Several different grass hays listed, but all range much higher than alfalfa, with the top end at 16/17%, or all the way up to 30% for oat hay. Greater standard deviation for the grass hays, too. Play around at that link–it’s pretty cool.
If you test your hay (and feed both grass and alfalfa) this is pretty apparent. My alfalfa always tests lower than my grass.
This is Gospel Truth. Yet how many One, True Way feeding advocacy stories do we see here on COTH in any given month (or year)? Usually a fair number. And in the popular press or the Internet (where nobody can say anything unless it’s true) the problem is even greater.
All those supplements you see on the shelves of your local feed store or co-op are there because people buy them. Why do they buy them? Because they think they will be useful. Often the evidence for utility is vanishingly small.
And to put a fine point on this there is another thread going on about “DIY” feeding programs. In the long ago I had friend who owned a feed/tack store and had the Purina folks come in and do a “dog and pony show” on equine nutrition. They spent a LOT of time discussing basic research on equine feed requirements.* Needless to say they favored their own brand in meeting those needs. But the needs were based on some pretty sound science. Which means that ANYONE wanting to do a DIY program had better have taken the time to EDUCATE themselves on the subject (and not just read fluff pieces in magazine or on the 'net). And realize that when they do this they are engaging in feed experimentation with their horse(s) as the guinea pig(s).
The beginning of any feed regime are the equine baseline needs that can be found almost anywhere. Use them. Then you watch and see what happens. Is the horse holding an appropriate weight? Do they perform to standard in their discipline? Is their temperament willing? Are the feet sound? Is the eye bright and the coat slick? If the answer the answer to these questions is “yes” then it ain’t broke; DON’T FIX IT!!! If you’ve got a “no” then take the time to address the “no” and address it only. Put another way, only change one thing at a time and give the change a chance to work!!!
As soon as somebody starts using the Buzzword/phrase of the month (like “organic,” or “glyphosphate free,” or the like) then do two things: first, secure your wallet and then run like Hell for the door. You’re dealing a charlatan, mountebank, cut-purse, and/or scoundrel. If you stay you’re a “sheep” and the fate of sheep is to be shorn.
G.
*The UTVet School in Knoxville puts on periodic “short courses” on horse-keeping and feed requirements are often one of the presentations. I have not been for a while but used to go frequently. The basic science from Purina matched the presentations by Vet. School people. So on the basics there is a level of agreement.
Studies have shown that the more overweight a person is, the less the are able to see that their animals (and their kids) are overweight And, when you see your animal regularly, but don’t actually LOOK at them, and nobody ever told you how to LOOK, you don’t notice either And absolutely, food = love. I see so many people trying to get their horses’ (and other animals) caretakers to stop feeding grain because “I love them and they love the food”, and “horses need grain” :no:
Because it is. Or rather, it can be. Equi-Analytical has 19/20 years’ worth of analyses. The low and high range for the legume and “grass hay” (generic) is .6 and 2%, and .2 and 3% respectively, with the averages being 1% for each (of all their samples). So on the high end of things, legumes tend to be lower than than the high end of generic grass hays. If you look at alfalfa cubes, they are even lower in each category, even with low starch at 0%.
If you get into the Bermudagrass hay (again, generic, not variety-specific), then numbers are even higher. The numbers are Average, Low, High [TABLE=“cellspacing: 0”]
[TR]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]% WSC (Water Sol. Carbs.)[/TD]
[TD] [/TD]
[TD]7.378[/TD]
[TD]5.320[/TD]
[TD]9.436[/TD]
[TD] [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]% ESC (Simple Sugars)[/TD]
[TD] [/TD]
[TD]5.977[/TD]
[TD]3.806[/TD]
[TD]8.148[/TD]
[TD] [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]% Starch[/TD]
[TD] [/TD]
[TD]4.266[/TD]
[TD]1.217[/TD]
[TD]7.316[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
And that’s a warm-season grass, which is typically lower than cool-season grasses. But still, the devil is in the details and for the metabolic horse you really must be testing, as not all alfalfa is suitable for all horses.
