What is best hay for horses
How to choose the right hay for your horse
hi I'm Erica from inside out equine
health today I'm going to talk about hay
so people like to talk about premium
quality hay to me premium quality hay is
hay that is clean dust free and mold
free aside from that all hay has a place
in the equine diet and is not
necessarily one is necessarily premium
quality over the other premium quality
hay is the hay that is right for your
horse so let's talk about a few hay that
we've got here so let's start off with
the really obvious one so we've got your
loops of hay which is really really high
in protein and calcium really really
high in calories and really really
palatable so all horses love the taste
of loosen well all that I've come across
so very very easy to get them to eat it
but certainly not appropriate to be the
only form of roughage in the it fried
diets just too high in protein and
calcium and sets the whole diet out of
whack however it's really low in
non-structural carbohydrate throw
perfect for insulin resistant horses or
even laminated horses to have a little
bit of it to get their calcium and
protein content and as you can see very
very palatable even to the fussy
thoroughbred and as you can see this is
a very very grassy loose and very very
lots of leaves and hardly any stalk so
this is really really high in calories
and to get rid of these calories you
would have to shake off all the leaves
like this leaving the stalks or you
could of course soak it as well and get
rid of the water that it is so amusing
we go to the other end of the spectrum
now so this is a native grass hay this
is Road take really really low in
calories sugar protein everything like
that but a fantastic source of roughage
and if you've got a horse locked up if
you've got a laminated course if you've
got a really really overweight horse
this is the perfect thing to feed it
horses need between one and a half and
two and a half percent of their body
wait in roughage every single day so for
a 500 kilo horse that's about 10 kilos
of hay each day or through today so if
you've got a left up horse and they need
to eat 10 kilos of hate and this is the
perfect stuff for it and it's very very
clean okay we've got a right here so a
fairly green right again depending on
the horse and its needs this could be
appropriate it's got a tiny little bit
of clover in it to make it a little bit
tastier but again this is a fairly
standard rye and it would be impossible
to tell it's sugar content without doing
a hay test and then up here we have a
bit of a mixed Hey now this was perched
as purchased as a grass hay however you
can see that it very obviously has
potent hay and in fact the whole oat
still in it so if you've got a horse
that has issues with sugar so if you've
got an insulin resistant horse or horses
even a horse that ties off this kind of
hay is not going to be appropriate yes
your grass here is okay but it's got
quite a lot of open hay in it so again I
wouldn't be providing too many horses
with this as their major source of
roughage but a biscuit here or there no
problems at all
so as you can see the type of hay that
is is premium really depends on your
horse and your horses names but if you
look like encourage everyone to feed
their horse high it's a fantastic
addition even in spring you know if you
wants to eat a whole lot of this in
spring you really sorted it helps
they've got and all that kinda thing so
it's a small variety of the Hays that
are on option
