Alfalfa Pellets v. Baled Alfalfa Hay

[EverElite]

I am heavily considering moving off of baled hay alfalfa and moving my two TB mares on alfalfa pellets, and was hoping to get some thoughts.

I have two, mercifully, easy keepers who have access to free choice grass hay 24/7, and are only stalled briefly in the AM for their separate “concentrate” feedings (really just beet pulp, V/M supplement, and flax) and alfalfa feedings. One currently gets a maximum of 5 lb alfalfa, the other one in heavier work gets closer to 6 lb.

Finding quality alfalfa has not proven easy. The last block was way too stemmy and most of the leaves had fallen off by the time they get into the horse. Weighing flakes is proving to be a pain in the butt and breaking apart flakes to get to 5lb on the nose is promoting further waste. Given that my herd has access to around the clock, free-choice stemmy forage, would I be depriving either mare of anything if I moved to a pellet to help avoid waste and make weighing quicker and more accurate?

[Simkie]

Nope! As long as they’ll eat the pellets–and you might want to soak, but you’re probably doing that already with your beep?–you should be fine!

[mmeqcenter]

Shouldn’t be a problem

[candyappy]

As just a supplemental feed it shouldn’t make any difference and it should be more consistent in quality , hopefully.

[lorilu]

Pellets in place of hay? I did not think pellets had enough “roughage”…

[CindyCRNA]

I think the OP is augmenting their rations with alfalfa but you are correct. Pellets don’t have the roughage.

OP, my horses like soaked alfalfa cubes much better than the pellets soaked. They get too mushy.

[Simkie]

@lorilu

Pellets in place of hay? I did not think pellets had enough “roughage”…

This horse is getting free choice grass hay and a few pounds of alfalfa to supplement. It’s getting plenty of roughage.

[EverElite]

Thanks everyone! I will give it a go.

@CindyCRNA

OP, my horses like soaked alfalfa cubes much better than the pellets soaked. They get too mushy.

Do you have a brand of cubes you prefer? My concern is that cubes won’t break down enough for the choke-prone mare. I plan on soaking overnight, but I reeeeally don’t want to spend my chilly mornings elbow deep in soaked alfalfa making sure the cubes are broken down enough.

[achcosuva]

I feed Standlee Alf cubes to two senior geldings. I soak overnight for morning feed and all day for evening feed. The cubes break down very well and have no hard chunks in them. I have no need to put my hands in and break them apart. I fill the bottom of a 2 gallon bucket in a single layer, which is 1 - 1.5 lb alf cubes by weight, and fill half way with water. That’s about 1 gallon water per 1lb cubes.

[cnd8]

I second the Standlee cubes. My gelding gets some soaked cubes morning and night to supplement his hay and grain rations. We take the small feed buckets and put one layer of cubes on the bottom, just like @achcosuva described and fill it with just about as much water as she described also. They soak until the next feeding and by that time, they are an alfalfa soup. He licks his bowl and I like that he gets the added water content.

[CindyCRNA]

I cover mine with about 6" ove water which is a lot and let it site for 30 min. Generally that does it. I do whatever brand is available. They break down about the same.

[IPEsq]

I’d probably want to split up the pellets into 2 feedings of around 3ish lbs each but otherwise I wouldn’t be concerned about it since the alfalfa is making up a small portion of the overall forage and they aren’t getting much else in the way of concentrates. Cubes would probably be slightly better.

I had a horse who loved alfalfa hay, dunked all of his forage, liked beet pulp and various other concentrate mashes, but he would not touch any form of soaked alfalfa cube/pellet. Dry pellets were fine. So, which type of alfalfa you choose may depend on what they’ll eat. For basically 1 med-lg flake a day, though, have you considered buying some compressed bales?

[PamnReba]

As an alternative to soaking, I put my alfalfa pellets through a small electric chipper/shredder and it breaks them up enough to be easily eaten. They also absorb water much faster if you still want to soak though, in just minutes they’re ready. The chipper/shredder was fairly inexpensive, I bought it on sale from Harbor Freight. I originally bought to break up cubes, it works for those too, just a little more work to get them through it.

14 Amp 1-1/2 in. Capacity Corded Electric Chipper Shredder

PS I freaking love this feature! Great job on the forum upgrade!