Panicking! Please advise???

[tinastephenson]

I am now panicking! Charity has not been good and is on 24 hours stable rest.
I asked OH to put some haynets in for both charity and curly who was in to keep her company.
I did not give it a thought and now it transpires that he did not remember new hay cannot be fed!!!!!! its only been baled for 4 weeks and between them they have polished off 1 small bale.....
What should I do or look out for?

[shaklana]

you've probably nothing to worry about. possible problems are urticaria, colic, diarrhoea, laminitis. these can occur if the grass is fermenting a lot, v unlikely in your late july cut hay unless it was baled damp. the most dangerous time to feed hay is a few hours after cutting, then the risk lessons with time. i am feeding hay which is 7 weeks old.

[harveydales]

Yes, you are probably fine. With the weather we've had this year hay dried very quickly and I would think 4 weeks will be OK. One year I spoke to Robert Eustace about this as I couldn't get hold of good old hay for my laminitis prone horse. He told me he has fed well made hay only 4 weeks old to his laminitic patients on occasions. I am also feeding Harvey 7 week old hay now.