Why steamed hay can lead to protein deficiency in horses
Horses have treated with hot steam than it is to have no hay at all. The horse forage is treated with steam to rid it of potentially harmful microorganisms and to bind particles that could otherwise be exhaled.
A team of scientists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg discovered that this also causes a chemical reaction that damages the hay and makes it harder for horses to digest it.
Hay can be heated up to 100 degrees Celsius by using hot steam, which kills harmful organisms and makes the hay more attractive to animals.
Equine asthma is one of the lung problems that many horses suffer from. The steaming process eliminates all of the living microorganisms and particles.
The steam damages the proteins in the hay and that is one of the reasons the treatment has disadvantages.
As a result of the steam treatment, the horse's small intestine can no longer digest a high proportion of the proteins and crucial amino acids that are contained in them.
In the steamed hay, they found an increase in the number of products generated by the Maillard reaction, which is a sign that the hay has been damaged.
They’re made by breaking up the proteins into small chains of amino acids and sugars. The steaming damages the proteins, and they form new complexes with sugars.
Treating horses with this type of hay can make it difficult for them to digest it and absorb as much protein.
There are unspecific symptoms in the animals that are affected by the deficiency. The horse's coat has "hunger hair", which is isolated hairs in the horse's coat, and impaired muscle development.
Horse owners can counteract the risk by enriching the animals' diet with high-quality single feedstuffs such as yeast and soybean meal or high-quality compound feeds.