** Just HOW do you soak your hay? **

J

JULIA G

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Aug 30, 2007
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I know this sounds like a stupid question but how do you do it? What container do you use? How do you drain the water off etc? Do your sections comes out still in sections or do they separate into a great hay mountain? Is there a foolproof way of doing it where you can easily get the hay out of a container, drain the water off, without getting absolutely soaked and wrecking your back in the process? I'm finding the whole thing so tedious and I'm constantly getting soaked through in this freezing weather, I then tried putting into nets first and then soaking but then when soaked they're so heavy I can't get them out without wrenching my back, I must be doing something wrong, there must be an easier way ... :rolleyes:
 
I soak it in nets, in dustbins. First haul it to rest on the lip of the bin, and let some water drain back into the bin. Then swing it onto a milk crate or pallet next to the bin to finish draining. I've heard it's better to soak nets in a bath, as the sides are lower and you can pull the plug out to drain, but I don't have a bath.

It's a horrible job and I don't think there is a nice way to do it. Which is why I'm converting to steaming -- kettleful of water in a dustbin and Bob's your uncle. I never believed it would work, but it does, and steamed hay is much pleasanter than soaked hay to handle.
 
The RS rinse out a wheelbarrow and use that. Soaking it 10 minutes on one side then turning it over so the other half is submerged for 10mins then it's hung on a ring to drain for another 10-20minutes. :)
 
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From an old woman who is small and slight and has a bad back - as well as an overweight pony who needs soaked hay to reduce the nutrient content:

If you have a drain or drain channel by your stable: Take a large plastic tub or dustbin, and fit a bung or tap an inch or so above the bottom, in the side wall.
Now position the dustbin ( you may need to use three or four bricks ) above the drain, and fit a tie ring above it, at height you can reach reasonably easily.

Now fill your haynet, lower into the tub AND CLIP A LENGTH OF ROPE TO THE TIE-STRING OF THE HAYNET. This length of rope must be long enough to reach up to the tie-ring, and through it while the haynet is resting on the bottom of the dustbin or tub.

Now make sure the tap in the bin is closed, and fill the bin with water from a hosepipe, tap or whatever is most convenient. Let your hay soak for the appropriate time.

A short time before you are ready to feed, open the bung or tap in the bin and let the water flow out. When the main flow has ceased, use the rope which is already through the tie-ring to heave the net up out of the bin to drain further. The fact that the rope is going through the ring gives you a primitive pulley system so it isn't a strain on the back. If your stables have an overhang with exposed beams, you can easily erect an actual pulley system to make it even easier.

At this point, your hay is still heavy and is hanging outside. Not to worry if there is a fair distance to carry it. Use a cheap plastic tarp to line any old mucky wheelbarrow, and lower the net into the clean tarp. Barrow it into the stable, position it underneath the hay-net tie ring and use the rope again in a pulley system to heave it up again with ease, and tie it off securely.

This takes longer to write down than it does to do!

My son-in-law fitted a tap which is attached to a hosepipe at the bottom of my soaking bin; the soaking bin is kept in the shelter while the hay is soaking and draining as the water drains out of the bin, along the hosepipe to a soakaway near the muckheap, so I don't need to barrow the wet hay over the yard, but just remove the empty soaking bin. What you will be able to do depends on the layout of your yard, stable and drainage of course.

But rest assured that there is NO NEED to get soaking wet, cold or strain yourself lifting heavy wet hay.
 
sarah76 said:
Oh never thought of steaming, how long do you need to leave it etc?
Click to expand...

I had a look in after 20 minutes and it wasn't quite done in the middle, but when I went back for it later (sorry, stopped timing it by then!) it was done. I'm planning to pop mine in to steam at night so it's ready for the morning, and vice versa.
 
I use a big round plastic tub from a garden supplies store. Hay goes in loose, hold it underwater with a pitchfork until the bubbles stop coming to the surface, which shows that the water has worked right through the hay. Pitchfork underneath, lever the hay up, resting the fork against the rim of the tub to let the excess water drain out. This is where good arm muscles come into play, and it can hurt them sometimes if I'm having a Weak Day :o, but it doesn't hurt your back.
Then flip the hay over the rim of the tub and straight into a clean wheelbarrow. With the pitchfork on top, holding the handle of the fork against one handle of the wheelbarrow, tilt the wheelbarrow up at about 45 degrees to let more water drain out. The fork on top stops you from losing the hay (most of the time anyway :rolleyes:) Good for watering plants!

It's a quick and easy method. You don't get soaked, which is important this time of year! No back pain either, and it helps to build good arm muscles :)

NB - I feed hay loose, not in haynets, but I don't see why the same system wouldn't work for haynets too.
 
When Forest was having soaked hay I used once of those big buckets used for giving water in the field. They hold a lot of water. I put all the hay into the net and then put that into the bucket and filled it up with water. I would leave it to soak for about 20 minutes and then pull it out and hang it up to drip for a bit.

Now I use the bucket to put his haylage in at night rather then soaking his hay :)
 
neen said:
It's a horrible job and I don't think there is a nice way to do it. Which is why I'm converting to steaming -- kettleful of water in a dustbin and Bob's your uncle. I never believed it would work, but it does, and steamed hay is much pleasanter than soaked hay to handle.
Click to expand...