For some horses, total NSC is the thing to track. For others, NSC might seem a little high, but if the starch is low enough they can be quite ok. So maybe it’s “NSC isn’t all we should focus on”
Here’s my take: any time we start messing around hyperfocused on one particular aspect of diet, we cause more problems than we solve. Because we really don’t have a clear understanding of the whole. Remember the low-fat craze? Oprah told us we could eat an entire box of Snack-Well cookies and not get fat because we’d only consumed 2 grams of fat? All we got for our efforts was dry, flaky skin and brittle hair and 20 extra pounds.
NSC is trendy for humans, too. It’s called SCD. The only people I personally know with enough time on their hands to stay on SCD are fitness professionals that work out between 2-4 hours a day. Guess what has happened to every one of them on SCD? THEY GAINED WEIGHT! And a lot of it! Same with “counting macros” that’s so trendy. One girl I know gained 50 lbs. One guy that owns a crossfit gym blogged about how puzzled he was when he fell off the macros wagon for a day and lost 5 lbs despite eating more than a horse. Meanwhile, I eat a balanced diet 95% of the time and occasionally stuff my face with Pop-Tarts and I never gain weight. Hmmm.
I agree that getting tunnel-visioned is never a good thing. I’d never heard of the SCD diet but on looking it up, then nope, I put that in the same category as the Keto craze right now. Any diet that severally restricts, let alone eliminates a specific type of food or nutrient is not for the average person, they are typically only suitable for medical issues. In SCD case, WebMD lists it as suitable for people with pretty significant digestive issues. And we KNOW that even when you have a good medical reason to be on these types of diet, you may truly develop issues because of that restriction. What a terrible diet for any “normal” human to decide to follow, at least long-term. Rarely do these things cause harm short-term because our diets don’t at all need to be “balanced” in the span of days or weeks, sometimes a few months.
My theory is that horses with IR and Cushings are like people with an over abundance of Kopha (one of the 3 Ayurvedic dosha) They lack sufficient digestive activity for some reason. Severely restricting caloric intake and/or the type of foodstuffs in their diet seems like it should work. It obviously doesn’t, because every Cushings horse I know managed this way ends up on meds.
Cushing’s is entirely different from, unrelated to IR issues. Cushing’s is from an enlarging pituitary gland which screws up a lot of hormonal processes. They typically LOSE weight, lose muscle mass, and often need more calories for a healthy weight. Every Cushing’s horse is (should be) on meds, no matter the feeding situation. You can’t feed your way out of the growing pituitary
Agree, getting hyper-focused on the major portion of the diet is good, and in some cases absolutely necessary, for a healthy horse, not to mention an optimally healthy horse. A forage analysis is laser focus on the nutritional intake so the rest of the diet can be properly managed.
We can’t compare people to animals, omnivores to herbivores, or creatures whose diet is 90-100% one thing to creatures who consume all types of foods. The only real comparisons is the overall pictures - is the creature eating the types of things it should be, and in appropriate amounts.
Ok after I typed this out I saw much of this is already answered in the thread.
Cushing’s typically requires drugs to mitigate symptoms. Putting a horse on Cushing’s drugs is not a fail.
Not sure how you understand the term nonstructural carbohydrates. It refers to the carbs that are digested in the small intestine. Horses did not evolve to est a lot of carbs. They don’t actually need grains like oats. They get a lot of calories by fermenting fibre in the hind gut, something humans don’t do because we don’t have cecums. Only appendixes.
I suggest Juliet Gettys book Feed Your Horse Like a Horse if you want a good basic accessible overview of current nutrition best practices.
Humans have evolved to eat a varied diet that can be split between carbs, protein, and fat if the total calories are reasonable to the energy expended. Horses have evolved to eat a low value high volume diet. A hay with lets say 12% carbs and 12% protein and tiny trace of fat will be perfect for most horses. They get needed calories from hind gut fermentation. A person would die eating like this.
A Horse would not fair well on a 30/30/30 carbs fats protein diet.
It’s very interesting to see all the misunderstandings about horse nutrition on this thread. The book I mentioned above is a great resource.
Starch in hay is a very small part of the NSC and is included in NSC numbers. Carbs including starch all break down to simple sugars in digestion. Your hay test will give some indication what kinds of simple sugars are in your hay.
