Brohme or Brome hay best suits older horses and lightly worked horses, horses kept in stalls and dry lots, and horses who benefit from slow, all-day feeding. Although grass hay is generally lower in protein and energy and higher in fiber than legume hay, this is, in part, what makes it a good choice for many adult horses. Good Horse Grass Crested Dog’s Tail. While most horse owners are mindful of the hay they offer their horses, Crandell is perhaps more vigilant than most. That’s 30 lbs of hay per day for a 1000 lb horse. Alfalfa hay is high in good-quality protein. One way to evaluate hay quality is to have your hay analyzed. Pelleted hay, while providing the needed fiber for the diet, is eaten more quickly than baled hay; and thus a horse may become bored and be more prone to wood chewing or other abnormal behaviors. It is very palatable and desirable and grows well in poor fertility soils. For many, the science of harvesting hay is best left to professionals while we resort to educated guesses for determining how good hay is. While grass hay is lower in protein and calcium it is still a great source of feed for most horses. It can satisfy the horse's appetite and provide necessary roughage without excess calories and protein. Your horse may need more or less feed depending on whether he's an 'easy keeper' or a ' hard keeper'. While the lower relative nutrition level of grass hay makes it a good filler, it does have relatively more carbohydrates. Your horse is in good body condition; she is doing well on the grass/alfalfa-mix hay you are currently feeding. In this case it may even be better than the timothy mix, depending on what the "mix" is. When evaluating legume hays, Crandell first establishes the type of hay. People once thought that feeding alfalfa hay to horses caused kidney damage because of increased urination and ammonia production. Crude protein values can be as high as 18 to 19 percent. Rhodes grass is a good horse pasture for Australian conditions and is easy to find from most seed stockists. Grass hay is also a good hay choice for “easy keepers”, meaning horses that easily gain weight or struggle to keep their weight down, especially ponies or miniature horses. Good-quality hay is an important component of a horse’s diet, particularly in the winter when fresh pasture is not available. This means that grass hay, not alfalfa hay, is a more dangerous food for an obese horse, or a horse with laminitis concerns. Brome is a grass, like timothy. This is only a rough guide. Legume Hay. It is a myth that second cutting hay always provides the hay quality that is best for feeding horses. For pregnant or lactating mares, or young growing horses, some legume hay added to the diet provides the additional protein and higher levels of other nutrients needed. However, the high-energy content may lead to overfeeding and to a fat horse. A good rule of thumb is to feed your horse the amount of hay she can clean up in about 1½ - 2 hours. Rhodes grass Rhodes grass. This is a very common grass especially in dry areas and is great for horses. The roughage in horse hay requires a good bit of chewing. A well-made cubed hay is easy to chew and should not need to be broken to avoid choking, if your are feeding healthy horses with good dental hygiene. A common North American grass, Brohme hay and Brome hay for horses features plentiful basal leaves and few stems. She is getting no grain, and she has never developed laminitis, inflammation of the soft connective tissues within the foot that can result from a variety … As a nutritionist with Kentucky Equine Research (KER), she understands the importance of good-quality hay. Grass is good for all horses, whether IR, or not. 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