Check my math re: hay for the year

[firefoot]

In the past, I’ve had boarders or managed big barns and always tried to get more hay than I needed. Now I just have my two and don’t plan on any more boarders. I will need to get hay later this summer and I’m trying to figure out how much I need for two older TBs for a year. A few things have changed that are making it hard to predict. Namely, I was finally able to rotate fields this spring and they have much nicer grass now. Previously, I had 3-5 horses on five acres and last summer we had a terrible drought so the field was rough coming into spring. Now, about four of the five acres are quite nicely in grass. So, they are eating less hay, and I anticipate having grass further into the fall due to being able to rotate.

The horses are two late-teen TB geldings. One in mild-moderate work, the other in no work. Both are fat right now (first time ever!!). They have been getting 2 lbs Grow N Win and 1 lb TCS per day for the past month or so, I am stepping them down to only 1.5 lb GNW. They are out overnight, in the stalls about 7-10 hours per day with fans and grass mix haynets.

We are mid-atlantic so the winters get cold and damp, can get down to single digits-0, can snow (although last winter was quite mild), often rainy. They each get about 5-6 lbs TCS and 5-8 lbs alfalfa hay added to their diet in the winter.

So, they are about 1100-1200 lbs each. 2% of that is 25lbs on the high end. Considering their winter diet of TCS and alfalfa, that’s about 20 lbs of hay needed per horse. So 40 lbs per day. 40 * 180 (6 months) = 7,200. 7,200/50 lb bales (roughly) = 144 small square bales for the winter.

Then, for the summer with the grass, it seems like they go through about a bale and a half per week between the two of them. So 10lbs of hay a day combined, roughly. So 10 * 180 (6 months) = 1,800 / 50lbs bales = another 36 small square bales.

That totals 180 bales. And about 40 bales of alfalfa. Does that seem right?! I am used to taking care of many more horses than just two and I’m so afraid I will run out. But their fields are so much better than last year and the field carrying capacity is drastically reduced, so I have reason to believe they’ll have more grass for longer.

Please let me know if I’m missing something or if this is comparable for you who also have just a couple horses on decent fields.

[candyappy]

We put up our own hay. I always put up way more than I need. I would figure on 40 pounds per horse per day for 365 days in a year.

I know you don’t feed that all year round but I have several reasons for suggesting this.

1. Summer Drought-- I know it is hard to fathom it when it never seems to stop raining but it can happen and it can basically end your pasture for the whole summer and into fall . A few years ago this happened and not only was hay not available, it was priced outrageously and trucked in from other states. People had no hay or pastures.

2. Extremely cold winter-- Means you may need to feed more hay.

3. Cold or late spring-- Means that your pasture will not be of use until the grass grows enough and some years it can be up to 2 months behind.

4. Hay availability/ quality – Sometimes it is hard to find because of weather conditions and I always want to have it on hand while looking for more.

5. You never know when another horse may be in your future-- that is self explanatory!

If you do have hay left over from one season to another it is fine. Just use it first and then you can adjust what you need to buy in the coming year. I never want to be down to a few bales and still be waiting for weather to be favorable for hay making. It has happened to me once. Never again.

I just feed the older first.

[Scribbler]

First you need to weigh the hay you usually feed with a luggage or fish scale and be sure that’s what you feed.

A typical horse in a stall, no grass, eats about 20 lbs a day.

So 600 lbs a month. If you cut the hay in half during pasture season, that’s 300 lbs a month.

Around here the hay dealers like to sell by the ton which is 2000 lbs. The bales vary in size.

If you feed 20lbs a day for six months and 10 lbs a day for six months, that’s 3600 + 1800, or 4400 lbs a year per horse. 8800 lbs for two horses.

That’s basically 4 and a half tons.

What’s the worst that could happen if you order a little too much hay? If you have good storage, nothing. You can keep feeding it into the following year.

What’s the worst that could happen if you order too little? If you have decent local feed stores that deliver, just that you might pay a bit of a premium to top up your supply in next spring.

If I had the storage room I would definitely get a generous years worth all at once.

[firefoot]

@Scribbler

First you need to weigh the hay you usually feed with a luggage or fish scale and be sure that’s what you feed.

