Hi, I’m located in Northern California and have 2 TB’s, 1 Morgan, and a few ponies to feed. I was just offered Sudan Grass at a screaming deal through a friend. I’ve read it isn’t a great feed but haven’t been able to find any information regarding using it in addition to alfalfa and orchard grass. Thoughts?
Ideally, I’d like to find out which of my horses would be OK if we added Sudan to their diet or if we could use it as a lunch time meal.
Help!
A farm near me grew Sudan for a year or two, but they didn’t keep up with it.
It is not advised to feed horses Sudan fresh, it should be well cured.
http://forages.tamu.edu/PDF/Nitrate.pdf
If you do a Google search for “Sudan hay and COTH”, you will come up with a link from a few years ago discussing Sudan hay.
It’s my understanding that it is high nsc–which probably dangerous for your ponies and your Morgan. Further, it stores nitrates, which is bad for all horses. Here, we have sudan and “sorghum sudan” that is typically fed to cattle.
I wouldn’t risk it. It’s cheap for a reason.
[QUOTE=Hermein;8138424]
It’s my understanding that it is high nsc–which probably dangerous for your ponies and your Morgan. Further, it stores nitrates, which is bad for all horses. Here, we have sudan and “sorghum sudan” that is typically fed to cattle.
I wouldn’t risk it. It’s cheap for a reason.[/QUOTE]
I agree. I wouldn’t feed it either. It is generally very very stemmy - thick huge stems and big flat leaves. Sometimes we will have a stray patch show up in a round bale, and my horses won’t eat it.
Cattle love it, though. It’s cut for silage pretty often in the Midwest.
Thank you so much for all your insight! I’ll be sticking to my orchard/alfalfa mix after all. 
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