Ridecamp: [RC] bermuda hay impactions

Hi y'all,
I was having a chat with a friend regarding bermuda hay and impaction colics
and thought there might be a few others who might find the conversation
interesting, so have included it below.  Hope someone finds it useful. :-)


> with) we are getting reports of "impactions on bermuda hay" ---  I'm >
thinking that this should be reading "impactions on hay" and that "bermuda"
> just happens to be the one fed -as it is the main hay in this area, and
that > if we were feeding any other grass hay, it would just as likely be
doing
the > same thing.   However, because we are feeding bermuda hay, and the
horses > are getting impacted, everyone is blaming the bermuda hay--not
their
> management.


Yeah, there's a lot of bad rap that goes around about bermuda, some
deserved,
some not.  Because bermuda is so commonly fed, if a horse gets an impaction
on grass hay, alot of the time it *is* bermuda, and so that alone gets
blamed---when a large part of the problem might very well be due to
too-rapid a feed change,  insufficient water intake, poor teeth or poor
feeding practices in general.

Having said that, the tropical or warm season grasses like bermuda, bahia,
johnsongrass, pangola, sudan tend to be on average less digestible (and thus
somewhat more likely to cause an impaction) than cool season grasses like
timothy, fescue, orchardgrass, brome, bluegrass, etc.  There are also
different varieties of bermuda, and some are more or less digestible than
others others.  Tifton 44, grown more in the SE US, is more digestible and a
better variety than some others.

The reason for all this is because the warm season grasses develop a higher
lignin content when growing during hot weather.  Lignin isn't digestible by
any species, so the higher the lignin content, the more likely it is to
potentially cause an impaction problem, especially when compounded with
other issues such as poor teeth, competition, rapid feed changes,
dehydration and so on.
So, if you live in a hot climate and you feed bermuda or other warm season
grass, then the trick is to try to buy your year's supply (I know, that's
not always feasible) from cuttings that were grown during cool weather (in
the SW United States, that's usually first cutting), and thus with a lower
lignin content and so more digestible.  Just better overall hay quality and
also less likely to cause impaction problems.  If your supplier has several
different batches and assures you they're all the epitome of God's Gift to
Forage (but you're not so sure), ask for or get a hay analysis done (brokers
routinely have them available) and look for the NDF (neutral detergent
fiber) and ADF (acid detergent fiber) results.  Pick the hay with the lowest
fiber content and specifically the lowest ADF (an indication of its
digestibility).

I used to work at an equine surgical facility where the vet was adamantly
opposed to feeding bermuda because "it caused impactions" and so recommended
feeding nothing but alfalfa instead.  Funny thing was, the vast majority of
colic surgeries done there were problems related to enteroliths from the
alfalfa, not bermuda, but arguing with him about it at the time would not
have been conducive to happy employer relations (these days, however, I'd be
more than happy to debate the point ad nauseum)<g>.

Hope this helps. :-)

Susan G




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