I dunno. We’ve fed Bermuda varieties of one sort or another pretty much everywhere I’ve been in contact with horses over the southeast and no more issues than any other barns in America.
In an effort to increase the quality of care for my personal horses, I started doing some Bermuda and some Tim/Orchard. The horses like the Tim/Orchard better but my old guy had a severe laminitis attack and is foundered. I’ve not tested the hay, but on average that Bermuda hay is likely lower sugar. I may have hurt my horse in my effort to “do better” by him.
If you hold a handful of Timothy or Orchard grass or Alfalfa in one hand, and bermuda in the other, you can see how the bermuda would be the one most likely to bog down and get sticky/wadded in a gut. It’s short, it’s fine stemmed, and in some cases it’s so short and fine that it’s even hard to pick up a flake or a bale - it’s so ‘shatter and scatter’ prone. The others are just seriously better ‘roughage’ than bermuda.
With all of that said, I just bought 10,500 lbs of Coastal, so I do feed it. I was feeding Bahia, but two out of three tested as allergic to it now, among other things, so my wallet takes me back to Bermuda. Mine are all easy, drink like fish, and aren’t difficult travelers or picky, so I’m ‘ok’ with going this route for winter hay. Horses who aren’t used to or acclimated to such easy to hoover up hay, may well get stuffed full of it before they stop and drink. Chewing any other type of hay is more work and more thirst inducing than bermuda. Those horses get in trouble. YMMV.
I’ve never experienced this, but perhaps a different variety, or produced differently (cut at the wrong stage, grown in lesser conditions, etc.).
I have a small amount of experience with timothy – one drought years several years ago, my husband was able to bring back 30 70# bales of timothy from Colorado when returning from a business trip. I’m familiar with alfalfa, as I’ve fed that along with coastal (that’s what everyone around here calls coastal bermuda) to elderly horses and pregnant mares.
yes, terrible drought last year. Not as bad in your area as here, but the whole state. But, late summer rains and long fall made a 4th crop possible, so supplies were not all that tight.
I would not wait until September. If you have storage, get what you can when it is available, fresh from the field is cheapest. And you never know. The times I’ve waited until September, we’ve had monsoons late in the year…
I dunno. Every bale of pure Orchard grass I’ve handled has been far finer and shorter than any of the Bermuda hays I’ve had. Granted my experience with straight Orchard is limited.
I was reading up once and found an article that suggested that OG was a greater relative colic risk than Bermuda.
Though perennial peanut can take the cake in the scatter and shatter test sometimes. My current load is straight leaf. Need a bowl to put “flakes” into
Well I ended up with 6.5 tons of 3 string, 115 lb. 2nd cut orchard grown in SE OR. My trainer let me use their 14K gooseneck flatbed so I grabbed all of it, plus 1/2 ton of gorgeous 3rd cut alfalfa, in one trip. Thank goodness for 20-something nephews who were available to unload, along with a friend of the trainer’s and my DH it took just 45 minutes to stack it all in the barn.
Orchard grass, well I guess any hay for that matter, depends on the cutting and where it was grown. The first cutting OG hay that I have been buying that is grown in Tennessee tends to be pretty mature even though it is cut and baled the first part of May. However it is pretty leafy and the horses just leave the “bones”. Second and third cutting from Tennessee tends to be a lot finer with no seed heads. However my horses tend to prefer the first cutting because I think it tends to be baled in drier weather and thus cures better.
Now western grown orchard grass that is grown in irrigated fields tends to be a lot finer with smaller leaves even if it is first cutting with seed heads. I have even gotten an OG/ alfalfa mix that the OG was as fine as grass clippings when you mow your lawn. It depends on when it is cut as to how fine it is. I have only had one problem with colic and hay and it was fine stemmed bermuda. But we were having extremely hot weather and I don’t think the horse was well hydrated so I don’t know if I can blame it on the hay. I still prefer feeding OG hay than bermuda due to the fact I can find it better cured than bermuda. Mostly because bermuda is ready to bale in high summer when the humidity is high in my region. You can get good hay - it is just harder to find.
I can almost smell it from here. Better to pay a higher price for good stuff than to pay for not so good and a lot is wasted. And lucky you to have help!!!
I agree there are lots of reasons why a horse can colic and it can be hard to determine why a particular horse coliced. And I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to feed hay they truly felt uncomfortable with for whatever reason!
I’ve found a lead on some OG with a touch of A out of KY that I can view before buying. I’m curious to see how it looks.
I’m fairly sure most of the OG I’ve handled has been from out west NM and Idaho.
I think horses like OG and Tim better than Bermuda. I’ve got some Bermuda that’s really well done. It’s good hay, but my horses eat it last. I do find it useful for some situations. Like the chunky one that gets very upset if he doesn’t have snacks at all times and now the founder horse that needs low NSC. I get Alicia Bermuda currently. I like the late cuttings; after the monsoons are done.
In the Northeast, I think a lot of farmers aren’t going to get a second cut at all, unless it starts raining soon. This year’s local first cut is abundant and good.
Yes, it was disheartening and I think you’re right - it’ll happen again. Even with fuel prices up but “coming down” I don’t see DEF coming down any time soon.
I gotta say I’m a little wtf at my neighbor right now with the cost of hay. We both got our properties baled this year by the same guy, I don’t keep it so he takes it all and I usually get a check for a couple hundred bucks a little later. He normally gets about 400 squares off my property, it was seeded fescue/orchard and is still heavily that. My neighbor has the same situation going on because both our properties were owned by the same guy but theirs has had cows on it until recently and hasn’t been hayed since 2016 (grow and die, grow and die) whereas mine has been kept in hay. The hay guy took dry rounds this year, first week of July, hay was a little past ready but it was raining. He did my neighbor’s acreage for the first time and they are “wet rounds” (marshmallows), and there they sit, a month later… I think the neighbor was keeping some (they have some sheep) and maybe they want to sell the rest on their own? No clue, but I can’t help but think of the thousands of dollars just …sitting…
It has some good regrowth going as you can see. Mine does but part of my property is being fenced for a 3rd paddock because I’m trying like hell to cut down the outrageous hay bill (though cost of fencing, I’m not sure I’m winning this battle financially…) They even ran the mower around the fence line earlier this week (which is a vent for another thread).
