they have different hay needs. Any advice very welcome. Thanks.
 
TGM said:
Why don't you steam the hay instead, reduces dust but not nutritional value.
Click to expand...

Thanks TGM. I did a load of googling on steaming but was a bit put off by the people saying that kettle/bin steaming could increase some kind of bacteria? I've seen homemade steamers using wheelie bin/wallpaper stripper which look good - any experience of either method?
 
A lot of people say 12 hours, but that is to remove all sugars, I put the haynet in a huge tub of water for an hour and leave for an hour, then rinse.
If she is a poor doer, feed a broad spectrum mineral [Equimine/Pro Eearth or similar], micronised linseed will condition, its cheap and great for skin and hoof.
The Sheltie will benefit from soaked hay too as anti lam feed, you can just top up the mares diet by feeding am and pm in the stable.
I assume you can feed haylage at night, so I would go with this.
But as I say, feed minerals and linseed 150-225gms per day, she should pick up condition.
 
I don't think pouring a kettle of water in to a bin of hay is going to work, lol, just try the soaking, its easy enough. I think only horses with RAO really need to be treated with steamers, I can understand comp yards having one, but we had 160 horses, can you imagine steaming for them three times a day! We fed clean horse haylage, used shavings/paper bedding no coughs.
 
Thanks Bonkers. She's having morning and night feed of unmolassed sugar beet, chaff, micronised linseed, turmeric and premier flex plus in night feed. Good idea to feed adlib haylage at night only in stable for my girl and leave shettie on soaked hay. I could probably get away with one large net of haylage in turnout area - my mare is more dominant so with one net shetland wouldn't get a look in. I can hang well soaked hay in his shelter - it has a bar across so only he can get in there.
 
If it is only a slight cough I usually fill the net shaking the hay out as I do then either tip some water over it or hose thoroughly to rinse it more than soak it, this is usually enough to wash out any dust if the hay is good quality, one pony came here 10 days ago with a slight cough, since rinsing his hay each day the coughing has stopped as well as the trickle of discharge from his nose.
If you want to soak it or use a tub of water then do so for as little time as possible, even an hour will reduce the goodness judging by the colour of the water than is left.
 
be positive said:
If it is only a slight cough I usually fill the net shaking the hay out as I do then either tip some water over it or hose thoroughly to rinse it more than soak it, this is usually enough to wash out any dust if the hay is good quality, one pony came here 10 days ago with a slight cough, since rinsing his hay each day the coughing has stopped as well as the trickle of discharge from his nose.
If you want to soak it or use a tub of water then do so for as little time as possible, even an hour will reduce the goodness judging by the colour of the water than is left.
Click to expand...

I do put compacted slices of hay in at the moment so I'll definitely try shaking it out instead. Thanks.

I can only get a large bale of haylage at the moment from my supplier and not sure I'd use it before it went off? Going to try a small bale and see if she likes it.
 
We are using the kettle/bin method at the moment - 2 kettles to one large haynet. Whilst it might not be enough if you have a horse with a serious allergic cough, it has done the trick for our horse who just has a mild cough when on hay. Am currently looking into the DIY steamer though, but decided to use the kettle/bin method first to see if steaming would actually work for him.
 
Hayjay said:
I do put compacted slices of hay in at the moment so I'll definitely try shaking it out instead. Thanks.

I can only get a large bale of haylage at the moment from my supplier and not sure I'd use it before it went off? Going to try a small bale and see if she likes it.
Click to expand...
What to do with large bale haylage is to open it up in a barn so it dries and turns in to hay
 
Bonkers2 said:
What to do with large bale haylage is to open it up in a barn so it dries and turns in to hay
Click to expand...

Thank you. That's good to know. I have a hay/straw store which is dry but well ventilated. I take it I will know when it's no good as it will smell 'ripe'?
 
Hayjay said:
Thanks TGM. I did a load of googling on steaming but was a bit put off by the people saying that kettle/bin steaming could increase some kind of bacteria? I've seen homemade steamers using wheelie bin/wallpaper stripper which look good - any experience of either method?
Click to expand...

I was interested in this and was keen to find more details, as I am currently steaming hay for one of my horses. It seems the warnings about kettles/homemade steamers emanated from Haygain so I asked to see the research which they have kindly emailed to me. Their table of results makes it clear that whilst using the kettle or DIY steamer doesn't not reduce bacteria in hay to the extent that using a Haygain does, it doesn't actually increase the bacteria from what was in the original dry bale of hay.

The research isn't on their website at the moment, but I gather they are going to put it on soon. But to give people an idea I'll summarise the results table on here, in order of level of bacteria in the hay:

Bacteria (Log 10) cfu/g
Dry hay: 6.60
Soaked hay: 6.00
Kettle steamed (1 kettle full): 5.00
DIY steamer: 4.28
Haygain: 2.84

Just thought it would be interesting for people to know, as I was getting the impression that DIY steaming was actually increasing the bacteria in the hay, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
 
Thanks TGM that is really good to know. From what I had read, I too was thinking steaming would increase the bacteria. Glad to be put right.

I tried soaking hay for an hour but mare still coughing so bought a large square bale of hayledge which she has ad lib and is loving it! no more coughing after a day :-). I've had to separate my mare and my fat shetland who has well soaked hay but they can still chat to each other over elec fence and shelters are next to each other so no stress.
 
Just out of interest where does everyone get their large container's from I struggle to get a large haynet fully immersed
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top