Good morning everyone. I would like your thoughts and input.
Finding quality hay has been an issue this past year. I was at a sale 2 weeks ago and purchased several big squares of straight alfafa, not my first choice, but only choice. My concern is that it’s “to rich” for my horses, so I’ve been “cutting it” with straight grass hay that is 3 years old. I have not had the hay tested, but how much actual nutritional value can the grass hay have?.
Thoughts?
As long as the grass has been stored properly, nutritional value doesn’t drop much in three years of storage.
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It’s been stored inside. What do you think about mixing 50/50 with the alfafa ?
Sounds like a reasonable approach. I’d just keep an eye on condition of the horses and adjust % of alfalfa as needed to keep them where you’d like to see them.
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Thanks!
In my climate the hay would have gotten pretty musty, even if stored inside. But that may not be an issue in colder, drier climates. If it smells fine and the horses eat it then it should be fine.
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50/50 sounds good. It may be a little bleached in color from age and light but I wouldn’t hesitate to feed it.
The grass hay smells ok and the horses gobble the “salad” it right down.
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Yes, it is bleached in color.
Sounds perfect. I would have loved to find a quality source for alfalfa and mixed 50/50
for my TB but it’s not that common in my area and can be crazy expensive. I wouldn’t worry about “too rich” unless it’s not a good forage for your horse. Most horses do fine on alfalfa and some flourish. It is a little higher in calories so keep an eye on your horse’s weight but might be perfect with the grass hay.
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If your horses are like mine, they will nose the mix around and eat the alfalfa leaves first. Then the alfalfa stems. And then lose interest in the grass hay remaining unless they are really hungry. Of course they do inadvertently eat some of the grass hay (bermuda in my case).
But mine are out 24/7, and after finishing the tasty alfalfa part of the mix, I suppose that they prefer to move on to growing pasture bermuda grass rather than eating dry bermuda hay, I finally decided that mixing in grass hay was a waste of money. But I suppose a stalled horse without the fresh grass option to move on to would do better cleaning up the mix.
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I feed my 2 very easy keepers 2-3 year old hay and they do just fine. They also get a balancing ration and flax morning and evening, and extra vitamin E in the winter. If your horse has pasture turnout he can get a good part of his nutrition from that.
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My horses are easy keepers, thus the concern with the straight alfalfa and weight gain, they have only been on this mix for about a week. I bought a tape to determine weight and it’s fairly accurate so I will be using that to keep on eye on their weight. Thanks for your comment!
Mine are stalled at night. I use a slow feed net, every bit of the mix is gone by morning.
Is your hay straight grass? I also feed a ration balancer.
Yes, it’s Bermuda hay. I always look for summer grass hay (Bermuda, bluestem, teff, etc.) because my guys don’t need high NSC hay. They get about a cupful (coffee cup size) scoop of oats to add volume to the ration balancer, but other than that nothing but grass and hay to eat. I’m so mean.
Sounds like you’re a good mom to me 
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I always keep some squares and covered rounds through to the next Fall because you never know what kind of weather( or drought) you may have before the new hay is put up and in. I have never had any of my animals fail to thrive when we feed the older hay first.
Thanks for the info.
