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Discussion on Last year's hay
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Member:
stek
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Posted on Tuesday, Mar 27, 2012 - 6:06 pm:
We are nearing the end of our hay stores and will need to buy some more to tide us over till this year's crop comes in. I can usually get a good deal on last year's hay, and am thinking about buying a little extra if I can find good quality that has been well stored. We had a really good hay year last year so supplies are pretty good, especially for first cutting which is what we like to feed.
However Dr. O recently posted in another thread that hay loses nutritional value rapidly in the first few months, and continues to degrade over time, losing both vitamin content and protein/nutritional value. (forgive me for paraphrasing and please correct me if I'm misquoting, Dr. O)
I recently came across this article:
https://www.safergrass.org/pdf/old_hay.pdf
that references a Colorado study that shows nutritional value in hay that is put up well staying pretty constant when tested over the course of a year.
Dr. O I'm wondering if you have seen any other studies about long term hay storage? If there is nothing wrong with it I would be tempted to buy some extra while farmers are cleaning out their barns for this year's first cutting.
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Member:
lsweeney
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Posted on Tuesday, Mar 27, 2012 - 7:24 pm:
I'm not Dr. O., but this study would infer that you are fine to store hay.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Thursday, Mar 29, 2012 - 8:13 am:
Shannon,
We all have to feed last years hay at this time of year. Experience clearly shows that despite storage and loss of nutrients for 9 o 12 months good hay can still meet a horses needs. All other factors being equal it will require more dry matter than when it was fresher to meet energy and protein requirements. Note that the study you quote does not use metabolic protein measurements which would better reflect the loss of usable nutrients. While this is not significant for cows as they process nonprotein nitrogen this is important for horses. I would imagine metabolic energy calculations for cows would not apply to horses.
Meeting vitamin requirements can be a bit tougher in older hay so they should probably be supplemented in horses not receiving a whole feed. See the article on vitamins for more on recommendations.
DrO
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