How long can alfalfa cubes safely soak?

[LMH]

I know it is somewhere...but too tired to find it.:no:

[pricestory]

I would say it depends on the weather. I soak mine for the next feeding at the current feeding, ie start in the morning for the evening. That can be more than 12 hrs. I may not do that in the heat but we aren't that hot here, Western NC.

[LMH]

Cool. I have an A/C tack room.

I have someone that actually feeds in the AM so it would just be SO much easier to soak the night before.

Just did not want to be feeding rancid cubes

On the flip side, if I prepared everything and just told them to add X cups of hot water-would they break down in 20 minutes? Or would it take longer?

[Nanerpus]

I break mine down by hand into teeny chunks and then shred them, and add really hot water. They puff up immediately. I wait 5-10 minutes, go through each bucket (2 total, about 10 cubes each for easy keepers!) by hand to make sure they are totally mushy and no hard bits, and they are usually totally broken down, so I would imagine you could just leave instructions about adding hot water, or just soak them the night before for the morning feeders. If you break them up by hand (unless you feed a LOT, because it does take some time) that will really help them break down faster.

[LMH]

Great, instructions with hot water in the morning it is.

[BuddyRoo]

Yep...I do the warm water thing and it takes hardly any time at all.

[Dan]

If we ever get a hot spell in Michigan I am going to break down and buy one of those dorm refrigerators. They would be the perfect size for putting a bucket of soaked hay cubes.

Dan

[pricestory]

The cubes I get occasionally are about thumb size, like mini cubes. Sometimes they are inches long and hard as a brick bat. I can't break the long ones. When I put them in the beet pulp to soak overnight, sometimes in the morning they are still in one piece, but soft enough for me to break. I'm not sure even hot water would do those quickly.

[JB]

Yep, some a-cubes are easy to break apart by hand right off the bat, and some literally need a bat to break them up!

[msj]

I feed them for a 3rd feeding for an old guy here to get/keep weight on. I use hot tap water and do anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hrs BUT I keep them in the house where the temps don't get above 70 in the lower level.

As the old guy is finally at a good weight, I'm considering giving them to both horses for their evening meal in place of beet pulp and dropping the 3rd meal. I'll still keep the beet pulp for AM as I set it up at the evening meal and put it right in the refrigerator until I need it. Then I heat that up in the microwave.

[LMH]

good grief he doesn't like soaked alfalfa cubes.
:confused: