I've had this discussion with people over the years, and it boils down to the idea that coastal hay is not good hay.  The most common thing I hear is that coastal hay causes more colic.  I don't have the answer to this, but last year we bought coastal round bales and the horses gobbled it up all winter.  This stuff was grown by a guy who makes his living off hay.  He fertilizes after each cutting, and his hay fields are irrigated.  It was nice tender hay to my untrained eye.  No weeds and no stems.  The horses didn't seem to want it this summer, even through the hot drought. We did bring them in to feed and get out of the heat twice a day, and they got a flake of alfalfa a day.  Essentially our pastures are the same Bermuda grass.

So.....is coastal hay unjustly maligned?  Does it really cause colic?  I want to put this to rest.

The vets up here prefer common Bermuda vs coastal . They say that coastal is much finer than the common bernuda we have up here and is much more apt to cause an impaction. 
If you were feeding a flake of alfalfa twice per day, it will definitely help digestion. 

We just filled our barn with jiggs bermuda hay. My horses love the stuff. I was feeding giant bermuda trucked in from California and it was a lot finer stemmed and shorter stemmed hay than what we just picked up. I once asked our vet if she thought coastal bermuda causes impaction and she said typically dehydration causes impaction colic and coastal bermuda is a very popular, easy to get hay, so MOST horses are on it  making it seem as if horses eating bernuda are more susceptible to colic which isn't entirely accurate. I soak all our horses feed twice a day and add in maybe a pound or so of soaked alfalfa pellets on top of that. I like to think it helps keep them hydrated and things moving as they should. I haven't had any issues feeding the hay. I should add that I also feed our hay in slow feed nets for each horse. 

This is sort of my takeaway too.  The guy who grows our coastal hay really has a nice operation, and I thought his hay was beautiful. I knew what we were getting.  $90 per round bale, delivered was a lot more reasonable than paying 50% more for hay shipped in from say Iowa.  That, plus I knew what we were getting, and the horses gobbled it up last winter and spring.  Over the hot dry summer they weren't interested in it much, and I think that had more to do with us bringing them into the cooler barn to feed twice a day.  They got alfalfa (1 flake a day) plus coastal from small bales and of course grain, which included soaked alfalfa. 
Having hay shipped in from up north is a bit of a gamble too.  We've gotten some bad hay that way a time or two.  Bottom line is whether $140 per bale vs $90 (for the local coastal) is worth the increased cost.  

That's all I feed. No. They don't eat hay during the summer even when it's offered. They holdout for pasture. I don't feed alfalfa at all. Mine are fat and happy. I don't worry about beetles or calcium. 

Tell me about the gamble! We unloaded 2 ton of alfalfa cubes into our barn and popped open a bag only to find MOLD  and lots of it. Opened a 2nd and a 3rd .. same thing. We had to load it all back up and return it to the store we bought from that's about an hour away. These came from Iowa... apparently the tarp came off during transport and they decided to just sell it anyway. I wasn't a very happy person when I heard the explanation. And that store is the middle man. 

I work with just about every type of horse hay in the country on a day to day basis. Coastal, when grown properly can be a part of a very good nutrition program. The risk of colic may be slitghtly higher than other hays if the quality is poor, and the management of the overall health of the horse is lacking. Coatal may be a little tougher to break down, and if it is not well chewed due to mouth pain from lacking dental attention the resulting longer strands of hay that are still intact have the ability to wind togeather to form the start of an obstruction. As this gets larger a blockage may occure. This is very rare in horses who have good dental care and can chew without pain as much as they normally would. If there is mouth pain, a horse may eat just as much, but only chew it enough to swallow. This is how the problem may begin, and how coastal earns a bad rap.

I don't feed it but my vet does to her barrel horses. SHe advised that if I ever do feed it, add some alfalfa for a laxitive effect and it will keep everything moving. 

Coastal / Bermuda hay tends to be more of impaction problem than other hays especially if it cut short and horses reduce their water intake and there is the problem.  

One of the best vets in the south east always told me if you feed coastal always look for some long and stemming ....horses will chew it longer and is less likely to cause impaction.  The thought process behind this was the short fine hay had more likely to cause cecal impaction.  

According to my horse, it does! I bought this horse and it took me 9 months of bi-weekly colic episodes to figure out that it was the coastal hay causing it. He is now colic free for 3 years since we took him off of coastal and switched him to perennial peanut, alfalfa, orchard, or timothy (he only gets hay in winter). If he gets a few servings of coastal, he WILL colic again. We tried about 2.5 years ago to wean him back onto it. No go. 

I would say it is mainly labeled the culprit due to timing. Most people don't feed hay year round so they start suddenly when the weather starts shocking their pasture grass and the horses are tending to drink less.

Thanks, everyone.  This helps.  I think we do a good job of preventative measures (dental, alfalfa, etc...) regardless of the hay we feed.  For the upcoming winter we have access to some good hay from Iowa, but I'm sure this quandary will re-surface in the years to come.

I have heard of more choke cases then colic when the hay is short and very fine with Coastal hay, And I agree with Cowgalsissy a 100%!!!

Some horses will colic if the barometric air pressure shifts lol. Some horses can eat gallons of sweet feed with a glug of corn oil poured over top after being rode hard and put up wet ... and will never have a single health issue. I believe it just boils down to the individual animal. I'm glad my horses don't have an issue with coastal hay because it's really all I can get around here. We try to buy the best well grown and taken care of hay we can get our hands on since that makes up the biggest part of their diet. Some cuts have been better than others but I think we got a pretty good consistent source locked in now. 

Coastal has been my go to for years.  I'm in Florida, we may be freezing for 4 days in one winter.  But, when we have freezing consecutive days, I make sure they have loose minerals out.  The problems comes with not drinking enough water and they load up on coastal, that's the making of a vet visit, if not careful.

I have fed various types of coastal for over 40 years. It really isn't the hay that is a problem. The problem comes from horses not drinking enough water. A lot of horses don't like cold water and don't drink as much as they should. I feed square bales so I can regulate how much the horses get. When I have fed round bales my horses chowed down the entire day and got so sluggish that they didn't want to run. 

Gosh I hope not.  That's what I buy for the winter.  I had several years with several colics, lost two horses, and felt like I was always on guard.  Wouldn't you know, when I went from 2 horses on a 2 acre pasture (basically became dirt lot so Sandclear? once a month) to 5-10 horses on a 50 acre pasture....  my colic episodes went down to one in the last 12 years.  And I quit stalling overnight.  They only come in to eat.

The Feedroom Chemist has a podcast episode on this. Short answer was that coastal is generally fine to feed. I recommend listening to the episode though!