Steaming is wonderful if you need to reduce dust and spores - and produces a much more palatable product for the horse as well as leaving less mess everywhere - but unfortunately it doesn't reduce the nutrient value of the hay, which is what some of us need to do. Only soaking for a period of an hour or more does this, by giving at least some of the sugar content time to dissolve in the water and be poured away.
 
Oh this is wonderful, thank you so much for your replies. I am slightly limited at my (DIY) yard, there is already a butt with a tap at the bottom but the butt is positioned sort of half under a hedge so that - in theory anyway - the water drains away into the field behind as there is no drain at this end of the yard but it makes access to it difficult. However, the tap at the bottom of the butt doesn't appear to work properly anyway because I put my hay in, then put the hosepipe in and look down and all the water is coming out of the tap! I've tried fiddling with it to try and shut it off but to no avail.

I then bought a large (bath shaped) plastic tub, sort of long and thin with nice shallow sides but have to fill this to the top to soak the full length of the hay sections and then its pretty heavy to lift up one end to pour off excess water. It did work for about a week and then split under the pressure :eek: Sometimes I just wish my horse was a skinny :)
 
If you use a couple of clean large rocks to hold the hay down in the water, you will find you can get away with using less water. I also find that a tall tub is easier to empty (if you can't get one with a tap or bung) as it is easier to tip over than a shallow one, which has to be lifted to tip it. A tall tub is only actually lifted once it is empty!
 
we put the slices in hay nets and dunk them in a big tub and turn the hose on for a minute or two before carrying over to field to distribute..so much easier and you don't get so cold or wet!! - ours doesn't need to be soaked soaked at the mo - only if it starts to get too dusty

Also if you have a water trough that freezes a clean poo scooper (the metal pronged ones) are great for breaking and 'hoiking' out the ice :)
 
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use very very large tub, put stuffed haynet in and leave to soak for maximum time available (usually 4 hours) then heave out and onto adjacent crate to drain.

tedious, unpleasant, necessary.
 
I think we've cracked it, one of the ponies started with a cough when the weather turned cold, it went on for a few weeks and we started soaking his haynets in a water butt for an hour or two then hanging them out to drain... backbreaking to say the least, then when the freeze came I broke the tap off the bottom of the water butt.... hey ho...

So we tried steaming. Trug full of hay, two kettles of water... still coughing.

Now I think we've got it sussed... this is what we do:

1. Two slices of hay in a trug
2. Tie trug handles with baling string across - stops hay floating up
3. Fill trug with water. Let hay soak for however long, we only soak for 20 mins as we want to wash the dust out not lose nutrients.
4. Tip the trug on its side till most of the water is out then roll it onto your foot and kick it upside down!
5. Leave to drain for half an hour
6. Take it into your feed room, pour 2 kettles of boiling water on the wet hay and cover it with plastic sacks and a thick towel, leave it till it's cooled a bit before you feed it, 20 mins or so.

Voila, Gordon Ramsay would be proud. The coughing chap is coughing no more, he snuffles into his banquet of sweet smelling warm hay with glee. It smells so good I could almost eat it myself. :D

Edited to add...: It sounds really fiddly and time consuming but once you've got the routine of it, it's as easy as filling haynets and easier than soaking and carting great big sopping haynets. And frozen haynets was the last straw for me.
 
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Just bumping this for a bit of reassurance, and apologies for it being a bit of a hijack... but you don't think my soaking method will cause any sort of fermentation do you?
 
FWIW, our YOs have 6 horses that get stalled at night, and they don't SOAK the hay, they spray it a bit with a garden hose. Each horse gets his/her ration on the clean stall floor, and it's sprayed a bit just for the extra moisture and to lower the dust levels.
Now, I don't know if they do it EVERY night, or just on nights that are close to freezing or above...the barn isn't heated. In any case, if you're soaking it, this would be a slightly less wet option. ;)
 
We used large black bins and put the hay into haynets first. You then don't have to come in contact with the water really fishing out all the loose hay.
If it's too heavy - just make sure not to put too many slices in and just give more haynets of 2 slices would make it much easier to haul out the water...
 
We just tie filled haynets to hitching post, give a good soak through with hose and let them drain while you get on with mucking out/ the rest of yard duties and then hang them up before you leave when most of the water has drained out.
 
I steam hay for one of my chaps.

I have a large bucket/bin which I half fill with boiling water. I then put a metal grill over the top which is where the hay sits, in a haynet. I then put another bucket/bin over the haynet (so upside down) to keep the steam in then hay presto, lovely steamed hay. I steam for a max of 20mins.

If you are soaking hay submerged in water, please becareful not to soak for too long else they hay is basically just sitting in it's own "excrument"
 
Unfortunately all this excellent advice re steaming and spraying hay does not help the horseowner who must reduce the sugar content of the hay they feed to a horse or pony with metabolic problems.

Of course the ideal would be to purchase a well-made hay with a low sugar content, but all too often a well-made hay is 'too good' - ie has high protein and sugar levels - for a horse or pony prone to laminitis or other metabolic problems. The only practical way, for the ordinary horse owner, of reducing the sugar to safe levels is to make the effort to soak the hay for a few hours, which without a doubt requires a degree in ingenuity to perform without getting - at the very least - wet feet.
 
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