A typical horse in a stall, no grass, eats about 20 lbs a day.

So 600 lbs a month. If you cut the hay in half during pasture season, that’s 300 lbs a month.

Around here the hay dealers like to sell by the ton which is 2000 lbs. The bales vary in size.

If you feed 20lbs a day for six months and 10 lbs a day for six months, that’s 3600 + 1800, or 4400 lbs a year per horse. 8800 lbs for two horses.

That’s basically 4 and a half tons.

What’s the worst that could happen if you order a little too much hay? If you have good storage, nothing. You can keep feeding it into the following year.

What’s the worst that could happen if you order too little? If you have decent local feed stores that deliver, just that you might pay a bit of a premium to top up your supply in next spring.

If I had the storage room I would definitely get a generous years worth all at once.

Yeah I guess I’m in disbelief that the math comes out to 180 bales. I was thinking closer to 350 or something. I have space for about 200-250 grass bales and 50-60 alfalfa bales so I will just go with that. In the past, getting that amount of hay with more horses did not last that long. I’m still adjusting, lol.

@candyappy Like you say, a drought can really mess things up. Last year, I was throwing hay in the field Sept 1 :eek: And hay was so hard to get, luckily I had enough. That’s the first drought I’ve seen here in 10 years but I don’t want that again. And I have a decent hay guy now, the hay at the feed store is marked way up and not worth it (or maybe I’m just too poor!).

Thanks guys!

[SLW]

I think you are spot on with that. I feed one horse and one standard donkey hay year round because both get restricted grass turnout so they are on a huge dry lot most of the time. I like to have 30 spare bales so I purchase 240 for the year which allows me plenty to feed. These are square bales of brome and weigh about 60# each.

[Scribbler]

I also always doubt if I get full weight from any hay dealers, or perhaps it is drier and weighs less when I go to feed. If I wanted a guaranteed supply I’d stick up at least 10% more for “shrinkage.”

[fourfillies]

I think you are spot on. I’m in southern PA and when I had 4 horses at home with a similar access to pasture/time in and grain needs as your two I bought 350 small squares (45ish pounds) a year out of the field. Never used it all. Each year I reliably donated about 50 bales before getting a New Years worth. I had a low stocking rate so even the dry years my hay usage didn’t change much.

[HungarianHippo]

I think your numbers OP sound right, but then I’d add a 4-month safety margin onto it. You never know what’s going to happen this winter, next growing season, etc. With a 4-month buffer, that way you’ll be making your next year’s hay decision with good visibility to how the current growing season is going (as opposed to this time of year, when none of us knows what 2nd, 3rd, 4th cutting will be like). COVID19 is a big unknown, too. How will it affect the farming economy, and hay supply/demand next year?

Put it this way: I have never, ever regretted having more hay than I really needed.

[goodhors]

I am like Candyappy, in figuring how much hay I need to buy for a year. Plenty of extra is good. I will ALWAYS use it up. You cannot foretell the weather, nice, wet, drought or perfect for pasture, in the coming year. I have dealt with all of them, plus extreme cold, single digits for weeks. You can be feeding double the usual hay in that kind of cold. More hay is needed during cold to feed even blanketed horses, so they have enough calories to function and be warm. This will really mess up any “tight” calculating on needed hay. You absolutely do NOT want to come close to running out of hay in bad weather.

If you have the storage space, get the extra hay. Getting hay in nasty weather is terrible, being cold, heavy loads snow or icy roads, carting the bales to the storage area over mud or frozen ruts. I rented one barn that could only store 50 bales. Seemed like I spent a lot of time getting hay all winter, weather was always bad when I needed to get hay. There was only a dry lot, no pastures, so they got hay year around. I figured a bale a day for them, when buying from my farmer, paid and collected hay as needed. One pickup load at a time, by myself.

We now have our own barns, fill them and it feels really good, prepared for winter!

