I have been working with horses since 1964. My horses range in ages of 2 years old, 5 years old, 15 years old, 20 years old and up to 25 years old. In the past 5 years, hay producers in my area have turned to using poultry litter on their hay field as fertilizer because of costs. The square bale hay looks green and great, but my horses just sniff it and walk away. They waste it. They won't eat it. Each year, I have to return the hay and buy hay that was not produced with poultry litter. Thank goodness, most hay producers are being honest when I ask if they used poultry litter in the production of their hay. Last year, when I took 100 bales home from a hay producer that I had bought from previously that season, my horses would not eat the hay. I called the hay producer. He confirmed that he had distributed poultry litter in the production of that hay. When he looked in his notes and realized that I had requested non-poultry litter fertilized hay from the start, he came to our place and removed the 100 bales of poultry litter fertilized hay and replaced it with hay that did NOT get produced with poultry litter. My horses immediately started eating the hay that did NOT have poultry litter used in the production of it. So, here is my question. Has anyone experienced this problem with their horses? If so, what did you do? This has happened to me with 4 separate hay producers. I cannot find anything on the internet that explains this problem. I understand that it is a fairly new process, but surely, someone is recognizing the problem besides me!!! I got a response: "Be careful feeding this hay to your horses. Chickens spread salmonella. I myself, would never feed my horses this type of hay." Should I be concerned??? I got another response: "Not at all uncommon. A lot of horses don't like hog manure fertilized hay either. Not new at all. A lot of farmers use manure from chickens and hogs when the price of commercial fertilizer get high. In years past it was much more common. Guess what, if that's all they have to eat for a few days, they get over it, and eat it just fine." My reply was: Have you had the experience with horses not eating their hay?...and you continued to only give them that hay AND they started eating it??? If so, what problems did you observe? Any health issues? From my experience, this behavior of not eating their hay is not natural. I have been feeding my groups of horses for 48 years. This issue with my horses not eating the hay given them has only occurred since the poultry litter has been used as fertilizer, which has been in the last 5 years. I understand the farmers' need to keep down costs, but for the end result to be that the product not be used (wasted), that seems to defeat the purpose of growing the hay. I wonder what problems have occurred that have not been registered by some agency....where would one report this anyway? It is just not natural for my horses to refuse hay. This is a BIG problem for me. My experience is that the hay producers really don't want to hear this. Yet, to be honest, they need to know this. Here was the response: "Yes, I've had experience with hay fertilized with chicken, hog, and cattle manure. Sometime they eat it without a problems and other times, a couple of days of it alone, and they eat it just fine. The smell is usually the problem. If they get hungry, they will eat. Chicken is very high in nitrogen and bad about burning if applied to heavy. It should be composted for awhile before applying. The problems associated with e coli, etc, are usually not there if the application doesn't burn up the hay crop. Seldom do they apply any of these close to harvest time, which gives mother nature plenty of time to dispose of e coli, etc. Sun and rain, will do an excellent job of decomposing. It was used a lot around here, more so, a few years back, and never heard of any problems feeding the hay to horses. When the farmers used horses for tilling it was used extensively for horse hay." Does anyone have any advice on Hay fertilized with poultry manure and the possiblitity of Salmonella risk??? Thanks

I thought I answered this in a previous post. The salmonella was introduced when some fool crossed an eggplant with a tomato. Seriously though, what I got a kick out of was TV stations sending reporters to farm markets to ask the people if they were afraid of buying tomatoes there. To which the people there answered no. Well...duh. If you all remember the spinach scare from two years ago, it's the same deal. If you buy from a local farmer, or better yet just get the stuff from your back yard, you don't have to worry much about the same stuff that the people that buy from the grocery stores do. You want to know why they have a hard time tracking down the culprit...too many middle men. When people in New Hampshire want tomatoes in May, where are you going to find them? Well a long ways away. So you're going to have people growing them in Mexico, selling them to distributors in Texas who sell them to wholesalers in Ohio that the restaurants in New Hampshire buy from. That's a lot of places for the USDA to have to check out. As for the actual cases of salmonella themselves...the symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting and the like. Now come on, I'm sure we've all eaten at Taco Bell or McDonalds before, and even if you don't have a taco or Big Mac with tomatoes chances are those will be the side-affects.

I finished off our last Kashi granola bar and thought I'd pick another box up at the store and they had been recalled! What good does it do to hang a sign on the grocery shelf where the recalled item used to be? Our pantries are full of this stuff and you buy it today and it's recalled tomorrow and who knows about it! I went onto the recall list a week ago (before two more processing plants were closed) and there were hundreds of products from candy to dog biscuits -- granola bars, cereal and cookies. Unbelievable that this could happen! I know I was sick for about a week, and that's not something that happens to me often. I'm wondering now if I didn't eat something tainted with salmonella that my body was able to throw off. Small children, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems are particularly at risk. I'm angry that this was allowed to happen in our country.

I used Annie's recipe: Plum Sauce 4 lbs. plums 2 cups brown sugar 1 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup chopped onion (about 1 medium) 2 tbls mustard seed 2 tbls chopped green chili peppers (I used jalapenos) 1 1/4x12 inch piece fresh ginger, minced 1 tbls salt 1 clove garlic, minced 1 cup cider vinegar Wash, pit and chop plums. Combine remaining ingredients in large pan, bring to a boil and reduce heat. Add plums and cook until thick and syrupy. (At this point I tried to puree the mix with my stick blender. One more thing it's no good for, incidentally, so I mush the whole mess through my Foley food mill because Ashley doesn't like the "hunks"). Ladle hot into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Adjust caps, process 20 minutes in a boiling water canner. Makes 4 pints . . . I recently acquired the Ball Blue Book and the recipe is in there as Annie indicated. I made the recipe as directed. We "sampled" some that didn't fit in the jars to get processed. It was yummy, and no one got sick from the peppers, with just cooking, before hot water processing. So I guess I will assume that the jars are even safer.