What Is High Quality Forage For Horses?

Higher quality forages will have more leaves than stems, a short seed head, be green in color, and smell fresh with no dust or mold.

What is high quality forage?

Within a given feed, NDF is a good measure of feed quality and plant maturity. For legume forages, NDF content below 40% would be considered good quality, while above 50% would be considered poor. For grass forages, NDF < 50% would be considered high quality and > 60% as low quality.

What is the best forage for horses?

Forage Crops for Horses

• Perennial Grasses. Base your forage program on a perennial pasture.
• Bermudagrass. Bermudagrass is a sod-forming, perennial warm-season grass that can be grown statewide.
• Bahiagrass.
• Tall Fescue.
• Orchardgrass.
• Timothy.
• Kentucky Bluegrass.
• Perennial Legumes.

What does forage mean in horses?

Horses require forage in their diet to remain healthy. Forages are usually the most economical feed source for horses. Horses are difficult to feed because they are more susceptible to anti-quality factors than ruminants. The nutritional needs of a horse vary depending on age, size, and production or activity.

What is the best quality hay?

Alfalfa is the best variety of legume hay, and Orchard grass is the grass hay I recommend; however, Timothy, bermudagrass, bahiagrass, and Kentucky bluegrass are also excellent choices.

What are the characteristics of good quality forage?

Forage quality includes characteristics that make forage valuable to animals, the capacity to supply animal requirements, the characteristics affecting consumption and utilization which are palatability, chemical composition, and digestibility.

What are three important factors for forage quality?

Moisture, temperature, and the amount of sunlight influence forage quality. Rain damage is very destructive to forage quality.

What is the best grain to feed horses?

Oats
Oats are the safest and easiest grain to feed with hay because it is high in fiber and low in energy, and higher in protein than corn. Corn has the highest energy content of any grain and can put weight on a horse quickly. It can be fed on the ear, cracked, rolled or shelled.

Is alfalfa or oats better for horses?

The alfalfa hay diet provides 151% of the lysine requirement while the oat hay diet provides only 34% of the lysine requirement. Lysine is the first limiting amino acid in most horse diets. Protein and calcium supplementation is needed for lactating mares fed oat hay based diets.

What forage is high in protein?

Alfalfa has become one of the world’s most useful forage crops. The plant’s protein content is high and it is much more drought-tolerant than other perennial legumes.

Is forage the same as hay?

Historically, the term forage has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used more loosely to include similar plants cut for fodder and carried to the animals, especially as hay or silage.

What are the three categories of forage?

TYPES OF FORAGES
Forage types vary depending on the needs of animals and the wants of producers. The four forage types are pasture, hay, silage, and haylage.

Does beet pulp count as forage?

In summary, beet pulp is a good dietary supplement for “hard keepers”, as a forage or fiber replacement for poor quality hay, and for older horses with problems chewing or digesting hay. The digestible energy content of beet pulp is greater than hay and less than grain.

What are the 4 categories of hay?

Hay falls into several categories: grass, legume, mixed (grass and legume) and cereal grain straw (such as oat hay). Some of the more common grass hays include timothy, brome, orchard grass and bluegrass. In some parts of the country fescue, reed canary grass, ryegrass and Sudan grass are common.

Which cut of hay has the most nutrients?

Legume hays (alfalfa) are richer in nutrients and energy while grass hays are high in fibre for a healthy digestive tract. Therefore, if choosing between the two, alfalfa hays are preferred for those who require more energy. Seniors, mature non-working horses and easy keepers are apt to do better on a grass hay diet.

What hay can horses not eat?

Types of Hay for Horses—What to Avoid

• Perennial ryegrass and rye.
• Dallisgrass.
• Argentine bahiagrass.
• Johnsongrass, Sorghum grasses/Sudangrass.
• Switchgrass, which causes photosensitivity, peeling skin, mouth ulcers and liver disease.
• Foxtail Millet (aka German Millet) and Meadow foxtail.

What qualities should be assessed when selecting forage for horses?

Two primary factors that influence forage quality are nutrient concentration and nutrient digestibility. Both of these are heavily influenced by the stage of maturity of the forage plant. Most of the highly digestible nutrients in forages are present in the leafy part of the forage.

What is low quality forage?

Characteristics of low-quality forages include high fiber content, low crude protein (CP) and energy (total digestible nutrients or TDN) content, and reduced fiber digestibility. Low-quality forages also may have tough, coarse stems and reduced leaf-to-stem ratios, which can reduce palatability to livestock.

Why is forage quality important?

As a forage matures, its digestibility, rate of digestion and CP content decline, causing the cow to derive fewer nutrients from the forage, lowering the quality. A decline in the quality of forage has an impact on the amount of other feedstuffs that the animal is able to consume.

How are forages tested for quality?

Laboratories that use near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) to analyze forage for quality can be asked three additional questions that will help determine if the results are accurate. Like other laboratory analyses, NIRS analysis is sophisticated and should be conducted and monitored by trained personnel.

Why forage is important for a horse?

The main importance of forage in a horse’s diet is that it provides the nutrients and energy necessary for the horse to go about their day. Depending on the horse’s duties and daily activity level, they may require a greater amount of forage to provide them with adequate energy.