You mention pastures, plan to get a lot of horse forage there. Are you actively helping the pastures be productive? This includes soil testing, fertilizing annually, regular mowing to keep pastures producing quality forage. Rotation of the pastures is fine, but the land needs help to be GOOD, with nutrition in the grasses grown on it. Horse manure is a poor fertilizer, lacks minerals because horse used them in his body. Minerals need to be replaced in the soil to be available to the grazing equines. Looking at grass on a pasture won’t tell you if it is nutritious, soil test tells you what the land has. We have been going on 3yrs developing our hayfield after purchase. First soil test last year showed NO MINERALS, but plenty of Nitrogen. Fertilizer guy said it was the WORST soil test he ever saw!! Those fields had always APPEARED nicely green, put up a bountiful crop of “green stuff” every year, though not being farmed. We put on an amazing amount of fertilizer in 2 applications last year. It needed so much that doing 2 spreadings, early summer and early fall, allowed better absorbtion over the time spread. I also tilled and planted the grass mix for hay production later.

Soil test this spring showed incredible improvement in the mineral content. We took off the first cutting last weekend, will soon be applying more fertilizer as the ground gets harder. They hay looks wonderful, was tall to mow. I will be getting hay tested to see what it actually has in it, because looks can be deceiving regarding nutrition.

My long-winded point is, you may or may not, be able to use the pastures as expected if the weather and ground minerals are not cooperative for grass production. So the extra hay may be needed this year, but not in a normal year. However you can ALWAYS use it up as time goes along. Do not count on Mother Nature being reliable, she laughs at us!

First cutting hay last year was so very late, gone to seed with rain until late June. Hard getting hay put up most places, most early hay was not very good unless sprayed. We got enough, but paid a premium for it. It was not real nutritious, but we were glad to find it, the horses did OK. There was very little second cutting with the drought from first of July to mid August. Then frequent rain prevented cutting and drying hay in most places. I was rotating horses daily during drought time, so grass had 2 days rest to grow a little. It was a weird year, but they are getting more common.

Having extra hay prevents panic. Kind of like extras in the freezer or pantry, when an emergency happens. We HAD toilet paper, food, when things shut down here without warning. My Mom always had extra, we were a big family of hungry children! Weather emergencies then were common, no big deal, even if we got surprise company. She would call the police and tell them we could take in stranded people if they had any! We would put extra leaves in the table, bring up canned and frozen food to feed everyone. People sleeping everywhere plus us kids! Some stayed overnight or a week before the roads were cleared. The value of being prepared was right there to learn from.

[frugalannie]

I’m going to make a suggestion. We have an eleven horse barn. We use 40-45 lb square bales that I buy locally, straight from the field. I’ve developed my budget for hay by counting the cut off baling twine once a week for years now. And it’s amazing: almost no matter the circumstances, the actual hay usage stays the same year after year. So that’s my suggestion. Whatever you buy this year, start keeping track on a weekly basis so you know your actual use. And then, if you’re me, you buy 200 extra bales beyond the actual usage “just in case”.

[Kyrabee]

I used to get 4 tons/horse/year. There was some pasture in summer but no one got free choice pasture due to previous founder in one old guy (this was eons ago before knowing about insulin resistance or having muzzles). The pasture would give them nibbling all winter although they got full rations of hay in winter. I had to get the stack covered well to minimize spoilage, but I usually had about a half-ton left when I got the next years hay. In the years I did this, I never had a hay emergency where I ran out. I usually got all the hay for the year in by August.

Susan

[firefoot]

@goodhors

I am like Candyappy, in figuring how much hay I need to buy for a year. Plenty of extra is good. I will ALWAYS use it up. You cannot foretell the weather, nice, wet, drought or perfect for pasture, in the coming year. I have dealt with all of them, plus extreme cold, single digits for weeks. You can be feeding double the usual hay in that kind of cold. More hay is needed during cold to feed even blanketed horses, so they have enough calories to function and be warm. This will really mess up any “tight” calculating on needed hay. You absolutely do NOT want to come close to running out of hay in bad weather.

If you have the storage space, get the extra hay. Getting hay in nasty weather is terrible, being cold, heavy loads snow or icy roads, carting the bales to the storage area over mud or frozen ruts. I rented one barn that could only store 50 bales. Seemed like I spent a lot of time getting hay all winter, weather was always bad when I needed to get hay. There was only a dry lot, no pastures, so they got hay year around. I figured a bale a day for them, when buying from my farmer, paid and collected hay as needed. One pickup load at a time, by myself.

