Soaking Hay?!

[em&ed]

I understood that to get rid of the sugars in hay you had to soak it for 12hours, or so...

However someone on my old yard said their vet had told them an hour's soaking would get rid of *most* of the sugar... then someone else said they had been told 20mins would do it...

So from 20 mins to 12 hours.... and everything in between!

Does anyone have an accurate - researched - answer to this please?

Thanks

[Deleted]

There is an article on the safegrass website but the site seems to have changed and I can't find the articles!

I think it said that basically the longer you soak for the more sugar you remove, however, if time is limited then using warm water speeds the process up.

Simple Systems told me that the first 2 hours are the most important. I don't think 20 or 30 minutes is enough.

[lilaclomax]

In short 1 hour of soaking loose hay in twice the amount of water at room temperature = a reduction of around 31% of 'sugar' in hay.

Katy from Safergrass states 2-3 hours in 'lots of water'... try to aim for twice as much water as hay to leach out as much WSC as you can. After a few hours the WSC in the water will become the same as the amount in the hay so no more will be leached out, then you are looking at loosing natural nutrients and maybe fermenting the hay, which in turn could cause a colic risk. If the horse has foundered I read somewhere that you can then remove the water and re-fill for another 20mins to rinse and take off any surface WSCs that may remain.
I soak overnight as it is convienent for me and as the temperature is colder the process takes longer, when the weather warms up I will convert back to soaking for a few hours as the water warms up quicker!

www.safergrass.org/pdf/SoakReport.pdf

[clara81]

My vet said an hour too but I soak for 12 then rinse it off under the hose before feeding.

[horsesfirst]

I work a lot with laminitics - many need their hay to be soaked for 12 hours - but it should be rinsed off afterwards.

The fermentation is both a red herring but also something to be aware of. Haylage is made by fermentation - which is why it is not suitable for some horses.

Rinse your soaked hay very well in clean water and this will sluice off the hay beer and make it taste nicer too.

[amber]

Mine gets emersed in water for an hour, then hung up to drip... then i rinse off with the hose pipe and let drip through again...

The colour of the water after an hour is a lovely dark brown colour so it's quite surprising what an hour's soak can pull out of a haynet!!!

This process is definitely working for my traditional and at a good time to as the grass is coming through!

[em&ed]

Thank You for your replies - so basically a couple of hours should do it

Of course 'room temperature' in USA is like a sweltering summers day in UK ;D