# Vitamin D in Hay??????



## Anyfoot (May 9, 2017)

I was trying to find out what vitamins and what nutrients are in Hay.
I keep reading that there is vitamin D in sun-dried hay.
Can anyone enlighten me on this subject please. 

Here is a link if anyone is interested. 

https://www.vitamindwiki.com/Sun-cured+hay+often+has+2000+IU+of+vitamin+D+per+kilogram


----------



## Madkins007 (May 9, 2017)

There is this article- https://www.vitamindwiki.com/Sun-cured+hay+often+has+2000+IU+of+vitamin+D+per+kilogram but not a ton else- after all, most hay eaters are browsers and live in the open, so D is not their big problem most of the time.

2000iU/kg means that for a person to get the recommended dose of D, they would have to eat a full kilogram (2.2lbs) of hay. That is an awful lot. The ratio would be about the same for a tortoise- to get their recommended dose (100-200iU/kg/day) would still mean that a 2lb tort would need to eat about 3.5 ounces of sun-dried hay a day. Considering that my tortoises never liked hay, this would not work real well.


----------



## Anyfoot (May 9, 2017)

Madkins007 said:


> There is this article- https://www.vitamindwiki.com/Sun-cured+hay+often+has+2000+IU+of+vitamin+D+per+kilogram but not a ton else- after all, most hay eaters are browsers and live in the open, so D is not their big problem most of the time.
> 
> 2000iU/kg means that for a person to get the recommended dose of D, they would have to eat a full kilogram (2.2lbs) of hay. That is an awful lot. The ratio would be about the same for a tortoise- to get their recommended dose (100-200iU/kg/day) would still mean that a 2lb tort would need to eat about 3.5 ounces of sun-dried hay a day. Considering that my tortoises never liked hay, this would not work real well.




Yeah I wasn't thinking anything along the lines of a tortoise relying on hay for vitamin D, and any grazing diurnal animal get the benefit of direct sunlight anyway. Although by the looks of things they get some vit D through hays. It shocked me a bit that sun dried hay and leaves do have some vitamin D and as always I don't trust what I read on the internet, so thank you for a 2nd opinion. 
I'm guessing this answers my question of how does a mole grow healthy bones when it lives under ground and eats essentially worms. Worms eat dried leaves amongst other stuff. Is this how vitamin D gets to the mole. 
Cheers Mark.


----------



## Madkins007 (Jun 2, 2017)

Actually, rats don't need vitamin D to metabolise calcium and they can come out in the day. I would bet that other species have also developed things like that but have not been studied.

It is also possible that the moles are getting it from their invertebrate diet. Most inverts are low in vitamin D, but maybe moles (and similar animals) can get by on the smaller amounts.


----------



## Anyfoot (Jun 3, 2017)

Madkins007 said:


> Actually, rats don't need vitamin D to metabolise calcium and they can come out in the day. I would bet that other species have also developed things like that but have not been studied.
> 
> It is also possible that the moles are getting it from their invertebrate diet. Most inverts are low in vitamin D, but maybe moles (and similar animals) can get by on the smaller amounts.


Interesting about the rat, I didn't know that. So the rat is living proof that vitamin D in the diet does promote healthy bone growth same as vitamin D in UVB.


----------