We now have our own barns, fill them and it feels really good, prepared for winter!

You mention pastures, plan to get a lot of horse forage there. Are you actively helping the pastures be productive? This includes soil testing, fertilizing annually, regular mowing to keep pastures producing quality forage. Rotation of the pastures is fine, but the land needs help to be GOOD, with nutrition in the grasses grown on it. Horse manure is a poor fertilizer, lacks minerals because horse used them in his body. Minerals need to be replaced in the soil to be available to the grazing equines. Looking at grass on a pasture won’t tell you if it is nutritious, soil test tells you what the land has. We have been going on 3yrs developing our hayfield after purchase. First soil test last year showed NO MINERALS, but plenty of Nitrogen. Fertilizer guy said it was the WORST soil test he ever saw!! Those fields had always APPEARED nicely green, put up a bountiful crop of “green stuff” every year, though not being farmed. We put on an amazing amount of fertilizer in 2 applications last year. It needed so much that doing 2 spreadings, early summer and early fall, allowed better absorbtion over the time spread. I also tilled and planted the grass mix for hay production later.

Soil test this spring showed incredible improvement in the mineral content. We took off the first cutting last weekend, will soon be applying more fertilizer as the ground gets harder. They hay looks wonderful, was tall to mow. I will be getting hay tested to see what it actually has in it, because looks can be deceiving regarding nutrition.

My long-winded point is, you may or may not, be able to use the pastures as expected if the weather and ground minerals are not cooperative for grass production. So the extra hay may be needed this year, but not in a normal year. However you can ALWAYS use it up as time goes along. Do not count on Mother Nature being reliable, she laughs at us!

First cutting hay last year was so very late, gone to seed with rain until late June. Hard getting hay put up most places, most early hay was not very good unless sprayed. We got enough, but paid a premium for it. It was not real nutritious, but we were glad to find it, the horses did OK. There was very little second cutting with the drought from first of July to mid August. Then frequent rain prevented cutting and drying hay in most places. I was rotating horses daily during drought time, so grass had 2 days rest to grow a little. It was a weird year, but they are getting more common.

Having extra hay prevents panic. Kind of like extras in the freezer or pantry, when an emergency happens. We HAD toilet paper, food, when things shut down here without warning. My Mom always had extra, we were a big family of hungry children! Weather emergencies then were common, no big deal, even if we got surprise company. She would call the police and tell them we could take in stranded people if they had any! We would put extra leaves in the table, bring up canned and frozen food to feed everyone. People sleeping everywhere plus us kids! Some stayed overnight or a week before the roads were cleared. The value of being prepared was right there to learn from.

Yes, you make some great points about caring for the fields beyond rotating. Since I rent and I don’t have all the money in the world, I am at the mercy of whatever my landlord will do. He is a great guy with the best of intentions but is the most undisciplined person I’ve ever met, mixed with a tinge of sexism as I think he hates hearing me tell him what should be done. All that to say, two years ago when I moved in a did a soil test and according to that, we sprayed, fertilized, and over-seeded. We seeded again earlier this spring. We were on track to lime this past fall per soil test but didn’t get around to it til last month or so.

Last year the mowing cycle was abysmal and we really suffered. I got after my landlord for that many times (kindly) and so far this year he seems way more into mowing on a two-three week interval like normal horse farm people. I stressed to him that doing all we’ve done to the fields is lost if we don’t mow to keep the weeds down and grass productive. Crossing my fingers he will stay on schedule!

We also drag pretty regularly, I’d say once every couple months.

I appreciate all the feedback here. I think I mentioned above that I currently have space for, maximum 320-340 bales but I need to split that space with storing straw and alfalfa also, and some space for my feral cat house and a bit of extra barn crap (hay nets, blankets, tarps, etc.). So I think I could comfortably store 200-250 grass bales and 50-60 alfalfa plus 40-50 straw bales. I just didn’t realize that I could get “so little” hay and be set for the year! My hay guy is making a nice looking orchard first cutting that I will probably stock up on within the next few weeks. Still have close to 50 bales left from a delivery I got in January.