I have been feeding alfalfa cubes for 30 years and have never soaked them. Ever. And I have never
had even the teensiest problem. So I don’t understand why people think they have to soak cubes
The horse produces a lot of saliva and this moistens them quite a bit.
It really entirely depends on the cubes and the pellets.
Midwest-Agri alf pellets I get are soft and soak quickly - literally a few minutes. Longs if you want full fluff, but with warm water (or in the Summer) that’s 10-15 minutes, not hours.
I got some Dumor alf pellets once as I was at TSC, needed alf pellets, and didn’t want to have to go an hour the other direction to Southern States for my usual. The outer layer on those is hard and shiny, making water penetration a lot harder, and those things take a good hour to really break down.
Triple Crown Timothy Balance cubes are small and soft, and soak down very quickly. Many alfalfa pellets around here are like a brick and take hours. Most people I know who use alf cubes say they are quite hard and take a long time to soak. But it definitely depends.
Because some of them are like little bricks, like you need a hammer to smash them, and it’s the actual chewing part that’s the problem
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They only soaked for about 70 minutes today in cold hose water and were totally broken up. Not as mushy as last time though. These are standlee, so far so good, but I’m hoping they don’t get harder with age.
they shouldn’t, there is very, very little moisture in them to begin with
High humidity is shockingly damaging 
and the last 3 weeks have averaged 90% humidity
Humidity can cause damage for sure. I would not expect humidity to make cubes harder. We spend July and August and into September with many hours a day above 60%, and many days above 80%. I don’t personally use cubes, but my pellets don’t get any harder, they don’t get moldy.
I’m glad they don’t harden! I’ll just keep en eye on them for anything else.
I feed Standlee alfalfa cubes every day. For some reason, I find they break down faster when I add a 1/4 scoop of grain in with the hot water and cubes. I also break them apart with my hands once they begin to soften. I’d say it takes 30 minutes for a full scoop to soften and break apart this way.
I was going to post this! Hot water has them soaked an mushy lickety split. Then I add some cold to cool it down if I need.
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