Chopping your own hay

[4horses]

I have an older mare who has difficulty chewing hay. She has most of her teeth but they are very worn. She eats grass and maintains just fine during the summer on pasture with 3 lbs of grain per day.

Last winter we tried perennial peanut hay which is mostly leaves, but that gave her the runs. I think the stems in the peanut hay were too difficult for her to digest. Or maybe it is something about peanut hay… I’ve heard others have had the same issue.

I think this coming winter we are going to try beet pulp, alfalfa pellets, and senior feed. However, that is going to be very expensive and won’t keep her busy. She tends to be a complete pest without something to keep her occupied.

I plan to drive down to Ocala to look at hay. I plan to buy a few bales first and if I can find something she can chew I want to buy a entire load. You know much hay varies from cutting to cutting. Better to buy now while prices are affordable and I can find something decent.

If I go with alfalfa pellets and senior feed, I will be paying $20 for 40lbs… not exactly affordable.

another option is to chop my own hay. I’ve heard of people using a hedge trimmer- Any idea what kind of hay that would work best on?

Would orchard grass or alfalfa be easier to digest? I’m assuming she could pick through the stems.

[KittyinAus]

You could buy bags of chaff. That’s hay that’s already been chopped up.

[Jumping31]

I don’t know much about chopping hay but for older horses losing most of their teeth my local horse rescue gives them grain. They have a handful of older horses and they’ll give them a little more grain and let it soak in water for a little bit. They’ll dripple some of it out so they’re given a little more to compensate and letting it soak is easier for them to eat. They’re also turned out all day so they can get grass. Sometimes they’ll throw in some hay in the field with them so they can take all the time they need to eat hay. But their main food is grain so even if they don’t get enough food from the hay they still have nutrition.

[cutter99]

Weed eater and a garbage can or 55 gallon drum.

[Garythesquirrel]

A friend of mine used an electric Sun Joe. I don’t know if she used the chipper or shredder but it worked well and paid for itself in a couple of months. She bought it on Amazon
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[goodhors]

You might want to try cubes instead of pellets, then soak the cubes before giving her the bucket. Cubes give horse more roughage, which is good for the entire digestive system. I fed Timothy/alfalfa because the straight alfalfa cubes gave her the runs. Horse liked them, took her a while to chew, so kept her busy longer. She also got wet beet pulp with oats and cracked corn mixed. Oats were mostly for their roughage factor in the gut, she did not chew them well, went right on thru. Cracked corn, with Old Kent ( low sugar) Equine Senior provided more nutritional value to her diet.

She would quid nice hay, 2nd and 3rd cut grass, then spit out the wads when they lost flavor. Her teeth were not real good in the molar area, lost some because the roots had grown out and we’re not in the bone anymore. At age 35 years, lots and lots of miles, She was in good weight, though probably slim to a halter show person. Less load on her old legs to get around easier. She would wander her pasture every day, not staying in one spot all day.

I have done some hay and straw chopping in a trash can with the weed trimmer and a leaf shredder (Easyflo). It worked, got a better product with the leaf shredder than the weed trimmer. Size and power of weed trimmer might make control in the can an issue if it is very powerful. It was time consuming, can be very dusty depending on the hay or straw, and of course noisy. Do wear eye and hearing protection with the intense noise, perhaps a dust mask not to breathe in dirt, for your own safety. I also could get kind of dirty with the dust, every time chopping.

[Scribbler]

I also would say soaked hay cubes over pellets though thats not much of a savings.

As far as feeding oats for roughage that’s not really how it works. The horse gets all the roughage it needs from the hay. You don’t really want undigested oats getting through to the hind gut because the nsc levels of the oats can disrupt the flora of the hind gut if the oats don’t digest in the small intestine where the carbs are taken up. Of course for small amounts of oats it’s harmless.

[luvmyhackney]

Just get a mulcher. You can usually buy a nice quality one for a good price on craigslist. I too prefer cubes over pellets.

[gumtree]

@luvmyhackney

Just get a mulcher. You can usually buy a nice quality one for a good price on craigslist. I too prefer cubes over pellets.

That’s what someone else was wondering last spring I think. I said I have one and would give it a try and report back. Well, I did give it a try but my leaf mulcher wouldn’t start. Being spring it wasn’t a high priority to clean it, do a tune up so I never got around to it.

So, to who I said I would report back to, sorry. Now that it is fall getting it running is much higher on the list. But not that high because it is a small one and I bought a BIG leaf vac/mulcher.

My small one is going to go on Craigslist in the near future. It is a well made one with very little hours. I’m thinking $150 verses $600 new.

OP if you are in my area I have a LOT of loose hay, the small stuff that falls out of the bales when being unloaded and stacked. Free to a good home. Come and load.

[4horses]

Thanks gumtree but I’m in Florida! I may try the weedeater next. I will check Amazon. If i buy a mulcher or chipper i want something with a warrenty.

[PrudenceFarm]

I am currently using a weedeater and plastic barrel cut in half to chop hay. It is helping quite a bit with my senior pony. I am using a little electric weedeater with fairly good results. I also soak the hay for just a few minutes to make it easier on him.

[Cisco_sMom]

I’ve put some hay in a muck bucket and used a little arm muscle and some very sharp loppers

[EventerAJ]

A small wood chipper will work. But just as good (and cheaper all around!) is to buy the chaff swept off the floor of semi truck vans. Our local feed stores in Ocala collect the chaff from the hay delivery trucks, sweep it into huge peanut bags and sell it, $20/bag weighs about 300 lbs. It can be dusty, but it’s mostly small pieces and the tasty leafy bits horses love…great for my two senior horses who can’t chew long stems. I dump it into an empty water tank, or fill haynets with it. I also feed soaked afalfa cubes and beet pulp that really helps with weight, but the hay chaff gives them something to do.

[kande04]

We put up our own hay so I often think about grinding it myself, but then realize that I don’t want to have to go out there in the winter and grind hay every day, or store quantities of it, so I just buy a pelleted complete feed instead.

The horse who needs it would eat about $4 to $5 worth of hay a day if she still had teeth, which would cost $120 to $150/month. She currently eats about 20lbs of pelleted complete feed a day instead, which costs about $160/month.

I could feed her a little less, but she’s in her late 20’s now and I like to see her nice and round.