University of Californis says diests in alfalfa hay increassed the stones? (intestial stones) They form around foreign material in the intestine. 61 horses in 2 yrs, referred to clinic due to colic or instedtial blockages caused by stones. The researchers found that only factor associated with stone formation were lack of access to pasture grazing and a diet comprised of 50 percent of more alfalfe hay. Have you ever heard this? I haven't and in winter is when I feed alfalfa and no pastue? So I'll be cutting back. Just thought you would like to know.
What do you all think?
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.
Yep that's were I read it yeterday and I too love the mag:)
I feed in winter grass hay, and oats, but also give plenty, (to much) alfalfa won't any more:) Thought is was a nice treat for her, how very wrong.
Daisy KJ
I know your not starting a fight, and I'm glad to here for 45 yrs no problem:) That's wonderful, and I posted the question cause I want to here what u all think:) thanks
Jeff Sadler: Pickles, LOL good one:)
The more I read and think about this, my horse this past late winter had a bout of colic, for the first and only time, she was 4, and never feed alfalfa till last yr???? I wonder, I blamed it on the horseshorers secert at the time wasn't thinking and thought that was the only thing different, she got taken off it. I still won't chance either one, know. Alos I'm glad to hear others that arn't having a problem, and hope they contuine not too. It's bad enough that in my area with long winters she only get pasture 6 months (if lucky sometime 5) of pasture. I'm also starting to rethink the grain, so true about the hoofs and also I'm thinking with so many teeth problems, is how we feed.

I did read about this, and it isn't really that surprising. there were already good reasons to limit or eliminate alphalfa from horse diets, and people still feed it. I know of a couple horses that were necropsied after colic deaths and were found to have enteroliths that formed around seeds.
In fact, I thought of that when someone posted a question about feeding horses veggies from the garden.
I've also seen many people impactions that resulted from seed enteroliths, so I could tell everyone to core the seeds out of the apples or the watermelon they feed to horses, but people don't want to hear that, so I mostly leave it alone. Most people keep doing what is working until they have a problem with it themselves….I'm guessing the alphalfa sales won't go down all that much as the result of this news.
ADD…what Jeff says is true….research that makes it into the news is often poorly validated and unless you have access to the details on how the research was controlled and validated, there's room for skepticism.

Filed under: alfalfa hay

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