----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 10:31
PM
Subject: RC: Re: Bermuda Grass
I sure wish I knew what seminar the vet had heard
this at.
It is true that grass hays *can* be less
digestible than legume hays like alfalfa, and I have heard that used as an
argument that it shouldn't be fed. But that's kinda like saying that the
human body digests butter easier than bran muffins, so we shouldn't ever eat
bran muffins.
I worked in an equine hospital that did close to
a thousand colic surgeries a year, and there wasn't any particular correlation
to impactions from bermuda (and yes, they were looking and I was
asking). And there doesn't seem to be any valid data substantiating that
bermuda is more likely to cause impaction colic in the journals. In
fact, the studies that have been done (at UC Davis) looking at the diet
history of horses in for colic surgery found that the majority of them were on
high-alfalfa rations. There's certainly alot more data to support the
feeding of bermuda than data against it. I definitely agree with Karri
that making feed changes to rapidly is a good way to cause an impaction, and
of the several bermuda-related impaction colics I've known about, a too-rapid
feed change was a factor in all of them.
Having said that, there is a difference between
the bermuda fed in the western states versus that in the SE. Bermuda is
a tropical grass, which means for all intents and purposes that it'll grow in
hot weather, but when it *is* grown in hot weather, than the lignin
(indigestible fiber) content is a lot higher and that is going to make it less
digestible (read: more likely to cause an impaction) than grasses (including
bermuda) grown in cooler weather. So, given a choice, first cutting
bermuda in the west is generally going to be more digestible than bermuda
grown later in the summer. And, for bermuda grown in the SE, the
majority of the crop regardless of cutting, is probably going to be less
digestible than western hays, just because the vast majority of the SE hay is
grown in hot weather and therefore higher in lignin.
And I think Angie makes a good point that
demographics might play a role as well. Case in point, there was a study
some years back that suggested Arabians are more prone to enterolith
formation. However, the study was done in California (where there are
alot of Arabians) and it was done in the early eighties, when every Arab with
a dishy face was theoretically appraised as being worth a buh-jillion
dollars---and therefore much more likely to be sent for colic surgery than the
average backyard cow pony. So it wasnt necessarily that Arabs got more
enteroliths, it might very well be that just more Arabs were showing up for
surgery rather than just being euthanized.
I lived in So Cal for thirty-something years, and
there just aren't alot of choices in hays that are available. You can
either get alfalfa, bermuda, occasionally some cereal grain hays and timothy
if you want to pay $20 for a three-wire bale. If you're independently
wealthy, feed the timothy. If you're like the rest of us, feed the
bermuda and pay close attention to making feed changes slowly. If you're
looking for a good way to grow enteroliths in your horse and cause colic that
way, then feed the alfalfa.
Susan G
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 5:41
PM
Subject: RC: Bermuda Grass
I just came from the
feed store with some Bermuda grass hay. The feed store
owner warned me
that he heard from a local vet that Bermuda grass has caused
some deaths
due to intestinal blockage and this vet does not recommend
Bermuda grass
hay.
Has anyone else heard about this? Apparently this vet heard
about it at a
seminar or something like that.
Bonnie
So.
Calif.