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 Elite Veteran
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Location: West Texas | winwillows - 2016-08-29 6:19 PM
The primary purpose of adding alfalfa to a grass hay diet, whether you feed Renew Gold or not, is to slow the transit time through the hind gut. While there can be a benefit from the digestibility of the alfalfa, I am more interested in the mechanical process of slowing the hind gut down that I get from adding some to the program. Grass hay is harder for the horse to break down because it has a tougher cell wall structure. That in combination with not being in the system very long makes efficiency questionable. I like to see at least two pounds morning and night. If you are feeding coastal Bermuda that is rough quality, another pound or two really helps get it digested. The bloom that you often see when you add the alfalfa is more a result of the grass hay now being well digested instead of just passing through to end up on the ground behind the horse.
Winwillows, I have read you say this many times. In all my research on forage digestibility, I have never come across this idea or claim. I am not disagreeing with you. I am interested in finding out where this was researched and what are the proposed causes that would allow this to occur. If it is true, I assume that it is a recent discovery? I have to admit, it doesn't seem logical, to me. However, I am genuinely willing to keep and open mind and learn more about this, if indeed proper research has been performed, positively concluding alfalfa increases digestibility of grass hay. Thank you. |
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Elite Veteran
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Location: West Texas | I am going to bump this back up. Hopefully, win will see it. Anyone else, if you have information on this, feel free to contribute. Thanks. |
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Elite Veteran
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Location: California | I'm very curious about that proof as well..... |
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 I Prefer to Live in Fantasy Land
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Location: In the Hills of Texas | Tdove - 2016-09-02 8:57 AM I am going to bump this back up. Hopefully, win will see it. Anyone else, if you have information on this, feel free to contribute. Thanks.
I remember reading about how starchy foods (grains) pass through too fast and doesn't allow the acids to break down the food efficently and can cause digest upsets. Adding oil can slow down the process and I'm assuming that the fat in the rice bran does the same. I'll try to find the article. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1165
Location: California | Nevertooold - 2016-09-03 12:56 PM
Tdove - 2016-09-02 8:57 AM I am going to bump this back up. Hopefully, win will see it. Anyone else, if you have information on this, feel free to contribute. Thanks.
I remember reading about how starchy foods (grains) pass through too fast and doesn't allow the acids to break down the food efficently and can cause digest upsets. Adding oil can slow down the process and I'm assuming that the fat in the rice bran does the same. I'll try to find the article.
Yes but winwillow's was saying it's the alfalfa pellets that help slow the rate at which the grass hay passes through so it can be digested better. |
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I Prefer to Live in Fantasy Land
Posts: 64864
Location: In the Hills of Texas | Serenity06 - 2016-09-03 3:50 PM Nevertooold - 2016-09-03 12:56 PM Tdove - 2016-09-02 8:57 AM I am going to bump this back up. Hopefully, win will see it. Anyone else, if you have information on this, feel free to contribute. Thanks. I remember reading about how starchy foods (grains) pass through too fast and doesn't allow the acids to break down the food efficently and can cause digest upsets. Adding oil can slow down the process and I'm assuming that the fat in the rice bran does the same. I'll try to find the article. Yes but winwillow's was saying it's the alfalfa pellets that help slow the rate at which the grass hay passes through so it can be digested better.
I just re-read it...I'm like Killary...can't comprehend anything...I was reading what I wanted to read instead of what was typed..I do remember reading how oils will slow down transit time and since oil is a fat is why I posted what I did. I know my vet told me to feed Alfalfa to my ulcer prone horse over Coastal as it is easier to digest and the calcium in Alfalfa is soothing to the gut. The coastal hay can wad up and cause an impaction. For whatever reason...the alfalfa can keep things moving in the gut. |
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Expert
Posts: 1695
Location: Willows, CA | Sorry for being slow here. I have been traveling. Actually this is not new news. I was part of a clinical trial for Absorbine about fifteen years ago for a flex product "Flex+" that I formulated for them. While preparing the 55 horses used the for the trial, we had the opportunity to do some additional testing on the degree of roughage digestion in the manure while we stabilized the diets of all of the horses for the eleven cells of the testing. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up. We were moving from the straight grass diet that all the horses were on to one that included some alfalfa before starting the trial. Analysis of the manure showed a marked difference in the digestion of the total roughage fed. This started a change in my use of roughage sources in diets.
In the thirteen years that my office did all the customer service recommendations for ADM Equine products (1993 to 2006) we evolved our recommendations to the mixed hay base diet as the roughage source. While the feedback from that was anecdotal, it did involve over two thousand customers diets consulted upon per year. The results were beyond dispute, at least in my opinion, that a difference in the efficiency of the hind gut to digest higher lignin content grass hays could be effected by adding a significantly different roughage source.
There are several reasons for this. One, of course, is the improvement of hind gut efficiency brought on by our recommendation of limiting grains in the diet to a level that allows for them to be broken down completely in the small intestine, and therefor be less disruptive to microbial populations in the hind gut. But, even when the grain rations were too high, there was an improvement in total condition with the addition of even a fairly small addition of alfalfa to the diet that should not represent enough additional calories by itself to justify such an change. In that case, the result can only come from a slowed transit time giving the system more time to break down the tougher grass hay structure. You can take that for what it is worth, but I have seen such a consistent positive result that I have been recommending an alfalfa source be added to any straight grass hay program ever since. Since I don't sell alfalfa or any other roughage product I guess I never will run another clinical where I would try to duplicate the results I got from that testing, but I would imagine someone has. At any rate, this is why I like to see an alfalfa source in a grass hay based diet. Once again, this is my opinion, and everyone is welcome to a differing one.
Edited by winwillows 2016-09-05 4:53 PM
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Elite Veteran
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Location: West Texas | Thank you for the reply. |
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Expert
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Location: Willows, CA | Tdove - 2016-09-06 10:22 AM
Thank you for the reply.
You are welcome. This is one of the reasons that I like the Omnis hay cubes with a coastal Bermuda diet. The added oats in those is at a level that still fits the digestive system without traveling undigested into the hind gut. I use RG with that, as you might expect, but I personally feel that there is much more to be had, from Coastal Bermuda hay diet in particular, when a few pounds of an alfalfa source is added morning and night. |
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