Home Current News News Archive Shop/Advertise Ridecamp Classified Events Learn/AERC
Endurance.Net Home Ridecamp Archives
ridecamp@endurance.net
[Archives Index]   [Date Index]   [Thread Index]   [Author Index]   [Subject Index]

[RC] Chaffhaye? (and Lucerne) - Mary Krauss

Seems the alfalfa product referred to in Kathy's link differs from hay largely in how they can get it from a field, right into a dryer. No need for good haying weather! It looks as though they package it tightly as well--I couldn't tell if their process involves the fermentation involved in producing chaffhaye.

I like the sound of chaffhaye because it's used so efficiently by the gut. If it works as advertised, the results of lightly fermenting the hay is similar to what we get out of cooking our food to make it more digestible. (There's a great book about how the advent of cooking food allowed a huge developmental surge in human society--partly because of the nutritional gains, but even more so because of the time- savings involved in having food broken down somewhat before being ingested.) A lion has to sit around all day digesting--as does a cow. A horse doesn't bother digesting much--it spends all its time eating instead and lives with a high percentage of its forage emerging nearly intact from the other end! Chaffhaye offers more efficiency so the horse's gut sucks up much more nutrition per lb of forage. They get the same amount of chewing time, the same amount of roughage, but much less undigested material makes it through. Less manure!!!

The other claim is that chaffhaye offers much less sugar than many hays--now that we've bred up all these "sweet" grasses, even hay can be a problem. My poor EPSM gelding had to just about quit grass/hay altogether and live on Ultium drowned in 4 cups of oil.... ugh. The chaffhaye sugar content looks like it could be fed to all the insulin- resistant equines (and keep the rest of the beasties from becoming insulin-resistant!)

It all sounds so neat. I'm waiting to hear about the downsides, whether they are manageable or not.

Anyone out there use it?

Mary K.



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp

Ride Long and Ride Safe!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=