Found a source of tested teff hay for my IR/PPID hinny (been soaking hay for him since Jan. 1, and it’s a pain in sub zero temps w/high winds). It’s reasonably priced, and I’m wondering if I should switch everyone over to it (mini donks, llama, horses at maintenance plus IR hinny). All currently get Mega Cell for grass hay, and horses get alfalfa pellets per their weight/needs. Opinions?
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I like teff hay. My boarding barn has grown it a few times while trying to rehab one of the hay fields. I like it because my horse eats it slowly…not like she doesn’t like it slowly, just that it lasts her a long time. The last teff that they grew in '19 in my opinion was cut a little late. It was not real green (which the teff I’ve seen is never a bright green like grass or alfalfa), coarser than what I had seen before and she didn’t clean it up all the time. Up side…she had hay in front of her 24/7.
I never saw that any of the horses on the farm refused to eat it.
Susan
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I’m a fan as well. I transitioned my horse to it over time, and right from the start, he preferred it to the Bermuda he was getting. He now also has less of a hay belly than he did when on Bermuda.
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If put up correctly, teff hay can be great. I’ve fed it off and on for years when I could get it. My horses have always eaten it quite well, and not slowly as it is pretty soft and fine and easy to hoover up. But I have heard some complaints from people that their horses didn’t like it, so I would always suggest a trial to make sure your herd likes it before buying a bunch. The problems I have ran into with teff are when it was not baled dry enough, we’ve run into mold, or if cut too late when the seeds were on (it is a grain after all, just cut early to make hay), those seed heads can get stuck in the mouth, kind of like cheat grass but not as bad. So I only buy from an experienced grower (seems the new ones are the ones that bale it too wet) and I won’t buy the fluffy looking stuff (sure sign of the seed heads).
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I bought a bundle of 21 bales. Opened the first bale, and it had damp spots, as if snow had melted into it, but no mold. Have pulled this bale apart, and only saw one seed head. Tossed a flake to the horses–they cleaned up 99% of it. Gave hinny 1 1/2 lbs in a small hole hay net as part of his evening meal last night–will be interesting to see if he cleaned it up. This hay’s calcium/phosphorus is inverted, so I need to work through that. It sure was nice not lugging soaked hay out to the hinny last night…
Of all the horses I know of now who have or have had Teff, the vast majority loved it. Not just liked -loved. The other small % hate it.
So yeah, if you can get it, it can be fantastic. But just because it is usually really great hay for IR horses, doesn’t mean it all is - I saw 1 Teff analysis that was borderline too high starch. That probably doesn’t matter to any but the more sensitive IR horses. Still, it’s a good idea to test to be sure, as with any hay, no matter how much it’s likely to be safe
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This is tested hay. Protein 9.1, starch 2.0, ESC 7.6, WSC 8.1 (all values based on DM). So far, PPID/IR hinny has cleaned up the small feedings offered to him and seems to like it better than his Tim Balance Cubes; the llama thinks she has died and gone to heaven–I think it’s the softness of it. Horses will get to do a taste test this afternoon after their buckets, and the mini donks–well you don’t get to be as fat as they are being picky eaters. The hay is inverted for calcium and phosphorus, but I found a great article put out by OK State U that gives you the formulas for figuring everything out, so will do that over the weekend.
many grass hays have an inverted ca/phos ratio, but it’s pretty easy to figure out how much to add as long as you know 1) how much the horse should get (age, weight, work), and how much is eaten from forage. Then you can figure out if you can just add some alfalfa (and how much), or whatever other option suits you best.
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Mine just picks at it, which is basically what he does with anything that isn’t alfalfa…
My horse is not generally a picky eater, but she wasn’t thrilled with teff. I couldn’t feed it in sufficient quantities to use it exclusively, so I was mixing it with alfalfa (the most readily available/cheapest hay here in SoCal) and she just wanted the alfalfa. In contrast, she likes good quality orchard grass hay almost as much as the alfalfa, so I can mix those two successfully and have a happy horse!
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Reviving this thread on teff. We are in MN/WI and needed to renovate our hay field this year. We planted teff and got a 1st cut, let it regrow and it has all gone to seed before we had a window to cut it.
This has been a drought year and I’m struggling to find hay to make it through winter. Is it worth cutting the teff again as horse hay or will the seed heads cause problems similar to foxtail?
I can’t tell you which cutting or even what state it came from (everything we feed in SoCal is shipped from somewhere…), but I have seen teff seed heads cause big problems embedding in gums/around teeth.
