Selling hay in the horse market can be both rewarding and frustrating. Even so, that market is the lifeblood for many commercial hay producers, especially those who make small square bales.

“We sometimes consider horse people as a bit of an enigma as to what they consider to be important when buying hay,” said Bob Coleman at the Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference in Lexington last month.

The University of Kentucky Extension horse specialist said that they did a survey of horse owners across the U.S. a few years ago to find out what was important to them when buying hay. The survey revealed that over 85% of the respondents purchased the majority or all of their hay. “Most horse owners don’t have the acreage, equipment, or expertise to grow their own hay,” Coleman noted. “Their hay requirements are often yearlong.”

When buying hay, horse owners ranked the cost per bale as the leading criteria for making a purchase decision. “This doesn’t come as a surprise,” Coleman said. “However, it’s also an economic decision that is often poorly made.”

The survey also indicated that 65% of the survey respondents prefer 40- to 60-pound bales because those are easily handled without large equipment. “More than half of horse owners are women, and they don’t want to carry 100-pound bales,” Coleman noted.

He went on to say that one thing often overlooked by horse owners is the actual weight of the bale. “Paying $6 per bale for a 40-pound bale is a lot different than paying the same price for a 60-pound bale. In fact, that difference amounts to $100 per ton more for the 40-pound bale. Sometimes, the 60-pound bale may be the better buy even though its cost per bale is higher.”

Coleman said it’s also important to know what’s in a bale. Many horse owners are comfortable with cool-season grass hays. Mixed alfalfa-grass hays are growing in popularity, and Coleman likes this type of hay from a nutrient profile perspective. Less popular is pure alfalfa or warm-season grass hay types, although both can be utilized in the right situation, the horse specialist said.

Surveyed horse owners also emphasized the importance of buying hay from someone with a good reputation. “It stands to reason that someone is going to be more attracted to a seller who provides a good product, stands behind it, and provides needed services within reason,” Coleman said. “This is not just a horse-owner desire, it’s a societal one.”

The nutrient profile of hay ranked fifth as the most important thing horse owners consider when purchasing hay. Many horse hay buyers don’t even ask for a forage test but rather just make a visual assessment.

“As a horse nutritionist, this was like being stabbed in the heart,” Coleman joked. “Perhaps the two things horse people look at the most are crude protein and nonstructural carbohydrates. If you’re going to sell hay into the horse market, you probably need, at minimum, to have those two measures analyzed for.”

What is horse quality hay?

The equine specialist noted that we often see hay advertised as “horse quality” without really any indication of what that means. From Coleman’s perspective, horse hay needs to possess several “must-have” characteristics. First, it must be free of mold and dust with a moisture content of 16.5% or less.

“In horses, moldy or dusty hay causes irreversible respiratory problems,” Coleman said. “There’s no such thing as ‘just a little moldy.’ In some cases, we find hay treated with an organic acid that may be a little higher moisture, and it may be perfectly fine from a mold and dust standpoint. The acid won’t hurt a horse, but the owner may freak out because they’ve heard organic acid-treated hay is detrimental. It’s not, but more education is needed,” he acknowledged.

Horse hay also needs to be weed-free, especially as it relates to species like headed foxtails, which cause mouth ulcers. Finally, the hay has to be palatable — they have to eat it — along with being a reasonable source of nutrients.

From a nutrient standpoint, Coleman noted that the horse class or stage of gestation and lactation will impact the quality of hay that should be fed. But in general, he first likes to look at digestible energy (DE) to make sure it meets the horse’s requirement. “In the horse industry, we don’t use net energy or total digestible nutrients,” he said. “I also look at crude protein, mostly to make sure it’s not excessively low or high, and I note the neutral detergent fiber level, which I want to be less than 60%. If it’s any higher, it can depress intake.”

Nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC) are a recently popular topic among horse enthusiasts when evaluating hay. Coleman said that NSC consist of water-soluble carbohydrates and starch. The NSC level in hay is most important when it’s being fed to horses that are insulin resistant, have Cushing’s disease, or have laminitis. “With those horses, we want the nonstructural carbohydrate concentration to be 10% or less, but intake still has to be controlled,” Coleman said.

Concluding, Coleman encouraged hay sellers to put themselves in the mindset of their horse customers. “Ask yourself if you’re selling what they really need or want.” As with any buyer-seller relationship, good and honest communication can go a long way in maximizing the rewards and minimizing the frustrations.