Forage and Pasture

You have your hay analysis....now what?  Use this cheat sheet for an easy way to find out if your hay will meet your horses daily requirements.

What is Strip Grazing and how does it benefit your horse and pasture?

Summary of a study done on feeding forage pellets to insulin dysregulated horses.

This new study tested the best way to feed free choice hay to your horse:  Loose, slow feed net, or automatic timed feeders.  Find out the results!

There are a lot of ways you can weigh your hay. The following are a few options. One may be more convenient for you than another.

There may come a time when you want to submit multiple hay samples to the lab for testing. A common example is a horse owner who feeds multiple horses the same hay but soaks or steams the hay for one horse. This owner wants to know the nutrient profile of the dry hay and of the same hay after it has been soaked or steamed. It is important to handle the sample properly in order to get accurate results from the lab.

Your horse needs more hay during winter months to stay warm.  Find out how much hay to feed with this handy chart!

When horse owners shop for grain or a supplement, they look at the ingredients and the guaranteed analysis. They care about what they are giving their horse. Unfortunately hay doesn't come with a Forage-Feed-Tag, and this makes up 80-100% of your horses diet. The only way to get a feed tag for you hay is to have it tested, this costs as little as $28 (www.equi-analytical.com).

Cold vs Warm Water for Soaking Hay

Introducing spring pasture too quickly can lead to possible colic, diarrhea and gas.

What stands out the most? All but four minerals are meeting requirements for your average 1,000lb horse at maintenance / light work, and two minerals are extremely high.

As the temperature drops, horses burn more energy to stay warm, therefore their energy requirements will increase. We can provide our horses extra energy in the form of concentrates and forage. Forages are digested by the microbes in your horses large intestine and produce more heat than concentrates.

The best technique to sample your horses hay is to use a mechanical coring probe made specifically for this purpose.  Probes are able to sample a cross-section of the bale (end to center) and the serrated tip allows collection of both coarse and fine particles.  When using a hay probe is not an option, the next best method is hand pulling from the center of multiple bales.

 

You've got your hay analysis...now what?  All these PPM's and % can be confusing!  This article will explain your resutls!