What is the hay that you feed horses with?

Answer 1

The indigestible cellulose in the hay helps to keep their intestinal tract clean, it keeps them "regular". (Similar to why humans have to eat vegetables!)

The horse in the wild is a grazing animal, designed for basically non-stop eating of relatively low-quality food. A horse left to its own devices may graze for 20 hours a day.

When we take a horse out of its natural environment and make it work for several hours a day, much harder than it would in the wild, it needs concentrates as well to keep the condition on it. This usually takes the form of grain. Feeding only grain is very bad for a horse's digestive system. It must be kept well-supplied with roughage.

Also, domesticated horses are often kept in stalls or very small paddocks and do not have the freedom to roam and graze for most of the day. They cannot eat as much forage as they need by grazing, so we must give it to them in the form of hay or chaff.

* A horses' digestive system is very complex. Horses are grazing animals and are designed to be taking in food (grazing on grass and hay) about 22 out of every 24 hours. This keeps the digestive tract going. Failure to keep the digestive tract going can lead to impaction and colic which can be fatal. Colic is the #1 worry among horse owners. Hay is good roughage and is also lower in sugar content than grass, which can be loaded with sugar, especially in the spring,when the new tender grass is loaded with carbohydrates. Grass in good for horses and they need it but in some circumstances, hay is even better. * Horses need to forage, and hay is a good substitute for the grass that some horses may lack. It aids digestion. Grazing is the best for a horse, but hay will work too. * Whether or not hay is good for a horse will depend on the horse itself. Believe it or not some horses can be allergic to it. It can make coughing worse if the horse coughs too much under normal circumstances (I would suggest wetting the hay, because if it is wet a horse that coughs often will be able to take it down easier). The best part about hay is that it warms a horse up. A hay roll is the perfect thing for horses in the winter when they are turned out due to the lack of grass. When the grass goes back and they have enough grass to eat, I would suggest to either remove the hay from the field or give them a smaller hay roll. You should leave hay in a stall year round. Grass has nutrients that hay doesn't and it will balance out well. A couple things to ALWAYS remember before buying hay are, know your horse and his or her personal needs, make sure you know exactly what kind of hay you are getting, know that you can trust the person that you are buying the hay from, and check to see if there are a lot of mold and/or weeds in it (that could be bad for some horses). Also, certain types of hay can be dangerous to a pregnant mare.

* Keeps the digestive passage clean. Also they like it. * It helps their digestive system to.....digest their food! But they also just like it because it tastes nice to them!

Answer 2

Hay is usually dried grasses. It may contain legumes such as alfalfa or clovers as well.

The main difference between hay and straw is that straw is what's left over after the grain of a cereal grass has been been extracted. It consists mainly of dried stems and leaves and has a lower nutritional value than hay. Straw is mainly used for bedding, while hay is primarily used for fodder.

Answer 3

Horses are designed to get nutrition from hay through hind gut (bacterial) fermentation that breaks cellulose down into volatile fatty acids that the horse uses for energy. Humans do not have an intestinal tract with any ability to digest cellulose.

Answer 4

While carrots make a nice treat they actually are not that healthy of a food for horses. This is due to them containing sugar. As a treat they are fine in small amounts and are better for horses than apples.