Tired of looking for hay? This year has brought many challenges for horse owners, with high grain prices and a shortage of hay, the number one component in a horse’s diet.
Horses daily require two to 2.5 per cent of their body weight in good quality forage, which for a 1,000 pound horse is approximately 20 to 25 pounds of hay.
Stretching hay supply
An alternative to hay is hay cubes, which is a produced by taking hay, chopping it, then pressing it into a cube. Since western provinces had a great hay crop, hay cubes have not been in short supply.
Research has shown horses can safely consume at least 25% of their diet in the form of hay cubes without causing any problems, which means one can replace approximately five to 6.25 pounds of hay with hay cubes.
Most hay cubes come in 50-pound bags, which is approximately equal to 1.75 bales of hay, due to the compression. Small square bales average 30 to 40 pounds of hay, with current prices at $5 to $8 a bale or $0.16 to $0.20 a pound. Hay cubes will replace at least one fifth of bale hay with good quality forage.
Hay cubes are an excellent option for horse owners as it is easy to feed and manufacturers provide a guaranteed analysis with little variation between loads. From a nutritional standpoint, this is great method to ensure horses obtain most of the required nutrients on a daily basis, although one has to remember that hay does not provide a complete source of nutrients. A vitamin/mineral supplement is still required to balance a horses’ ration.
With hay cubes, there is less waste, less dust and cubes are much easier to chew, a benefit for older equines with poorer teeth.
The disadvantages to hay cubes are decreased chewing time, which may lead to boredom, so a stall-bound horse may start chewing boards, stall walking or something else to relieve their boredom. Because hay cubes are easier to chew than hay, horses may eat them faster, which may lead to choking. A solution to this is to soak the hay cubes first, thereby breaking the cube up such that it cannot cause an obstruction.
Refusal of hay cubes by a horse is usually related to the texture rather then the taste of the cube, because hay cubes do not crumble easily as the horse bites them with their incisors at the front of their mouths.
Some horses may object to using their incisors to perform this task, they would rather just use these teeth for tearing pasture grass. Again, soaking the hay cubes prior to feeding will reduce refusal.
Supplementing your hay with at least 25% hay cubes can safely avoid some of the disadvantages to hay cubes and provide an adequate diet for all ages of horses.
This column was submitted by Debra Ottier BSc (Agr), MSc, of Sharpe Farm Supplies.
