Cute Young Brunette Girl In The Hay With Apples

Hay or grass is the foundation the diet for all grazing animals and can provide as much as 100% the fodder required for an animal. Hay is usually fed to an animal in place allowing the animal to graze on grasses in a pasture, particularly in the winter or during times when drought or other conditions make pasture unavailable. Animals that can eat hay vary in the types grasses suitable for consumption, the ways they consume hay, and how they digest it. Therefore, different types animals require hay that consists similar plants to what they would eat while grazing, and likewise, plants that are toxic to an animal in pasture are also toxic if they are dried into hay.
Most animals are fed hay in two daily feedings, morning and evening. However, this schedule is more for the convenience humans, as most grazing animals on pasture naturally consume fodder in multiple feedings throughout the day. Some animals, especially those being raised for meat, may be given enough hay that they simply are able to eat all day. Other animals, especially those that are ridden or driven as working animals, are only free to eat when not working, and may be given a more limited amount hay to prevent them from getting too fat. The proper amount hay and the type hay required varies somewhat between different species. Some animals are also fed concentrated feeds such as grain or vitamin supplements in addition to hay. In most cases, hay or pasture forage must make up 50% or more the diet by weight.
One the most significant differences in hay digestion is between ruminant animals, such as cattle and sheep; and nonruminant, hindgut fermentors, such as horses. Both types animals can digest cellulose in grass and hay, but do so by different mechanisms. Because the four-chambered stomach cattle, they are ten able to break down older forage and have more tolerance mold and changes in diet. The single-chambered stomach and cecum or "hindgut" the horse uses bacterial processes to break down cellulose that are more sensitive to changes in feeds and the presence mold or other toxins, requiring horses to be fed hay more consistent type and quality.
Different animals also use hay in different ways: cattle evolved to eat forages in relatively large quantities at a single feeding, and then, due to the process rumination, take a considerable amount time for their stomachs to digest food, ten accomplished while the animal is lying down, at rest. Thus quantity hay is important for cattle, who are able to effectively digest hay low quality if fed in sufficient amounts. Sheep will eat between two and four percent their body weight per day in dry feed, such as hay, and are very efficient at obtaining the most nutrition possible from three to five pounds per day hay or other forage. They require three to four hours per day to eat enough hay to meet their nutritional requirements.