Peanut Hay

[Pi and Tofu]

I am currently feeding a light T&A at $13/50lb bale (although it feels a bit lighter to me...). Just found out that someone I know sells peanut hay, which is common enough in Florida.

I don't really know what nutritional qualities are in peanut hay vs T&A.

Any thoughts?

[walkinthewalk]

This is the best link I found in a short time, because I have to get to the barn and start chores - lol

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/disaster/drought/horse_drought_factsheet.pdf

It sounds to me as if there are varying qualities of peanut hay (as with all hays).

It is also a legume hay, which means I would not use it because I have one horse that is metabolic and another one trying to head that way.

Legume hays are not the hay of choice for metabolic horses.

Hope this helps and hopefully someone that is already feeding it to their horses will come in:cowboy:

[vicklynn]

Heard about it. I dont feed legume hay, except in the winter, and still only one flake, and fed with plenty of grass hay. My horses just dont need it.
Not sure what to tell ya.

[missdixie]

Never heard of peanut hay, sorry.

[Miracle Whip]

I think I heard something about it last year. If there are no other hays available it will get you through the winter....

[Pi and Tofu]

I started to hear about it maybe two years ago. Called Florida Alfalfa. Definitely a "down south" hay. I went online, read up, and it seemed fine, especially when cut with a grass hay; however, that is all I remember since it has been awhile.

I appreciate the thoughts so far, especially the link; anybody else, feel free.

[IrisGreen]

My neighbor feeds this to his horses. I was shocked when I walked to the back of my property and was watching his horses eat a flake that didn't seem like hay. It's got thick branches and it gets crunchy when dried out (really crunchy). The horses ate it but I don't think he was feeding them enough of it to hold there weight. The Arab started loosing weight. There stalled and don't have a pasture.

A flake of peanut hay/plant is not nearly as densely packed as a normal flake of grass or alfalfa hay so you have to feed more. It's cheap though. I think he gets it for $5 a bale when alfalfa is $15 a bale. It's just the peanut plant after the pick all the peanuts off it they cut the plant down, let it dry, and bale it up I guess.

I wouldn't feed it to Muffin. The stuff I saw had a lot of thick hard stems in it and not very many leaves. Looked like a rose bush with out the thorns all dried up.

That's the only time I have ever heard of someone feeding peanut plant other then reading this thread.

[cloedoll]

o.0

Never heard of it. Anybody have any pics?

[~*Domino*~]

I have never heard of it either! I would also like to see pictures of it!

[walkinthewalk]

Here's a couple links further explaining peanut hay along with some pictures.

http://perennialpeanut.com/

http://www.choicehay.com/

Google pulled up quite a few hits:cowboy:

[FlitterBug]

I feed it when I can get it, it is very leafy and the horses love it. I believe it is usually a little less protein than alfalfa, very digestible. It can be a bit messy. I get it from Lake City when I can, but I can't always get it since I'm in South Florida. I always feed it with Tifton, I only feed 1-2 flakes of the peanut per horse per day, tifton is a grass hay, so they get more of that. It is not supposed to make the horses hot. I've never had any problems nor heard of any problems with people feeding it. I do know a lot of people who will feed it to their older horses. I usually don't give it to my easy keepers or horses who aren't working a lot. pernnial peanut is different from what iris green was describing. It does look like a pile of leaves when you give it to the horses, but I have never seen a horse turn its nose to it.

[Pi and Tofu]

I also googled today and pulled up a lot of info.
Iris, I didn't know it either, but there is a lot of difference between peanut hay and perennial peanut hay. Perennial peanut hay is a what I am familiar with; a very leafy, high protein legume hay.
Cutting it with Tifton may be what I need. I have a very easy keeper and a very hard keeper to deal with. Now I have to go look up Tifton.
Thanks for all the info!

[cyb]

I have never fed it but I always called it perenial peanut hay, I think its higher in protein than coastal.

[cyb]

Pi and Tofu, I do feed Tifton 85 my horses love it.