Do you know anyone who carries either the medium or large pasture blocks in O/A? Or T/A?
What is a “pasture block”?
Similar to the size of a roundbale (some are about 600 lbs., some are about 1100 lbs), but they are baled in a rectangular block, and called pasture blocks. It is how they bale alfalfa for pasture, commonly. I’m looking for a mix, however.
What makes that different from a large square bale?
It is very compressed and banded with wire. Think of a 1000lb alfalfa cube. Often the hay is short, chaff pieces(or dust) that horses gnaw off the bale. There is so much compression that the block can sit outside in the field and take a little rain; the outside inch might get crusty, but the majority is still fine. It’s an easy way to free feed hay, and down here pasture blocks are about $100+/ton cheaper than 2 tie or 3 tie.
I feed alfalfa blocks to my pasture horses. I set them in a large empty water tank under a run in shed…this prevents any wastage and sand wasting, and eliminates the risk of pawing through the wires. I net them, too, to slow down consumption.
Larsen’s carries them in O/A, it’s what I’m currently feeding my mare. I’ve never heard of them with Timothy.
Larsen Farms does IIRC.
We dont have large square bales in FL. We have bales of about 80-120 lbs but they are not tightly bound/compressed. Pasture bales are bigger (about 4x4x4).
I see Timothy large (900 lbs) square bales (not compressed, basically a “round bale” but rectangular) listed on Facebook from someone in Williston from time to time.
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United Hay often has large timothy square bales. Right now, Newport has O/A round bales. They sometimes have O/A large squares. Larson’s has a straight timothy pasture blocks right now.
I’ve called around Ocala recently and haven’t heard of any mixed pasture bales.
thanks all, never knew we had larger bales here. I am sure someone needs that info -
Thank you, everyone!
