Since people feed chia, flax and black oil sunflower seeds, does anyone feed alfalfa or hemp seeds? Saw them at my health food store and got to wondering about it. I haven’t heard of it before so I figured I would ask .
just wondering out of curiosity so please don’t suggest feeding alfalfa hay, cubes or pellets. I know about that. I’m just curious if people feed seeds as it seems like a logical thing to feed, as long as it was human grade. With all of the talk in my other post about nutrition affecting scratches and abscesses, and all the talk of zince, calcium, etc I wondered why people aren’t feeding alfalfa seeds since they seem like they would be concentrated little powerhouse additives for those that can’t feed alfalfa hay cubes or pellets
There’s very little nutrition at all in alfalfa seeds. https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2302/2 Just because the plant is nutritious doesn’t mean the seeds are.
Hemp is a reasonably good source of essential fatty acids, but so is flax, and flax is probably a whoooole lot cheaper.
Hmmmm… interesting. I wonder about powdered alfalfa then. Any thoughts?
Can you actually find powdered alfalfa in any quantity to feed a horse? 
Powdering alfalfa doesn’t concentrate what’s in it. Pound for pound, it’s roughly the same as feeding alfalfa hay.
Alfalfa pellets are basically compressed powdered alfalfa. $15 for 50#s. Better bet.
Flax is very good for omega 3 and other things.
I always thought the point of alfalfa sees in a health food store was to make your own alfalfa sprouts. if you could do that in bulk, it might be a nice winter treat for a horse that doesn’t have access to grass!
Yeah, I also think people are sprouting it, not just consuming the seeds.
Fodder systems are super cool but $$$$$. http://www.foddersystems.com/benefits/equine.html
I feed hemp hulls.
https://elitethree.ca/products/e5-evolve-hemp-hulls
and this https://elitethree.ca/collections/for-horses/products/hemp-protein-fibre-20lb-bag
I like the products.
whoa, that’s expensive! $50 for a 25 lb bag.
What benefits do you see with this stuff?
Alfalfa powder is just ground up alfalfa. Most people don’t want to nosh on it, fresh or dried, which is why they grind it into a powder that can be added to other food or drink. But obviously that’s not a problem for horses.
We used to buy 50lb bags of alfalfa meal, which is essentially alfalfa powder, at a hospital where I used to work. We used it to make slurries to put down NG tubes for NPO horses. Occasionally we’d try to use it to make a slurry for consumption; usually the horses would turn their noses up at it. And man, the stuff was messy.
So I guess I’m wondering why one would want to feed the powder when they can just feed hay, hay cubes, or pellets?
I keep hemp hulls around the kitchen, mostly for when I’m in a “low carb” phase. They’ve always seemed like they’d be a good alternative to flax or chia for horses, but they are waaaaay too expensive to use in the form I buy them! They are like $10 for an itty bitty bag that lasts me awhile, but would probably only be a couple servings for a horse.
I used to feed hemp seeds because I had tried them myself and found them to be very beneficial for my swimmer’s knee. But the cost was prohibitive for horses, so my horses now all get flax. Love the effect, at least on their shiny coats. Now that pot is legal in Canada, maybe the cost will come done. I would totally love to feed hemp again.
I find it keeps my very reactive mare a little steadier (this winter was my real test for her) and it seems to help a bit with her stiffness.
