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 Elite Veteran
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Location: West Texas | This is a shame and sad that this happened. If this is how they are handling it, I applaud them. That is all they can really do. I hope it does not hurt their business. Surely there will be hay producers and forage companies that are going to try to capitalize on this. I hope not.
Blister beetles can be a concern with alfalfa hay. They can be present in any American fields. The earlier cuttings are safer and the father north and west you go, the less likely it is. It is very important to know your supplier and take care to reduce or eliminate this risk.
Edited by Tdove 2015-09-17 12:22 PM
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 Elite Veteran
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| So sad, I'm thankful we have the opportunity to grow our own alfalfa, and can monitor that kind of thing. Prayers for the losses. :( |
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| rachellyn80 - 2015-09-17 8:51 AM
GLP - 2015-09-17 6:38 AM I feed the cubes for this reason. The Omni cubes and Mustang Sally cubes use alfalfa they grow out of Idaho, I think. Has anyone heard of horses being poisoned by blister beetles that were fed cubes?
Alfalfa that is used in Omnis Complete Performance Cubes comes out of Canada.
My bad, I just started feeding them and got mixed up with Standlee cubes, which I believe are in Idaho.  |
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 Party Girl
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Location: Buffalo, Wyoming | mreklaw - 2015-09-17 9:58 AM Even if you check every square inch you can still miss a piece of the insects body. It doesn't have to be intact to make your horse sick. Colonel Freckles died of blister beetle poisoning and that hay also came from Kansas. Ive also heard of horses getting blister beetle poisoning from alfalfa pellets.
This is very true! As the beetle does not become dangerous to horses until it has been squished (or whatever technical word you would like to use.
And as a poster said above that they feast on grasshoppers. So if you have had a wet year and see lots of grasshoppers you are bound to see blister beetles. |
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Elite Veteran
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Location: West Texas | No problem GLP. I can only speak for our cubes. They are blister beetle free. There are no blister beetles in our Canadian grown hay. |
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Elite Veteran
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Location: SE KS | I live in SE KS, around here the 1st cutting is the best. After that it is buy at your risk or your horses. I've been told as little as a wing from the blister bug can kill a horse!!! I'm not taking the chance, bc around here Bermuda hay is as good a quality as Alfalfa without the risks!!! |
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 Hog Tie My Mojo
Posts: 4847
Location: Opelousas, LA | winwillows - 2015-09-17 9:56 AM I was making a visit to a cutting horse barn in LA in the late 1990's. They lost nine customer horses that morning to blister beetle that was in the alfalfa based feed concentrate they fed that was made in Texas. It was one of the most awful things I have ever seen. Their feed rep told them that the process of making the feed neutralized any blister beetle that might be in the Texas grown alfalfa that they used to make the product. That, of course, is not true. This was in feed from one of the biggest feed companies in the world, not hay cubes or pellets. If you use a feed that has an alfalfa meal inclusion, you need to know where that alfalfa came from. I am an alfalfa fan, but never did understand paying for it in concentrates. I you use these feeds with alfalfa fillers in them you need to be careful about its source.
Good information, thank you!
A lot of big farms down here feed an alfalfa based feed and the alfalfa, corn and rice bran is all grown in Louisiana. The feed company said the fields are checked every ten days and any beetles that go undetected will be rendered harmless by the pelleting process. I just couldn't bring myself to trust that to be true, glad my cubes are trucked in from Canada, worth every penny of the extra hassle and expense. |
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 Regular
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Location: Nebraska | I was always told to buy alfalfa that was not cut with a crimper. If it is cut with a crimper, the beetles are crushed and get baled up with the alfalfa. If it's cut without a crimper, the beetles aren't crushed and fly away before everything is baled. However, it seems like most people have crimpers in their swather. It allows the alfalfa to dry faster. |
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 Buttered Noodles Snacker
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Location: NC | Why is Alfalfa the only hay that they get in? I know someone said they feed on grasshoppers but why are those grasshoppers only eating Alfalfa? |
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Expert
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Location: Willows, CA | classycanchaser - 2015-09-17 3:13 PM
I was always told to buy alfalfa that was not cut with a crimper. If it is cut with a crimper, the beetles are crushed and get baled up with the alfalfa. If it's cut without a crimper, the beetles aren't crushed and fly away before everything is baled. However, it seems like most people have crimpers in their swather. It allows the alfalfa to dry faster.
Adult Blister Beetles do not eat grasshoppers. The larvae eat grasshopper eggs under ground as their main diet. The adults are attracted to alfalfa to eat the newest young leaves and are very attracted to the pollen and blooms. They are also attracted to other weed blooms. Most grass hays are not attractive to them as a food source during the time of the year that the beetles are active. The adults are not active early in the spring, so the first cutting of alfalfa, even in Texas should be safe for horses. Later cuttings are more at risk as the summer goes on. Alfalfa cut before the bloom is thought to be safer because it is less attractive to the beetles. As stated above, not crimping is also thought to help as fewer bugs are killed when the hay is cut. Cantharidin is the poisonous blistering agent present in Blister Beetles that horses are so sensitive to. To my knowledge, there is no process in feed manufacturing, pelleting or cubing that renders Cantharidin safe.
Edited by winwillows 2015-09-17 6:51 PM
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Extreme Veteran
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| How many blister beetles would it take to be fatal? I've heard conflicting things.
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Expert
Posts: 3147
| nance - 2015-09-24 9:21 PM
How many blister beetles would it take to be fatal? I've heard conflicting things.
I've always heard three. |
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"Heck's Coming With Me"
Posts: 10797
Location: Kansas | I'm feeding alfalfa to two aged horses because they do so well on it weightwise. Yes, I'm nervous about it but think how many horses eat alfalfa compared to how many actually die of blister beetle poisoning. You can worry yourself to death about "everything" from the minute you wake up in the morning til you go to sleep at night. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 600
Location: Oklahoma & Texas | I've always fed alfalfa.. and knock on wood and throw some salt i can say i haven't had a horse get sick.... however... a few years back - when we were in bad drought in texas our hay sources were so variable.. in a load of alfalfa i got from a local feed store i found atleast a dozen black blister beetles in a flake.. i stopped.. bagged that bale.. took every bale back to the feed store w/the beetles in a zip loc and they stopped selling it.. they called the customers they had already sold to and avoided any getting sick that we knew of... but it was a close call.. i still check every flake i feed.. i open them up when i throw em in the feeders and just look.. a few seconds can save you a lot of heartache.. and important to note tha tblister beetles come in different colors - and if you ever think you have found one.. take pic of your phone and upload it into google and google will help ID the bug.. that has saved me a few questionable bugs lol.. some beetles might look like a blister beetle but aren't.. but always always better to be safe than sorry! I feel so bad for those people - i've had friends over the years that had some horses die from the beetles always makes me OCD about checking! |
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 Extreme Veteran
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Location: KS | I don't feed much alfalfa. Im in KS (North Central) and yes there are blister beetles. Some years are worst than others, Like someone mentioned above I believe it depends on the moisture/humidity. This year there seems to be more, late in the season. We feed most of our alfalfa to the cattle, I do every once in a while throw some flakes out that we have little squared baled up, but we use it more to hay cows. And we have good brome hay here, so that to me keeps the horses fat and happy without having to worry about beetles. My uncle use to put up little squares for horseman and he used a swather that did not have a crimper, which keeps the beetle from getting squished, which keeps are horses safe. (like someone else had mentioned above.) |
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