Why soak hay?

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Suzibn

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Okay, Wise Ones!
I need some information and would like your help. I am, as most people know, an American now living in the beautiful country of England...I have 50 years plus experience in horses...I mean HEAVY experience. In all my time in America I never saw ANYONE soak hay. I have never been in a show barn where hay was soaked!
Now suddenly as a horse owner here, I find everyone soaking hay in the most awful water...stuff that has been sitting there for days and actually stinks!
Because I have a "rescued" thoroughbred who came to me with a cough, I dampen my hay thoroughly with a hose to get the dust down and keep him from inhaling it. He has no cough now.
We have excellent quality hay, the horse came to me underweight, though is packing on the pounds (seemingly before my very eyes) and my horse-sense tells me that if I were to soak this lovely hay for hours on end I would be just pouring the nutrients in the hay down the drain and feeding stuff just to keep him occupied, not to get any nourishment.
The poor yard owner just got a £2,000.00 water bill. He is not a happy camper to say the least and cannot figure out why this "cult" of water soaking in barrels, bathtubs etc. has taken over the place.
Please, someone explain to me why it is good to soak hay, so I can at least understand!
Thanks!
 
I don't soak hay but I know people who soak it for horses who have COPD and other respiratory problems. I thought you should only soak it for 10 minutes because as you say the nutrients are leeched out of it.
It could be that the people you see are soaking hay for laminitic horses whereby you are soaking it for a long time to deliberately take the nutrients out. There seems to be a lot of laminitic horses this year so I expect more people are doing this.
 
Well you have kind of answered your own question there! People soak hay to get rid of the nutrients so they can feed ad-lib hay without the horses piling on the pounds. Good for laminitic horses and ponies
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i soak in fresh water for 2-10 hours to get rid of some of the soluble carbs and sugar for lamantic.then rinsed for few mins byhose to wash it off.
other have it sprayed down to get rid of any dust.
 
By soaking hay, you soak any mould spores in it, so the horse ingests rather than inhales them which prevents problems with equine asthma, called either COPD, or RAO, which is caused by dust and spores.
It also reduces the nutrient quality of the hay - useful for larger
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horses or laminitis prone animals. Their gut still needs fibre to keep working efficiently - so washing the nutrients out is actually quite sensible.
And I soak my hay because my old girl is allergic to oilseed rape pollen...which gets into the hay...and soaking it for 6 or 7 minutes stops her sneezing.
S
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As already said above mainly to remove spores and nutriants.
Mine is soaked for at least an hour, he has COPD and is also on box rest.
 
Less than 20mins just dampens the hay down - I think my memory tells me the dust spores swell and stick to the hay so they are ingested rather than inhaled. For very good doers or lamanitics (of which there seem to be more every year) soaking hay for at least a couple of hours, if not over night will reduce the nutrient content to a minimum so they can continue to have adlib fibre without the risk of worsening or triggering their condition.
 
Soaking hay for hours on end is a fab way to get long fibre for the hind gut into laminitics and fatties - I do this for my cob, who is out on very little grass.

However, any hay soaked for over 20 mins starts to loose it's nutritional value, so if it is being soaked for horses that suffer from COPD/RAO, but who need good quality fibre, 20 mins should be the max soaking time. That said, when soaked hay dries, so do the dust spores - soaking does not cause the spores to remain swollen! To do that, you need to steam hay. So if the horse has a really bad breathing problem, then steaming would be the ideal method - and if the horses is a fatty, soak it before steaming it, yes that is labour intensive!

Haylage is always an option too - though often more costly.

IMO horses with breathing issues should live out 24/7 and if they need hay, it should still be soaked/steamed!
 
Mine has soaked hay as occasionally he can get a bit "coughy" and also because he is a fat git! His gets soaked for about 40mins.
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Man, you guys are fabulous!
Thanks so much for the explanations. Since I am not going to do any riding on this horse for probably another 6-8 weeks so that we can work from the ground to start building some muscle across his topline before I climb on, I couldn't figure out why I would want to take nutrients away from a horse I am trying to put weight on. Since he has no health problems that made my confusion even worse.
NOW I understand. Thanks for the explanation about the mold spores, as that truly makes sense to me!
Once again the fab people at the H and H forum know their stuff and can prove it!
THANK YOU!
 
Just to add to the end of that. I always understood that the resulting yucky water was actually toxic and should always be carefuly disposed of and certainly not reused!!!
 
My horse coughs with dusty hay so we soak his but literally only dunk it in so it is all wet then take it straight out again. Takes about 10 secs
 
Just to add to what has already been said, I think you'll find that our pasture (and therefor our hay) is far richer than in America which is why you've probably not come across the practice before.

I personally hate soaking hay - it's such hard work but I have to for my horse's wellbeing. If I could avoid it I would. At this time of year I never re-use the water.
 
