- Breeding
- Feeding and Management of Horses During the Transition from Warm to Cool Weather
- The Missing Equine Link: How the Modern Horse Came to Be
- ELITE DINING AND HOSPITALITY CLUB TO DEBUT AT 53rd WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL HORSE SHOW
- Buying a Horse
- When Good Gaits Deteriorate
- The Top 4 Places to Find Horses for Sale
- When Dealing With Horses Get It in Writing - Sign Up for May 16 FREE Webinar
- General Horse Articles
- Bulging Out and Falling In
- The Truth Behind Bran Mash - Its Uses & Disadvantages
- The Top 4 Equine Colleges in the United States
- Horse Feeding
- An Equine Electrolyte for All Seasons - Electro-Ryte™
- Healthy Horse Boutique Supports Haddad Staller In Her Olympic Quest
- What do do when the Panic is On to keep our Horses Safe!
- Horse Grooming
- Relive Southern Eighths/Nikon Three-Day on YouTube
- Mane Saving Ideas
- When Dealing With Horses Get It in Writing - Sign Up for May 16 FREE Webinar
- Horse Health Issues
- Bucking, Shying and other Attention Deficit Disorders
- Calcium - More than Just Bone
- Horse Nutrition: The Basics
- Horse Training
- Equestrian Education: Choosing the Right Horse School
- Ask Chelsie Natural Horsemanship - What Does It Mean To Disengage My Horse?
- Training Mythunderstandings: Green Horse Lessons: Adding the Lead Rope
- Horses & History
- Battle-Ready: A History of the War Horse
- What do do when the Panic is On to keep our Horses Safe!
- A Brief History of Horse Breeding
- Horses & Sports
- Relive Southern Eighths/Nikon Three-Day on YouTube
- Ask Chelsie Natural Horsemanship - What Does It Mean To Disengage My Horse?
- ELITE DINING AND HOSPITALITY CLUB TO DEBUT AT 53rd WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL HORSE SHOW
What Makes Good Hay
10/10/2011 - By Equine Nutrition and Health Services
What impacts the quality of hay? Is it the type of cutting, the species of forage, sunlight, or other factors? Learn what makes good hay and the best way to evaluate your forage.
When discussing the quality of hay, we often hear the terms “first cutting”, “second cutting”, and “third cutting”. The type of cutting that hay is derived from has often been used as an indicator of quality, but this method of evaluation is not the most accurate. The thought that first cutting hay is not as good as second or third cutting hay may or may not be true; it depends on the factors that make up quality hay, which include:
• Level of fertilization of the field
• Amount of water available during the growing season
• Species of plant/region being grown
• Insect infestation
• Weed control
• Sunlight
Each of these factors can change dramatically throughout the growing season. Many can be controlled and the best hay growers do just that. For example, in this country, much of the best hay comes from the dry western regions, where the sun is almost always shining and Mother Nature does not interfere with long rainy periods. Irrigation is used to control water application, fields are properly fertilized, and the right species of plants are grown for the region. High yields are easy to realize under these conditions because the level of control is so great. It is only when these factors are not controlled do you get large variation between cuttings. There are some places in California that can get 10-14 cuttings of alfalfa hay due to the long growing season and micro management of the plants in the field. Under such tight regulation, variation between cuttings is minimized.
The Best Way to Evaluate
Evaluate hay not by the cutting but by judging quality and maturity at cutting, how well the hay was processed – and most importantly – how well the hay suits the nutritional needs of the horse. Getting your hay analyzed by a forage laboratory is another means of evaluating. A forage analysis can tell you the nutritional content of your hay in terms of digestible energy, crude protein, calcium, phosphorus, and other measurements depending on the type of analysis you ask for.
Different Hay for Different Horses
Not every horse needs the best alfalfa hay and many do well when fed medium quality hay. For example, horse owners with overweight horses should look for a medium quality, low calorie hay and then provide protein, vitamins, and minerals through the use of a supplement. This way, the horse can be fed more hay instead of being restricted to a very small amount of high calorie forage, which can ultimately lead to a crabby, hungry horse that bolts its feed. Colic is also a repercussion of inadequate fiber intake. For gestating and lactating mares, growing horses, and horse that are intensively exercised and competing, alfalfa hay can be more suitable due its higher values for percentage of protein, digestible fiber, and digestible energy.
Remember, look beyond the cutting of hay and evaluate it by quality, maturity, and the nutritional needs of your horse.
This article is from our Equine Nutrition and Health Services blog. Check us out at www.equinenutritionhealth.com/our-blog.php to read more equine nutrition tips and advice, product discussion, and equine nutrition news!
