Almost out of grass horse hay-need knowledge on PROPER substitutes?

[chooniecat]

TY Bird lady-am in Ohio and I HAVE seen round bales advertised-hadn't considered it but will now. All I have to haul is a Dodge Dakota so don't know if they can get it in bed of that.(plus dumb truck has dead battery this a.m. and may be caused by starter-AAA on the way as I type!) When it rains it pours!!

 

[res]

Any hay person with loading equipment can get the bale into your Dakota. The question is will you have the payload to handle it? I'd look for smaller bales - 700-800lbs should be fine, as long as they aren't 50 miles away at highway speeds. You'll also need to plan how to get it off your truck - you can "jerk" them off with another vehicle, or by tying the bale to a very heavy post or tree and driving away. Just make sure your rope or chain is heavy enought to handle the weight... And any knots you use in the rope are not permanent.

My neighbor has 2 16H+ horses and 2 goats, no tractor, no trailer. She drives 10 miles down the road and gets TWO 800lb round bales put into the back of her teeny-tiny older model Toyota truck - the little bitty Toyota, not a Tundra. She's been doing it every 2 weeks for YEARS. So it can be done, just go slow and easy...

 

[res]

And 700lbs of hay, if you peel the bale and feed 10lbs a day, will last you 70 DAYS! So that would be a very affordable alternative!

How do you find out how much 10lbs is when you are peeling the bale? Take a bathroom scale out to the bale. Step on the scale and see what you weigh. Remember that number. Peel off some hay, and hold it in your arms or on a pitchfork. Step on the scale again, and calculate the difference (you'll need to account for some weight if you use a pitchfork...). That is what the hay weighs. You will soon have your body/arms "trained" to know how much approximately 10lbs, 20lbs, etc weighs, so you can feed a fairly consistent amount. Same idea applies to small square bales, too. Don't expect the flakes of a small square bale to always weigh the same amount - you may have to feed more or less flakes to achieve 10 lbs...

 

[SD Bird Lady]

One thing to note is if you are going to jerk them off it is a good idea to take off your tail gate.

 

[chooniecat]

This gets more fun by the minute. My truck was almost totalled(WISH it would have been)in Nov. 12 by another driver and altho the body didn't look so bad (drive shaft,etc were ripped off) the only thing that truely bothered me was my tailgate was knocked loose. And 2 days ago the repaired tailgate came loose and I had appt. this morning to have it repaired again but battery in truck is dead(might be starter) so now I have to drive to feed store to get horsefood w/o turning my truck off and then when I get back maybe go get round bale of hay(without turning my truck off) and pray it doesn't knock tailgate completely off or the insurance won't cover fixing it.I am laughing actually but can't wait for spring!!!!!

 

[res]

You do run the chance of bending the tailgate when you slide the bale over it. We've slid 1000lb bales over our tailgate without damaging it, but it is a full size truck. We did, however, rip off the after-market protective edge cap on the tailgate.

Tailgates are usually pretty easy to take off. Just some basic tools, no special training required.... And they are pretty lightweight, too. I am used to lugging around a tailgate from a Dodge dually pickup - the tailgate has lights in it, so it is a bit trickier to take off, but can still be done without assistance.

Until we purchased a hydrostat tractor in 2010, I prefered to use the pickup bed mounted bale spear to move our round bales, so I had to put the tailgate on and off often. We had a tractor, but it wasn't hydrostat - it was a Jinma - and I hated to operate it. Actually, I refused to operate it... Even DH hated it, but it was what we could afford at the time.

 

[1MrsMagoo]

Their are always plenty of ads for round bales on our local Craigslist...have you looked there? Also, if you know of any farmers with a lot of cows, you can always ask if they sell hay, or know anyone who does. A lot of times if they don't sell bales, they'll know somebody who does. That is how we got hooked up with our current hay supplier.

Also, the State of Ohio has started a "hay directory", which is maintained by the Department of Agriculture: It is meant to match buyers with sellers. Here is the link:
http://www.agri.ohio.gov/HayDirectory/


When buying from random sellers, do take into consideration, that most round bales are meant for cattle and not all bales are created equally. The good cattle farmers realize that great hay makes for better animals, but some just don't care. Also, only buy bales that have been stored in a barn or under cover: We had a neighbor bring us a "free" round bale last year. Good thing he left it outside the barn because their was steam rising off it. Darned thing was so stinking hot inside when we opened it up, I thought it was going to catch fire. We came to find out that the bale had been left in a rented field and he just wanted rid of it.

I try to buy from guys that have their hay tested (they send out samples to the AG department of LSU for nutritional content testing). The first few bales I got, before I realized what to look for were full of weeds and the horse only ate 2/3 of it. Plus, she ate way more hay than she does from the good quality stuff because it was nutritionally inferior.

