Stock Up on Horse Hay for Winter
Oct 07, 2024
For many horse owners, fall is a favorite season. Lower temperatures and fewer biting insects make it a perfect time to enjoy our horses and the outdoors. Fall is also the time to ensure that you have stocked up on the right quality and quantity of hay to feed your horses confidently through the winter months.
How much hay will you need? Several factors impact this amount. The first step is determining what your horse weighs. A weight tape is the simplest tool available for estimating a horse’s weight, though it tends to often underestimate the weight of most horses and shouldn’t be used as an absolute measure. Once you estimate its weight, you can calculate how much hay your horse should eat in a day. Horses require a minimum of 1.5% of their body weight per day in forage – grass or hay – but 2-2.5% of body weight is a better feeding target unless your horse is obese. For example, an average 14- to 15-hand quarter horse normally weighs around 1,200 pounds and should receive 24 to 30 pounds of hay per day. You can multiply this estimated intake by the number of days you typically feed hay each winter to calculate how much total hay you will need. I recommend rounding up on your calculations to leave yourself a safety margin. It is better to have extra hay left over at the end of the season than to find yourself short in February!
Is there a particular type of hay that is best for horses? Not necessarily. I prefer to feed alfalfa at 10 to 50 percent of the horse’s daily hay intake, depending on the animal’s age, nutrient demand, and body condition. Alfalfa is a good source of essential amino acids and calcium, making it especially valuable for feeding broodmares, growing horses, and performance horses. Its high palatability can help increase overall hay intake in senior horses or hard keepers. Across grass hays, management has a greater influence on nutrient content than species. In Tennessee, the most commonly available grass hays include fescue, orchardgrass, and bermudagrass. Of these, orchardgrass is typically the most palatable. Properly managed fescue can make a very good hay for most classes of horses but should not be fed to broodmares in the last 90 days of pregnancy to avoid the risk of fescue toxicosis. Bermudagrass and other warm-season species, such as bahiagrass and teff, tend to be lower in sugar than cool-season grasses, making them a good choice for overweight and/or insulin-resistant horses. Coastal bermudagrass has been linked to a higher risk of certain types of colic; it is best to either avoid this variety or feed it mixed with other forage species to lower your horse’s risk of colic.
When it comes to assessing hay quality, visual appraisal provides only a limited amount of information. Horse hay should be free of weeds, mold, and foreign material. Color, while one of the most popular evaluation metrics among horse owners, is not an indication of nutrient content. Depending on the forage species, the presence or absence of seedheads will help you estimate the hay’s maturity level. To truly determine a hay’s nutrient content, a laboratory analysis is needed. A typical horse hay analysis will provide the protein, amino acid, mineral, digestible energy, fiber, and non-structural carbohydrate content of your hay. Fiber content is broken down into ADF (acid detergent fiber) and NDF (neutral detergent fiber), and these numbers provide a quick “at a glance” estimate of the overall forage quality. ADF is correlated with the digestibility of the hay; for horse hays, 30 to 35 percent ADF is ideal. NDF is associated with forage intake; 40 to 50 percent NDF is ideal for horse hay. Higher ADF/NDF hays are not appropriate for weanlings, yearlings, lactating broodmares, or performance horses but are very good choices for easy keepers at maintenance or in light work. Hays above 45% ADF and/or 65% NDF are not suitable for most horses but may be a good choice for easy-keeping mules and donkeys.
ProTrition sales specialists are available to assist you in sampling your hay and interpreting the analysis results. Armed with the information provided in your hay nutrient analysis, you will head into winter hay-feeding season confident that you are prepared to meet your horses’ nutritional needs.
How much hay will you need? Several factors impact this amount. The first step is determining what your horse weighs. A weight tape is the simplest tool available for estimating a horse’s weight, though it tends to often underestimate the weight of most horses and shouldn’t be used as an absolute measure. Once you estimate its weight, you can calculate how much hay your horse should eat in a day. Horses require a minimum of 1.5% of their body weight per day in forage – grass or hay – but 2-2.5% of body weight is a better feeding target unless your horse is obese. For example, an average 14- to 15-hand quarter horse normally weighs around 1,200 pounds and should receive 24 to 30 pounds of hay per day. You can multiply this estimated intake by the number of days you typically feed hay each winter to calculate how much total hay you will need. I recommend rounding up on your calculations to leave yourself a safety margin. It is better to have extra hay left over at the end of the season than to find yourself short in February!
Is there a particular type of hay that is best for horses? Not necessarily. I prefer to feed alfalfa at 10 to 50 percent of the horse’s daily hay intake, depending on the animal’s age, nutrient demand, and body condition. Alfalfa is a good source of essential amino acids and calcium, making it especially valuable for feeding broodmares, growing horses, and performance horses. Its high palatability can help increase overall hay intake in senior horses or hard keepers. Across grass hays, management has a greater influence on nutrient content than species. In Tennessee, the most commonly available grass hays include fescue, orchardgrass, and bermudagrass. Of these, orchardgrass is typically the most palatable. Properly managed fescue can make a very good hay for most classes of horses but should not be fed to broodmares in the last 90 days of pregnancy to avoid the risk of fescue toxicosis. Bermudagrass and other warm-season species, such as bahiagrass and teff, tend to be lower in sugar than cool-season grasses, making them a good choice for overweight and/or insulin-resistant horses. Coastal bermudagrass has been linked to a higher risk of certain types of colic; it is best to either avoid this variety or feed it mixed with other forage species to lower your horse’s risk of colic.
When it comes to assessing hay quality, visual appraisal provides only a limited amount of information. Horse hay should be free of weeds, mold, and foreign material. Color, while one of the most popular evaluation metrics among horse owners, is not an indication of nutrient content. Depending on the forage species, the presence or absence of seedheads will help you estimate the hay’s maturity level. To truly determine a hay’s nutrient content, a laboratory analysis is needed. A typical horse hay analysis will provide the protein, amino acid, mineral, digestible energy, fiber, and non-structural carbohydrate content of your hay. Fiber content is broken down into ADF (acid detergent fiber) and NDF (neutral detergent fiber), and these numbers provide a quick “at a glance” estimate of the overall forage quality. ADF is correlated with the digestibility of the hay; for horse hays, 30 to 35 percent ADF is ideal. NDF is associated with forage intake; 40 to 50 percent NDF is ideal for horse hay. Higher ADF/NDF hays are not appropriate for weanlings, yearlings, lactating broodmares, or performance horses but are very good choices for easy keepers at maintenance or in light work. Hays above 45% ADF and/or 65% NDF are not suitable for most horses but may be a good choice for easy-keeping mules and donkeys.
ProTrition sales specialists are available to assist you in sampling your hay and interpreting the analysis results. Armed with the information provided in your hay nutrient analysis, you will head into winter hay-feeding season confident that you are prepared to meet your horses’ nutritional needs.