Coastal Hay

[moukoyui]

Trying to find a round bale that doesn’t exacerbate my TB’s allergies that is cost effective and that he will eat has led us to coastal hay.

I personally know people who feed it as their main hay ration and people who refuse to feed it. I have a great local source of good quality heavy rounds of beautiful barn store 1000 lb bales. A quick taste test shows that the picky kid loves it. I know it is a “finer texture” would need to be introduced slowly, but is there any issue between feeding coastal in the field and orchard/ alfalfa and fescue in the stall?

I know that people will tell me not to feed rounds, but this particular horse will not eat out of hay nets and the cost of free feeding small squares is prohibitive due to our storage arrangement. This winter we have fed the large squares of timothy orchard and kept his allergies under control, but I have to drive 3 hours to get them and can only haul and store 2 at a time. They go through the large squares faster and they are more expensive. For me to have hay in front of my herd 24/7 (which I will not compromise) I cannot pay $12+ per 60 lbs small bale nor can I pay $110 for 850 lb large square, especially if I have to pay to haul them back.

Thoughts from people who have made the switch to coastal would be greatly appreciated.

[JB]

There’s nothing wrong with round bales, even 1000lb rounds, assuming they were done with horses in mind.

Coastal does have a link to ileal impactions, that’s a fact. But the quality of the Coastal matters a lot, as the older stuff is too high in lignin which, combined with its fine texture, increases the risk.

Risk is lowered when other, coarser-stemmed hays are fed.

The real JB ate Coastal as the sole hay for the majority of the 15 years I had him, as did anywhere from 15-20 other horses. It was really, really nice hay from SC. To my knowledge there was never a colic linked to the hay, but it’s possible there was. There were few colics in general over the 30-ish years I was there, with the vast majority of that being 100% Coastal.

The link IS real though, so keep that in mind. In your case, I would be ok with it, assuming it really is good quality, not too mature Coastal.

[khall]

I have been using Coastal Bermuda hay or a hybrid of such for the entire time of my horse owning experience. I have had 1 colic that required surgery from ileal impaction but it was because she did not drink enough water. Now I soak hay (more to reduce sugars than for moisture) I don’t use round bales (because my horses are fat and equine vacuum cleaners) but many do with no issues. Keeping them hydrated is the biggest concern IMO when feeding bermuda.

[hunterprincez]

Coastal is the primary hay we feed where I live. We supplement with alfalfa. As everyone has said hydration is key!

[JB]

Water intake is important for impaction prevention in general.

But we’re talking about ileal impactions specifically, and the link is directly to Coastal hay because of its characteristics. For sure, adding insufficient water intake just makes matter worse.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3119239/

I do see in that study that diluting the Coastal with other hays didn’t decrease the risk, but I think I’ve also seen other references to it lowering it (as I mentioned above), so… shrug

[Montanas_Girl]

The primary issue regarding illeal impactions with coastal bermudagrass hay has to do with overly mature coastal, resulting in a high NDF content. As long as the hay is managed and harvested properly, this is not an issue.

However, any hay baled into round bales is more likely to be overly mature and lower in quality and more mature/higher in NDF/ADF, and that would concern me when coming across round bales of coastal bermudagrass.

[moukoyui]

This may be dumb question - how do I tell the maturity level of the hay without sending it to get tested? This looks nicer than our typical fescue round bales - a little dusty, but the floor of the barn it was stored in was super fine dusty soil. The horses are not super in love with it, and we are feeding 50/50 mix with timothy orchard.

[JB]

@Montanas_Girl yes, that is likely why the barn I was at for all those years, with all those horses, never had issues. It was such beautiful hay. But Coastal is also very easy to let get a bit too mature, which makes it much easier to cause issues.

I wouldn’t say that any hay done as rounds is likely to be overly mature. My hay guy does rounds only, as opposed to resorting to rounds just to get too-mature hay out of the field as fast as possible. Sure, occasionally a cutting (orchard grass) is a bit too mature, but that had to do with conditions that were too wet to get the tractors in there early enough, so the hay would have been the same if done as squares.

@moukoyui you really do have to test, since you can’t always quite always tell by look and feel. If it’s gotten overly-mature, you can see there are many more tough stems than any sort of leafy/grassy material. Often, if a horse doesn’t love it, it’s because it’s too mature, but it can also be because of a lower sugar content.

[moukoyui]

Our test bale is leafy with no stems, it is a little sun bleached, but seems really nice. If we decide to go with this hay, I will test from this years cutting to see what we are working with. We are still in the “will this make the special snowflake pony react” stage. My crew are super spoiled and get the best quality hay in their stalls with meals, but since we have no pasture to speak of I want 24/7 access to hay outside. I have 3 easy keepers with the snowflake pony, so I prefer to feed a less rich hay outside.

How long would you take to transition them to 100% coastal outside - remembering that they will get 1-2 flakes of other hay with each meal inside?

[JB]

When transitioning to Coastal, I would take as long as you can. The more acclimated they get to chewing that finer hay, the better. This is less about a change in food, and much about a “backwards” change in texture.