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Best, least messy way to soak hay

Really, the key to not making a mess with all these options is draining in such a way that the water can drain away and not leave a muddy swamp.

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My vet says that in order to be effective, hay must be soaked and not merely sprayed. We use a slow feed net in a muck tub, easy to lift out and drain a few minutes before hanging.

This is my experience too. Though I hang it a little longer than that.

I do the soaking and hanging (typically, clearly weather can change my plans) in the driveway, off to the side where no one typically drives or walks, in a gravel area. I hang the dripping bag in that area too (from the gooseneck part of a trailer).
No real mess. No real fuss.
When I started doing it, it did take some planning to figure out my new routine. But once I got it figured out it was easy enough.

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Same here. For dirty hay and a horse with a cough, I just spray it down without a full soak. Fill haynets and tie them outside to the fence, or snap to screw-eyes I had installed on the barn exterior. Spray liberally with the hose and watch the dirt rinse out the bottom of the net. (I knew this hay was good, we had baled it ourselves, but it was a freshly planted field and the hay rake churned up a lot of dirt into the windrows, which was then picked up by the baler.) Once the dirt water ran clear, I let the nets drain for a few minutes (while I fed grain, for example) and then hung the wet nets in the stall. It was still HEAVY but not nearly as bad as fully soaked in a muck tub. And most of the dripping water stayed outside, not making a puddle in the stall. And as I was trying to remove the dirt from the hay, soaking it in a tub would not have really allowed the dirt to run out, it would have just “soaked in” and become mud inside the flakes of hay.

If you honestly DO need soaking, for sugars etc, I’ve used the laundry basket inside a rubbermaid tub method very successfully. This horse was a dainty eater, so we just pulled the basket out of the tub of water, shook it to drain, and fed her the basket of soaked hay in the corner of her stall (leaving the hay in the basket made less mess/waste in her stall).

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It’s just to tamp down any dust, not soaking it to remove sugars.

Our ground here is so dry from no rain, the chance of creating a swamp is slim to none.

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I don’t soak to remove sugars, my horse has asthma so I soak to remove all dust and other triggers… per my IM vet.

General question.

If you soak hay and the water turns brown, does that necessarily mean the hay was dirty or dusty? Someone at the barn who soaks for both dust and sugar made a disparaging comment about “look how brown the water is.” I just said uhuh, wow.

But my experience has been that if my mare makes soup in her water bucket with the best cleanest fresh hay, the residual water goes brown. It’s like making tea. As a small child I made pretend tea concoctions with fresh lawn clippings that were a beautiful emerald green liquid :). Grass and tea just leach pigmented compounds.

Obviously some hay is actually dusty mildewy or evrn has clods of dirt, and you’d see silt in the bucket.

But am I right that brown leachate isn’t necessarily actual dirt?

I’m not going to try convincing soaker barn buddy :), they are on their own journey with their horse. Just wanted a reality check here.

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You are correct.

Are tea leaves dirty?

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A horse I used to have loved to eat his hay out of his water. He’d take a huge mouthful of hay and walk over to his water barrel and drop it in and stand there and eat out of it. There’d be a trail of hay from his feeder to his water. I tried helping him out by putting the hay in the water, he was not amused and didn’t appreciate my efforts.

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The barn owner where my horse lives came up with a great solution – she attached fine metal mesh to the front half of a wheelbarrow. She adds the hay, adds the water, lets it soak for however long you need, then wheels it to the drain and leaves it tipped up for a bit to make sure it’s really drained. Then wheels the wheelbarrow to the stall/paddock/whatever. Mobile, easy in winter, and no need to fill a haynet!

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My unscientific answer is that it is probably a lot of things - “tea leaf effect” plus some dirt and dust and bacteria and mold. Even the freshest, highest quality, and cleanest of hay will have some dirt, dust, mold and bacteria. It is dried grass (or legumes) grown in a field of dirt, after all. And EVERYTHING has mold and bacteria on it - even our own freshly bathed skin.

We get really nice hay, and when we soak it for my gal there is quite a bit of sediment in the bottom after a couple of hours. So I agree that it doesn’t mean it is “bad hay”.

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I know that seeing brown water for the first time after soaking something you’re about to feed your horse is alarming. The tea color of the water by itself is not a concern in the least, but be sure to check the quality of your hay while it’s dry. I have kept fish in the past, so here’s my little tidbit of overlapping knowledge…

The brown color in the water after soaking any organic material, this instance being hay, are called tannins. Molds, dusts, and debris might accompany this pigment, but they do not cause it. Tannins are completely benign to horse health and aren’t of any real concern by themselves. In fact, fish ponds can be treated with barley straw to reduce the penetration of sunlight into the water, thus reducing undesirable algae sludge. And yes, the fish are fine and even sometimes prefer it.

There is a very quick and dramatic tannin effect from hay because there’s lots of surface area to seep this color from. Even having already known about tannins, I did a double take when I lifted the hay net and saw the dark brown water for the first time.

Note: If the water looks more mud like than tea like, that’s a heck of a lot of sediment that likely came from your water source or soaking container

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This
For dust you don’t need to soak, but just rinse.

Best way I’ve found is a large nibble net, hang at the hose, insert nozzle and rinse.
Let it drip a few minutes so you don’t get soaked taking it to the stall.

Hay dunkers eating rinsed hay will cause brown water too.
I agree it’s not all dirty hay causing the color

Eta I know people get irritated with the mess hay dunkers create, but God bless them. I love a hay dunker.

This doesn’t answer your question. Years ago I had equine metabolic syndrome/PPID horse and the hay had to be soaked every day. One summer, a few times a week, a lone hummingbird would come around while emptying the water from the bucket. I think there’s definitely sugar in the brown water.

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