Hygienic horse roughage - a number one priority

Roughage forms the foundation of a horse's diet and is one of the most important factors for the horse's well-being.
Because of that it is very important to inspect the quality of the roughage every day using your eyes and nose to determine its quality. If you use plastic-wrapped roughage, you should always remove the plastic to inspect the feed before giving it to the horse. If you feed roughage with plastic on it in the pasture, for example, it is easy for the horses to eat a large portion before you notice that it contains mold.

If you examine the roughage carefully every day, you will quickly learn to detect abnormal smells, different colors, or other abnormal appearances of the feed and can avoid it causing health problems for the horse.

Silage should smell fresh and good.
It smells more or less acidic depending on the dry matter content. Low dry matter content means that the silage smells more acidic because more lactic acid has formed. Haylage is not ensiled to the same extent and therefore does not smell as acidic. Silage should have a green to green-brown color. If silage or haylage smells like rancid butter or ammonia, is slimy or "burnt" and dark, it should not be fed. Hay should also smell fresh and preferably a little "spicy", it should not smell musty, earthy, or moldy, and it should have a good structure and not be matted or clumped together.

Mold fungi in feed can also produce mycotoxins (mold toxins) that negatively affect horses in various ways. Some mold fungi infect growing crops, so-called field fungi, and can be found in grain already at threshing. This includes species of Fusarium, among others. These can produce several mycotoxins, including the group of trichothecenes.

If the crop is stored with too high moisture content after harvesting, storage fungi can grow. Among these, species of Penicillium and Aspergillus are notable, where especially A. fumigatus has been associated with, among other things, respiratory disorders. These mold species can grow in both straw feed and grain. So always check your horse's hay daily!