Many folks are drawn to forms of traditional healing that come from the older traditions of cultures and were developed before the advent of modern scientific understanding of anatomy. Indeed there are whole schools of medieval European medical theories that predate basic knowledge of the circulatory system. The four humors, anyone? Probably they’d think Cushing’s was caused by black bile and apply leeches or something.
Anyhow whatever the attraction of nonmodern healing belief systems, I think everyone needs to understand the evidence based explanations for actual diseases such as Cushing’s which is indeed these days called Pars Pituary Intermediate Disease. And how this is different from insulin resistance per se.
FWIW, it is worth acknowledging that there are specific groups of horses that have been bred far, far away from their steppes of siberia ancestors and DO need higher value hay. In a general sense we label them “hard keepers” and certain breeds are more likely to have individuals like that.
For example, I simply cannot keep my horses on low quality hay. Hell, just trying to keep them on high quality grass hay is difficult, and requires a significant amount of supplemental “stuff.”
That’s the rub, though, with this whole thing. There’s no one size fits all answer. Low quality high volume isn’t an answer for all any more than high quality high volume is…although you’re likely addressing the needs of MORE with that plan, as hardy horses that get little work are more common in this area of the world.
It’s really a shame that this hay dealer isn’t focusing on hardkeeping horses with her mix hay and free choice feeding plan–that could be a great fit.
I was looking at data published by UC Davis. There is a slight difference in the NSC analysis between alfalfa and grass hay. Cool weather hay and stressed hay tend to test higher, but that’s no surprise. IIRC, Scribbler lives in Canada or a Northern US state? We’ll assume the cool weather hay analysis figures for the sake of comparison. The average starch content is 1.9% for legume hay and 2.3 for cool season grass hay. Bermuda grass is signicantly higher at 5.8, but virtually identical to grass hay for other carbs and fibers.
IMO, the average difference between NSC content is not significant enough to override the other aspects of nutritional analysis between alfalfa and grass - particularly the calories. Alfalfa on average has a notably higher calorie content than grass hay - nearly twice that of Bermuda grass. We’ve known since the 1900s that the calorie is a consistently reliable measurement. A deficient between calories in and calories out is necessary to create weight loss. The rest is icing on the cake.
There was a really interesting show on one of those cable stations (maybe TLC) where British researchers studied two friends one overweight and one underweight. Both had similar activity levels - basically sedentary. The underweight friend, by her own admission, ate pretty badly: “it’s cider, cakes, and crisps all day!” The overweight friend was following a weight reduction diet fairly diligently.
The assumption going in was that the underweight friend had hit the genetic jackpot and had a metabolism that torched 1000s of extra calories a day. What the researchers actually found was that the underweight friend might have been eating mostly junk food. But she was dramatically overestimating the number of calories she consumed . Her actual daily caloric intake was only in the range of 1000- 1200 a day - equal to or slightly under the number of calories she burned in a day. The overweight friend, on the other hand, was consuming more nutrient-dense calories. But with a calorie consumption level around 2000-2300, she was consuming more of those nutrient-dense calories than she burned.
Naturally, individual body composition and conditions can make a difference in metabolic rate. I know guys with body fat indexes in the mid single digits that walk around eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. Their high percentage of lean muscle mass burns a huge amount of calories even at rest. On the other side of the spectrum, metabolic disorders can make maintaining a healthy weight very challenging.
Long story short - ignoring any disorders the horses at Scribbler’s barn may have, they’re eating the magic fairy dust hay free choice and (if I underand correctly) being restricted off normal forage. Of course they’re gaining weight. They’re consuming more calories without an increase in activity levels to offset the difference. If they’re anything like the horses I know, they’re probably picking out the alfalfa and leaving the grass mostly untouched. Eating mostly alfalfa is going to nearly double their caloric intake.
I’m curious about the stalls used to house the 300 pound bales that are netted and bolted to the floor. Is it a horse stall or just vernacular for a hay hut type bale holder?
Exactly, and we also need to get a very clear definition of what “low quality” or “low value” hay means.
