What is hay?

As always I'm not here to teach you anything but only to share my own experience and what I've learnt thanks to that. When I brought my horses at home I knew only few things and I didn't know how many others there were for me to discover. So, during some years, I improved my knowledge by reading books, trying different solutions and asking for informations to different people. With horses there are no rules and what works for one doesn't necessarily works for another. While what is generally true is the hay composition. First of all, hay is grass that is cut and dried so it can be stored and then used according to your needs. In Italy we generally have 3 different cuts: the first one in May, the second in August and the third one in September. The first one often contains more nutrients than the second and third one. After cutting the grass it is left on the field to dry for about three days and then, when it's dry enough, it is baled. It is very important that during that period of time hay doesn't become wet because this can cause mould development. Hay contains water too but your horse always needs to have free access to fresh and clean water. There are three different types of hay: legumes, cereals and grass hay.In legumes hay we can find alfa-alfa and clover; they are rich and contains many nutrients so, even if it's very palatable for horses, be aware of the fact that giving them too much of it can cause too much energy in your horse. After legumes hay there is the grass hay that is a little less rich in protein respect to the first one and it generally contains timothy, bluegrass, orchardgrass, fescue, etc. Last but not least there is cereals hay that is made of oat, barley or wheat but it is not often used because it's not as nutrient as the other two types. Straw sometimes is used instead of hay or to complete the horse's diet but it's not nutrient and it doesn't give enough proteins and energy to your horse. It's quite common that some horses eat it when we use it to make their bed and in itself it's not such a bad habit but straw shouldn't be their only source of nutrients.