If you have a horse that needs a low calorie diet, testing your hay is a good idea. This article explains how to test your hay in 5 easy steps at home. This means that you can know if your hay needs soaking, without the need to send a sample off to the lab.
Testing your horse’s hay at home is a simple process that can be done without the need for expensive equipment. You can test the sugars to determine if your hay is suitable for your horse, particularly if they need a reduced calorie diet. Horses with EMS, PSSM, or that are simply good doers will benefit from their hay being tested.
If you want to provide the best diet for your horse then testing your hay at home is a good start. Read on to find out how.
Why Should I Test My Hay?
If your horse is on a restricted diet or is simply a good doer you may want to find ways of ensuring that the feed you give them is appropriate. This is the answer to the question of why should I test my hay? With hard food, it is easy enough to read the label and/or speak to the supplier to get professional nutritional advice.
The same can’t be said for your hay. Most hay is produced by local farmers/landowners, who don’t necessarily test their hay regularly. If your supplier is unable to provide details of the hays sugar content then you can do this at home.
If you’re looking at providing a low calorie diet, then sticking to giving your horse hay which contains less that 8% sugars is the best start you can give.
Should I Soak My Horse’s Hay?
If you’re wondering should I soak my horse’s hay, then you are not alone.
Soaked hay can help with:
- Reducing dust – good for those horses that are sensitive to dust, or those with breathing difficulties
- Reducing sugars – this benefits horses needing a restricted diet as it can reduce the sugars
- Reducing ulcers– when you have a permanently hungry horse, keeping it’s weight in check can be difficult. Soaking hay to reduce the sugars can mean that you can feed up to 20% more, thereby keeping to stomach fuller for longer which can reduce the likelihood of your horse succumbing to ulcers
- Tidier Stables – Anecdotal evidence suggests that if you own a ‘messy’ horse and swap to soaked hay, your horse will often become cleaner in the stable. Odd, but many people have experience this, so it’s worth a try!
One thing to remember is that soaking hay, whilst removing sugars, will also remove important nutrients. These lost nutrients need to be replaced, possibly by using a balancer to ensure that all vitamins and minerals are contained within your horse’s diet.
If you test, and find out that you do not need to soak your hay, you can save hours, and probably a few pennies in the process. Not having to soak hay in the depths of winter, with freezing water and haynets frozen to the sides of the water butt is a bonus. More importantly, in summer, leaving soaked hay out in high temperatures can cause it to spoil very quickly and allow fermentation and moulding to occur; something to be avoided as much as possible.
How To Test Your Hay In 5 Easy Steps
Follow these simple instructions to find out if you need to continue to soak your hay, or if your hay is suitable to be fed dry.
You will need:
- Hay samples
- Weighing scales
- Measuring jug
- Water
- Egg cup/small bowl
- Garlic press
- Refractometer and pipette
- Collect hay samples – Collect several 60gm portions of hay from various bales, placing each sample in a sealable plastic bag – Although one sample will give you a result for one bale, collecting samples from several bales from one delivery will give a far more accurate result. The weight of the sample is entirely up to you, but I find samples between 50gm – 100gm are the most useful and usable.
- Add water – To each of your samples add water; the same quantity of water in ml, to weight of hay in grams. For example, if your sample of hay is 50gm, then add 50ml of water to the bag. 60gm of hay would require 60ml of water, and so on. Scrunch up the hay in water to ensure all of the hay has been covered. Place under a heavy weight – a heavy book, or saucepan will do.
- Wait – Wait for half and hour, and scrunch again, putting the hay back under the weight for an additional half an hour.
- Garlic press – Take your garlic press and place your egg cup/small bowl in the sink (just to make cleaning up easier). Open your hay sample and place a small section into the garlic press. Squeeze the garlic press handles together over the egg cup so that any liquid from the press falls into the egg cup. You may need to press several sections of hay to gain enough liquid to test – about 3 drops.
- Refractometer – Take your pipette and take up the liquid from the egg cup. Place 2-3 drops onto the testing glass of the refractometer and shut the lid. Wait for approx. 20 seconds and read the test result by looking through the eyepiece.
The amount of sugar in your hay will show as a percentage on the refractometer. If the reading is 8% or below, the hay is suitable to give to your horses as is, and does not need to be soaked. You can average the results of each sample to get an overview of the batch of hay you are ready to feed your horse.
Conclusion
Testing your hay can be both an interesting experiment, and extremely important, especially if your horse needs to be on a restricted diet for medical reasons. Hay that contains under 8% sugars is generally considered to be suitable for good-doers. If your hay registers above this, then soaking to reduce the sugars may be the best way to ensure that your horse stays healthy.
Reference: TheHorseTherapist
Related Articles
