From: Lisa Titcomb
Hello Jessica. Thank you for all your useful advice!! I am not currently a horse-owner but hope to be in the future. I have been riding for almost 20 years...all pleasure - no showing or competitions. I occassionaly take care of my friend's three horses, which is great experience for when i do get my own horse.
My question is...can/does hay get moldy??? I've asked a couple different people and I've gotten both yes and no responses!! I ask this because I often drive by a big horse farm that has huge bails of hay out in the field for the horses to just feed on whenever they want (like you often see for cows). However, aren't horses stomach's too sensitive and can;t this cause a problem if they overeat or (back to my original question) if the hay is old,wet, and/or moldy???
I'd really appreciate an expert's response to this, to help clear up my confusion.
Thanks, Lisa Titcomb
Never, ever feed a horse moldy hay. If you find mold in your hay, throw the hay out, or give it to someone with cattle. Feeding it to horses will create sick horses, dead horses, or both. The best-case scenario is that you will come into the barn and find that the horses haven't touched their hay! This isn't good for their digestions either, but going hungry is better than getting sick or dying. Most healthy, well-fed horses, unless they are very hungry, won't eat moldy hay. But some will -- and even well-fed horses, if they get hungry enough, can try a few bites. Sometimes, a few bites is all it takes to create enormous suffering for the horses, and enormous medical bills for you.
The big round bales are a great convenience for cattle-owners, and sometimes horse-owners like to use them too, but they aren't as good for horses. The convenience is offset by several things -- first, the wastage! Horses pull the hay out, make nests with it, trample it... a lot more hay gets wasted this way.
When people put out the large bales for horses, their idea is that the horses will eat off layer after layer, from the outside in, and that even if it rains regularly, the hay won't have time to mold before it is eaten. This isn't always the case -- and even ONE major vet bill will more than make up for any savings involved in buying large round bales for horses.
Another problem with the round bales is that you can't inspect them all the way through -- again, this isn't a problem if you are feeding cattle, but it can be a very big problem if you're feeding horses.
It's better to buy baled hay from a reliable source, stack it carefully, and CHECK it as you feed, flake by flake. Take that extra minute to LOOK at the hay and SMELL the hay when you open each new bale -- and check flakes at both ends and in the middle of the bale. If it smells fresh and clean, and makes you think "Wow, if I were a horse I would want to eat THIS," then it's probably fine.
The nice thing (if there is a nice thing) about mold in hay is that it is usually quite obvious. Good hay is soft, green, and smells pleasant when you break open a bale. Moldy hay is often full of white or grey powder, and smells nasty. Hay with mildew will have black spots, and will smell nasty.
Fungal spores make horses cough, bleed, and set up allergic reactions that may cause heaves. And those are the NON-TOXIC molds -- some kill.
In addition to obvious mold, there are other things you should watch out for. If you run across a bale that seems too heavy for its size, check it very, very carefully. Heavy bales are usually the result of damp hay -- hay that was baled while it was wet. This is dangerous to your horse's digestive system -- hay baled wet can develop molds and mildews. It's also dangerous to your barn, and perhaps to your home! Hay that was baled wet can burst into flame -- the heat inside the bale DOES build up to that point -- and destroy the barn and its inhabitants. If you open a heavy bale and the inside feels hot and damp rather than cool and dry, get it out of your barn, and start looking for other bales....
Wet hay isn't necessarily bad AS SUCH -- but YOU need to be the person who wets it down. Many horses with respiratory problems need to have their hay wet down before they eat it. But that means taking a few flakes of hay and soaking them, then giving them to the horse -- not baling the hay wet, or leaving large round bales out in the rain.
Jessica
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