It doesn’t matter if your 1000lb horse is an air fern or among the hardest keeper there is. Given the same life status - age, workload, breeding status, etc - they both require the same nutrition (as a starting point, individual idiosyncrasies notwithstanding). But one might be still a bit too heavy on 16,000 calories a day, and the other may juuuust be able to stay in good weight on 30,000 calories.
Calories are not the same as nutrition. You cannot feet the air fern “low quality” hay if that means it’s 5% protein, almost no lysine, etc, and have him be healthy, even if his weight is ok.
Which link is that? I’m interested to see the samplings they used. Do they have more samples, from a variety of places in North America, than Equi-Analytical?
Cool weather hay and stressed hay tend to test higher, but that’s no surprise. IIRC, Scribbler lives in Canada or a Northern US state? We’ll assume the cool weather hay analysis figures for the sake of comparison. The average starch content is 1.9% for legume hay and 2.3 for cool season grass hay. Bermuda grass is signicantly higher at 5.8, but virtually identical to grass hay for other carbs and fibers.
And there you go - the legume hay is lower starch than both cool- and warm-season grasses.
IMO, the average difference between NSC content is not significant enough to override the other aspects of nutritional analysis between alfalfa and grass - particularly the calories. Alfalfa on average has a notably higher calorie content than grass hay - nearly twice that of Bermuda grass. We’ve known since the 1900s that the calorie is a consistently reliable measurement. A deficient between calories in and calories out is necessary to create weight loss. The rest is icing on the cake.
Bermudagrass is a generic species. There are many, many types
And calories - it is only a reliable measurement as it stands in a laboratory setting undergoing a specific set of tests to see how much energy it contains. It is VERY variable when it comes to how an animal digests it, because it comes down to the digestive enzymes, whether it’s processed or not (ie cooked vs raw), and other factors. So “consistently reliable” is only in a very clinical setting, not at all in the real world.
There was a really interesting show on one of those cable stations (maybe TLC) where British researchers studied two friends one overweight and one underweight. Both had similar activity levels - basically sedentary. The underweight friend, by her own admission, ate pretty badly: “it’s cider, cakes, and crisps all day!” The overweight friend was following a weight reduction diet fairly diligently.
The assumption going in was that the underweight friend had hit the genetic jackpot and had a metabolism that torched 1000s of extra calories a day. What the researchers actually found was that the underweight friend might have been eating mostly junk food. But she was dramatically overestimating the number of calories she consumed . Her actual daily caloric intake was only in the range of 1000- 1200 a day - equal to or slightly under the number of calories she burned in a day. The overweight friend, on the other hand, was consuming more nutrient-dense calories. But with a calorie consumption level around 2000-2300, she was consuming more of those nutrient-dense calories than she burned.
People in general are pretty terrible about estimating units of measure, whether it’s weight, calories, length. Certainly people under- and over-estimate their caloric intake all day long and heaven forbid you ask them to estimate their protein/fat/carb ratio.
Long story short - ignoring any disorders the horses at Scribbler’s barn may have, they’re eating the magic fairy dust hay free choice and (if I underand correctly) being restricted off normal forage.
How are they being restricted of normal forage, when they are eating “normal forage” to the tune of 30lb/day? Do you mean grass? Many horses who are fat and muzzled on grass, are in excellent weight eating 30lb of hay a day - I have 4 of them.
Of course they’re gaining weight. They’re consuming more calories without an increase in activity levels to offset the difference. If they’re anything like the horses I know, they’re probably picking out the alfalfa and leaving the grass mostly untouched. Eating mostly alfalfa is going to nearly double their caloric intake.
They’re not leaving the grass hay if each horse is eating all of the 300lb bale of the mix in 10 days. If they were, then even if the alfalfa were 50% of the mix, then they’d be down to 15lb of hay a day, at roughly 16000 calories. That’s pretty typical of the maintenance needs of the average 1100lb horse.
Some grass hays are also in the 1000-1100 cal/lb range, so if that grass hay is really good stuff, then the alfalfa is the least of the problems, again assuming (just because of how this past, and the post she originally made, is worded) that alfalfa is no more than 50% of the mix.
