soybean hay for horses?

Anyone with experiences feeding soybean hay to horses? Pros/cons?

This link is from a credible source

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/disaster/dro...ans10-9-07.pdf

Maybe start your horse out on tofu first, so he can acquire the taste.

like me there are some things my horse won't eat I am sure! On the serious side, it's been very dry here in indiana and the hay supply is low. There are however farmers baling soybeans that didin't mature. I have a neighbor that bales beans for his dairy cattle, I know in the past bean hay have been used for horses. From what I can tell the blister beetle is the biggest problem with bean hay?

thanks. I don't want to but with a low hay supply it may be necessary?

I think I would do anything I can to avoid the soybean hay but if that is your only choice, my thought is to quickly get a sample and send it out for testing.

Don't send it to where they do testing for cow hay - they test for different things with cows.

I use Equi-analytical but I know there are other labs - you may have one in your state that your Ag guy might be able to help with.

Ag guy --- that just came to me - lol lol lol Find out who your Ag guy is and talk to him.

Second, do you have a truck to where you might be able to make a long drive and bring a load of grass hay home? I am assuming you only have one horse and it's on your property?

We have a dually with a full back seat. We can easily bring 30 small squares home and that should last your horse quite awhile.

If someone wants to sell you a roundbale: While I am against roundbales, especially when there's only one horse, I would want to know the hay was stored under cover and I'd go over it with a fine tooth comb looking for excess amount of weeds and smelling for mold.

The best thing would be to store it under cover (set it down on a strong pallet and tarp it), then go thru the agony of cutting it up - probably with a chainsaw.

That would keep your horse from eating himself to death and it would keep a lot more of the roundbale from going bad out in the weather.

Also, we have plenty of hay in Tennessee - any chance you could get down this way? If you could find someone with a truck and even a race car trailer, you could take back enough hay to either get you completely thru the winter or sell part of it.

My husband has a gigundus tool box on his race car trailer but between it and the dually, we can still come home with 125 - 130 bales if it's tied down really good.

If looking for hay down here might be an option for you, PM me with your location and I will see if I can't locate someone. I am in southern Middle Tennessee but I am the Admin on a Tennessee Horse forum with members from all over the state. I feel sure somebody could help you.

Do you get the sense I am really really hesitant on the soybean hay

I didn't even know there was such a critter until I Googled it and gave you that link. I was raised on a dairy farm in Ohio but we couldn't grow soybeans up there, so I know very little about their use

i actually have 5 horses. Compete at rodeos etc...ride daily. There is going to be a shortage of hay this winter. My normal hay producer that is about 2 miles away is going to be bailing soybeans. There are alot of beans this year that haven't grown and produced bean pods because ogfthe lack of rain. I have a neighbor that bales it for his dairy cattle. I have found articles on the pros of feeding to horses. Actually found one from an ag department from the 30's that said soybean hay promoted a healthy coat and was good for horses. The worse I have found is the blister beetle. The soybean is actually a legume as is the alfalfa, that I knew. The alfalfa can also get blister beetles, which is deadly to horses. Thanks!

Having ridden through lots of soybean fields it seems to be about the only thing horses aren't to interested in snatching a bite of.

yea, when the beans are taller and starting to turn colors they are not a horses interest for sure. The hay would be of the stalk when it's not very tall and no pods on the stalks. The young bean stalks must be pretty good or the deer wouldn't eat them. Soybean hay is an old time farming method.

You all don't have hay auctions down in the states? In this area, (although I have an excellent local supplier who delivers & stacks it my barn), the truckers go to hay auctions & buy liner loads & sell it locally. Most of it comes from out of province. So if BC for instance has a hay shortage, usually means the prairie provinces have a bumper crop, so it's trucked in & reasonably priced. Vice versa for BC's hay crop this season, we had a wet spring & summer so hay is abundant.