And just to add....you probably havent seen this much in America as depending where you live, the summers tend to be a lot dryer. In England, when the grass is cut and left to dry, it quite often rains, then dries, then rains then dries, which leads to mouldy hay (like last summer - hence decent hay shortage!). So a lot of people soak their hay due to the poor quality
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I don't soak my horse's hay, he soaks his own! I've resorted to a large tub of water near his feeder to keep him from transporting his hay across the paddock to soak it in the trough he shares with another horse and clogging up the automatic float. His "soaking tub" is large--largely to keep him from dumping it over himself. I've been dumping and refilling it once a week. It's in the shade, stays cool and grows no algea in that time period. BUT...is the water bad for him to drink if it's left that long? Somebody in this forum said the water is "toxic?"
 
Waste water produced from soaking and draining hay is now classified as effluent by many water authorities.
This water is a pollutant and should not be poured down the drain. Do NOT allow your horse to drink the water used to soak hay - it contains pollutants similar to sewage water.
As for the debate of whether to soak your hay, I think it depends on whether you're soaking to prevents respiratory problems or nutritional ones. I would advise that if you are simply soaking to remove dust and spores just ensure that the hay is thoroughly wet, however, if you're soaking to remove calories it is best to soak for 6 hours, this ensures carbohydrate levels are lessoned as the sugars are water soluble and "washed out" during the soaking and draining process, but always rinse the hay to remove the mucky water. Hope this helps x.
 
I am going to start soaking hay for my chubby newforest just wondered where I am suppose to tip the water that the hay was soaking in? Also after rinsing do i need to let the haynet hang to drain a few mins? and is it ok to then feed off the floor? Thanks
 
Sarah04, Soak hay for 6 hours, hang and let it drain/drip. You can then fed on floor or hang ( i do both)...I tip mine onto the field, grass there is growing well, it is just the excess sugars that are soaked out of the hay, as far as i know it is not toxic.
 
Suzibn said:
Okay, Wise Ones!
I need some information and would like your help. I am, as most people know, an American now living in the beautiful country of England...I have 50 years plus experience in horses...I mean HEAVY experience. In all my time in America I never saw ANYONE soak hay. I have never been in a show barn where hay was soaked!
Now suddenly as a horse owner here, I find everyone soaking hay in the most awful water...stuff that has been sitting there for days and actually stinks!
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Fresh water should be used each time especially if you are soaking hay to remove water soluble sugars for horses prone to laminits. Sadly there is no way to tell the sugar content of hay without testing and produers in UK and Ireland don't do it for us. If yards have supplies from one source it may well be worth the getting it tested for WSC/NSC.

I have read conflicting studies about soaking for mould spores the last one said dunking was sufficient. Mould is quite a problem with our wetter climate, not all of us have access to non dusty hay.
 
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VickyD said:
Waste water produced from soaking and draining hay is now classified as effluent by many water authorities.
This water is a pollutant and should not be poured down the drain. Do NOT allow your horse to drink the water used to soak hay - it contains pollutants similar to sewage water.
Click to expand...
The last reply from the Evironment Agency I read said to drain onto a grass area but it was not considered toxic effluent.
 
Suzibn, you will find some in USA are having to soak hay for laminitis but the producers over there seem much more geared up to testing forages for sugars and mineral content before selling. Have a look at the articles here.
http://www.safergrass.org/
 
Micky said:
Soaking for mould spores??? Explain please? If hay is mouldy, you shouldnt feed it anyway....
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To damp them down so they don't fly into the air and be breathed in by the horse. The slightest dust = mould spores and stabled horses especially (confined space) are at great risk from long term breathing it in. Hay doesn't have to look mouldy to contain significant levels of mould and spores, hence importance of wetting all hay for horses with breathing problems.
 
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I have had to get into soaking hay as my cob is a very good doer. So I soak to enable him to have plenty to eat and supplement with vits and minerals.

I feed from the floor and to soak his hay I have a waterbutt. I place an upturned plastic pot in the bottom to act as a tray stuff a Haynet and put it in then fill up and pop a lid on. In the morning I turn on the tap to drain and in the evening empty the drained net onto his floor and repeat the exercise. The soaked hay smells like honey and the water is never reused.
 
jessieshan said:
Some people soak hay if the horse is laminitic as it gets rid of the nutrients. i usually soak it for about 10 hours overnight
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Its only the sugars that are a problem for laminitics, but soaking for hours will also remove the minerals which are needed, especially by laminitics and [usually] barefoot horses, so feed needs to be supplemented.
Personally I think soaking for more than 10 hours in warm weather is going to start fermentation. As one can never be sure about the sugars, I only soak for an hour or so, but pony has never had laminitis, if one was obviously fat or had a history, then soaking 6-8 hours should help.
 
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