What Is Quality Horse Hay?

lack of sunlight inclement weather and cold temperatures. Plants store their nitrates in their lower portions so the height of the cutter blade when cutting hay can impact nitrate levels as well. Higher nitrates can tend to cause diarrhea in horses.
Was the hay treated with a drying agent?
Another factor that can influence hay colour is moisture content at baling. Higher moisture hays will tend to be darker green where lower moisture hays were usually left out in the sun longer to dry so will be more bleached. This is why hays that were treated with propionic acid a drying agent will tend to be darker green and also tend to be less prone to dust or mold because propionic acid application allows hays to be baled at 18 to 20 percent moisture as opposed to 10 percent or less in nontreated hay. However propionic acid has its own set of risks and drawbacks.
Equine nutrition specialist Dr. Juliet Getty Ph D. hypothesizes Not considered to be harmful propionate is one of three volatile fatty acids VFA naturally produced by the hindgut bacteria during hay fermentation. The other two VFAs are acetate and butyrate. These VFAs are a significant energy source for your horse. Acetate is utilized by many tissues including the heart muscles and the brain. Butyrate provides energy for the cells that line the hindgut epithelium. Propionate is a major precursor toward glucose production through a process known as gluconeogenesis. And thats a problem for the IR insulin resistant horse. Once propionate is absorbed and metabolized it is converted to glucose so when you feed alfalfa that has been treated with propionic acid you are essentially increasing your horses blood glucose level just as you would if you had fed a hay with a large amount of sugar and starch. Increased glucose leads to increased insulin. And the rest is well you get the picture.
Some horses fed treated hay have had trouble with hard manure and loss of appetite. This may or may not be due to having consumed treated hay but is worth noting.
The definition of quality hay is relative to the horse being fed. Some absolutes are true across the board such as mold and nitrate content but in terms of protein texture fibre trace mineral content carbohydratessugars and energy content no one answer is true across the board because each horse is an individual.
Many of todays horses
are overweight and sedentary and many of those are metabolically thrifty as it is thus many of them can benefit from a higher fibre lower sugar moderate to lowerprotein lowerdigestibility hay. It keeps them eating longer between feedings and reduces the total amount of calories they can consume in a given time period. In contrast harder keeping harder working horses like racing Thoroughbreds or eventers require as many calories per bite as we can get into them so a softer higher protein higher energy lower fibre hay is better for them. Your horse is an individual so the definition of what is a quality feed for your horse is as unique as he is.