I doubt it’s a more comprehensive sampling. It caught my eye because it contained data for a broad spectrum of carbohydrate types. It looks at cool season grass hay exclusively. I don’t consider a .5% difference in starch level significant. Maybe I’m nuts. But I’ve managed to keep numerous horses alive and well over the past 30 years, including ponies and a couple minis.
How is any nutritional data reliable outside of a lab, then? Why are we holding up small differences in NCS values as gospel truth when there will be a wide variance in how each animal is actually getting based on it’s individual digestion? I’m asking this out of honest curiosity. There can be such significant differences in nutritional analysis between two bales produced next door to each other based on the time of day, weather, and haying technique, that I can’t see what one would do except have a sample from each load tested. I know some people who do just that. I used to cut hay for our goats with a scythe. I didn’t send out samples from every batch but I did test the moisture content in the microwave. I’m pretty good at eyeballing for the correct dryness before stacking it but I worried and liked to double-check.
I’m sure individual calorie contents can vary. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect alfalfa to be higher in protein and calories than grass hay on average. My interpretation was that the horses were being fed the hay exclusively and held off of the grass. Hopefully Scribbler can correct me if I’m wrong. How do we know if they are actually eating all of the hay and not pawing the less palatable parts of it into the bedding, peeing and pooping on it like most horses are wont to do?
She asked why the horses might be getting fatter on the magic hay. I offered my two cents. She knows me well enough I think whether to take it or leave it.
Then how did the 160 horses at the stable I boarded at for over 13 years survive? Horses were stalled 24/7 ( urban area) and were fed only alfalfa hay. We on the rare occasion had oat hay too, but 98% of the time the diet was all alfalfa.
It wasn’t fed free choice. but horses were fed the hay they needed to maintain optimum body weight. Most boarders fed little to no grain. It wasn’t needed and we had no founder, laminitis or health issues. We had every breed imaginable boarded there. From shetland ponies to warm bloods.
I don’t take a .5% difference to be significant either. However, 1.9% vs 5.8%, legume vs generic Bermudagrass, is pretty significant. And in the end, it doesn’t matter what averages are, what matters is the starch and/or sugar of a given hay that a given horse with metabolic challenges, whether IR or PSSM or something else, is eating. So while X hay tends to be low sugar/low starch/high protein/more nutritionally balanced/more or less anything, the specific hay matters much more than “tends to”
How is any nutritional data reliable outside of a lab, then?
It’s not, really I was only talking about how consistently reliable calories were stated to be, and wanted to point out that’s really only about lab numbers, and it isn’t something we should be looking at as gospel. It’s just a starting point. We know enough about horses that in general, 16,000-20,000 calories for an 1100lb horse is typical maintenance for a pasture puff. It’s where you start. That’s 20lb of hay, give or take as your starting point. Then you modify based on how the individual is holding up.
Why are we holding up small differences in NCS values as gospel truth when there will be a wide variance in how each animal is actually getting based on it’s individual digestion? I’m asking this out of honest curiosity.
I agree, we cannot use averages to dictate how a given horse is fed. I don’t think anyone is using small differences as gospel truth though - we only got into the differences (some are not insignificant) because the question was asked “how can alfalfa be lower starch than grass hay” - because it can be. Not gospel, the averages and lows and highs up there prove it can be higher but it also proves it can be lower to a lot lower. That’s how we went to specifics.
There can be such significant differences in nutritional analysis between two bales produced next door to each other based on the time of day, weather, and haying technique, that I can’t see what one would do except have a sample from each load tested. I know some people who do just that. I used to cut hay for our goats with a scythe. I didn’t send out samples from every batch but I did test the moisture content in the microwave. I’m pretty good at eyeballing for the correct dryness before stacking it but I worried and liked to double-check.
People with metabolic-enough horses absolutely to need to test their hay, or buy only tested hay, because you can’t always soak out enough sugar/starch to get it low enough, and if you don’t know where you’re starting, you don’t know if it’s possible. But the average horse? Testing isn’t needed. High performance horses? More testing would be beneficial because it’s not all that difficult to have hay not provide optimal nutrition for optimal performance possibilities.
