Monday, January 17, 2011

Yellow Bristle Grass

I just got a comment on a post I did in 2007 about Yellow Bristle Grass--a weed that can cause nasty mouth ulcers in horses--and it reminded me that when we were up at Slide in October, Cheri had a bad batch of alfalfa full of the horrid stuff.

Comment from Deborah & John:
"Hello, a friend of mine bought some hay from a feed store in Suisun last November. She started feeding it in December and her horses started getting soars on their lips late December. We ran into each other over the holidays and I remembered your blog. She's going to contact the feed store and ask to bring back the hay since it's loaded with Yellow Bristle Grass. I will let you know how it goes."

Wondering if there is an epidemic or if some hay folks are just not as careful about keeping it out of the harvest?

2 comments:

Rising Rainbow said...

I go through a lot of hay and I buy direct from the growers. It took me a while to find people who were careful about what they were baling.

We don't have that grass here but we do have a weed that is bad for the horses and more often than not the farmers seemed to be nonchallant about it being part of their product, until, of course, I quit buying from them.

I think it's just like anything else, some people are attentive to detail caring about what they do and others do what they can to get by which is unfortunate for the horses, that's for sure.

Renee Davis said...

Wow this story really makes you think about what's in your hay. So far I've always been lucky to get high quality clean orchard grass/alfalfa. I was really impressed when my barn owner sent back an entire shipment of c$%p hay not to long ago. Btw, you have an award on my blog! Check it out.

-DS
Adventures In Colt Starting