People may look at me weird, but I check the bale before it is loaded. I visually inspect it and smell it: Yes, smell it. You can tell if a bale doesn't smell right....well at least I can (I grew up in NE Ohio and did hay every summer with friends). Oh, and yes, any farmer who does a lot of hay is going to have a hay spear that fits onto the loader on the front of their tractor. They can lift those bales WAY up into the air with those things.

Anyway, good luck and I hope you find some hay soon!

 

[chooniecat]

Thanks people! Had truck running(to charge,so I thought) and went to back out to go to feed mill for aforementioned bagged food and truck dies in middle of road. SO call towtruck,figure out how easy tailgate comes on/off(TY Res!),and truck is now in shop for goodness knows how long. I will see if a round bale can be delivered but I have no way of predetermining greatness of bale unless I just go word of mouth of someone I talk to on phone. I will check out the agri-ohio.gov website and just pray. My son can pick up bagged food on his way home(after I give him a learnin on what to get!)

 

[naturalfeddogs]

Where are you at? A round bale (1400-1500 lbs) of grass hay here in South Dakota is $50.00 in a good year and has gone up considerably with demand...One thing we have found is that some bigger operations dont want to mess with broken bales since they dont go through a processor as well and cannot be hauled; this is one way to get decent hay usually for free. Even if it isnt the best quality you can blend it off with quality alfalfa to make a diet. One thing is your horse is a pet/ on a maintanence diet so calorie wise at 11 yo. she doesn't really have high nutritional demands like a horse that is out working for a living or one that is still growing. Ours are eating ditch hay with some alfalfa thrown in, they aren't doing anything except using the roughage to stay warm. As my husband says it'll make a turd lol

ETA: I agree long stem is the way to go to avoid those problems I have heard of a good number of people who have had problems with the beet pulp because it is so dehydrated. Good Luck!

$50 for a bale? holy cow! We are down in Alabama. We did have a drought a few years ago that was so bad there were a few farmers asking that, but now on average it's $25-$30. During that drought we fed dehydrated bagged alfalfa because it's all we could get and all of our horses coliced on it. It was awful.

And warmth is also a big thing with the actual long stem hay, you are right.

 

[res]

I am paying $60 a bale for about 900lb bales of orchard grass here in southern MD. I have seen round bales as high as $365 per ton, though. Round bale prices can also fluctuate because you can have bales that are >1200lbs and you can have little bitty 6-700lb bales. You should expect to pay more for bigger bales, less for smaller bales. Good bales can be more expensive, but not always. But crappy bales should always be cheap.

If you can get your seller to show you a weight ticket to prove what his bales should average, that is awesome. You shouldn't be tricked into paying a 1200lb bale price for a bale that weighs 800lbs. The dimensions of the bale often determine it's weight, but not always. So if you call on some hay, ask them the dimensions, AND ask what baler they use. Certain balers make certain size bales, and some sellers will lie about their bale size, and the truth comes out when you ask what baler they use. Those are the people you don't want to buy from...

While it is true that you can often find yucky, moldy, good-for-nothing round bales, that is not a blanket policy. It is also a misconception that ALL round bales are "cattle hay". The fact is that round bales are preferred for large cattle operations just for their ease of use. It is a heck of a lot easier to move, store and feed a 1200lb bale vs. 24 50-lb small square bales. Especially when you have to feed 4 or 5 TONS of hay per day! So, yes, you will generally always see round bales fed to large cattle operations.

But round bales are a perfectly acceptable and nutritious form of hay for horses. You just don't always see them fed because the average backyard horse owner does not have the equipment to move, store and feed them. That is why most horse owners prefer small square bales, because you don't have to have anything special to handle them. Just strong muscles and a good back.

People that bale hay for a living, for their income, put as much care and attention into their round bales as they do their small squares. They are cut at the same maturity, and baled at the correct level of dryness. ANY hay, whatever bale form it is in, runs the chance of being moldy if it is baled too wet, or is stored wet, or without proper air circulation. There are people out there, though, that do not care about the quality of their bales for whatever reason. Those are the ones you need to watch out for. Does the guy selling you the hay have honesty and character or is he a used car salesman???

You can't always judge a round bale by the outside. Bales that are stored outside, which is a perfectly acceptable form of storage in most climates, will look and smell and be moldy on the outer layer. Peel that layer off, though, and inside is bright beautiful wonderful hay. I've fed round bales that have been outside for 2 years that are beautiful inside, without any mold. Yes, they do lose a small percentage of their nutritional value as they age, but that isn't a big factor for my herd.

Hay testing is great, but nutritional value can vary from field to field, and cutting to cutting. So just because it is tested doesn't mean it is always consistent results. You'll often need to expect to pay more for hay that is being sold as tested, so you have to determine what value testing holds to you.