But heck, even the normal/regular/average horse would benefit, because much of the US has an issue with high iron, which means low copper and zinc, which can easily mean lots of coat bleaching, hoof issues, and, if the horse does tend towards IR issues, high enough iron over long enough period of time may just bring on issues they wouldn’t otherwise have. We’re learning a great deal about all that interaction.
I’m sure individual calorie contents can vary. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect alfalfa to be higher in protein and calories than grass hay on average. My interpretation was that the horses were being fed the hay exclusively and held off of the grass. Hopefully Scribbler can correct me if I’m wrong. How do we know if they are actually eating all of the hay and not pawing the less palatable parts of it into the bedding, peeing and pooping on it like most horses are wont to do?
I would assume that since these bales were netted, there is little wasted. I’m sure they didn’t eat every last speck, but nets do tend to really minimize waste. I’m sure they dragged some around as they ate, dropping stuff, so no, not all eaten.
She asked why the horses might be getting fatter on the magic hay. I offered my two cents. She knows me well enough I think whether to take it or leave it.
Oh I absolutely agree! Simply too much hay for most stock horses in most situations. It doesn’t surprise me at all. The laminitis does surprise me only because most horses don’t become laminitic just as a result of over-eating hay. If they did, there’d be a whole lot more overweight horses with sore feet. And while we do know that the longer a horse is more overweight (heading into and being obese, not just a BCS6) can trigger a horse to become IR, simply being overweight, especially for just a single Winter, doesn’t really equate to laminitis all by itself.
Either something weird is up with the hay, the distributor lied and it’s really high NSC/high starch hay, or that set of horses just happens to be more metabolically challenged. Or both.
And FWIW, I enjoy these conversations, I hope this isn’t coming across as arguing, I think this whole situation smells of something funny, and there’s a lot to be learned here all around I think :yes:
I’m sure the 1000s and 1000s of horses living in the SW would beg to differ;)
I’m curious why you think this - why do they also need grass?
Now, to be fair, there are some nutritional imbalance issues that are inherent to alfalfa - the high calcium:phosphorous ratio can easily cause issues, for example. But those imbalances are relatively easy to fix, and don’t require grass to do it.
But that whole line of thinking doesn’t track at all, because I think we ALL can agree that COWS do very well on alfalfa (right?) Cows and horses both have a very developed cecum, so saying alfalfa works for one species and not the other because of the cecum doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I think part of the confusion here is that Wanderosa is thinking that NSC measure just starch? But actually NSC measures all the carbs digested in the small intestine including all the simple sugars. Starch per se is minimal in grass hay and alfalfa both.
As far as the setup here the horses are in stalls with small runout paddocks and the 300 lb bale is installed in a corner of the stall.
The horses tend to vacuum up all the hay because it is highly palatable. Some of the owners have been feeding supplemental hay because they don’t like seeing the horses work so hard at the hay bags so some of that supplemental hay is ground into the bedding in some stalls. It varies.
Cattle cannot forage on lucerne. They bloat and die. They can eat lucerne hay. Horses can forage on lucerne and not die but be careful about the rule of changing feed slowly.
I don’t think that cattle and horses are all that comparable–the difference between a cud-chewing ruminant and a non-ruminant is pretty substantial in terms of what/how much they can eat and what level of nutrition they can get from their forage.
While the overall point is that each horse should be managed according to its needs, which may be very individualized, the opening example was of, if I’m summarizing correctly, some allegedly quasi-magical hay that would never cause any digestive or metabolic problems regardless of what horse ate it or how much was eaten.
I understand the appeal of quasi-magical hay, but I guess it doesn’t exist ;).
Scams and scammers abound. Making money. Horse owners lap it all up willingly, looking for fairy dust, susceptible to marketing and promotion. We see it so often. Not only in the feeding of horses, but in the riding and training of horses too. Just about everything actually, not only horses. The “Natural” label works so well. When people want to believe, they will believe.
IMO, horses live best on a mixture of grasses and herbs, what occurs “naturally” in a well managed field. No Round Up is required. And free choice salt and mineral block or premix. And lots of exercise, not locked into stalls. With this, they don’t usually need much else, unless under intense physical exertion and competition pressure.
And, when you see your animal regularly, but don’t actually LOOK at them, and nobody ever told you how to LOOK, you don’t notice either 
