Hay - Switching to Small Squares...?

lupinfarm

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I'm thinking of switching to small squares for the rest of this season. My girls aren't eating as much hay right now as they were say 3 or 4 weeks ago since we're coming up for real spring. The days are warmer, the nights are warmer, all that jazz.

Anyway, I currently have a 1 roundbale and 3/4 of a roundbale at home, about 500lbs and 350lbs in weight I think.

I've noticed that Mylies current hay in her field right-this-minute is on the dusty side. It doesn't smell *musty* to me but it IS quite dusty. It's been there for a while and I'm thinking of taking it out and giving her the 3/4 roundbale which is dusty but not super dusty (what roundbale hay *isn't* dusty?). I can get small squares at probably 50-60lbs each from a guy nearby for $2.50 a bale and was thinking of going to buy 50 bales. I'm also feeding the pony, who will finish up the full roundbale (I'm taking hay off in flakes for her).

Is it realistic to think that I could feed a quarter bale at breakfast (2 flakes) and a quarter bale at dinner (2 flakes) per horse? They're on pasture 24/7 and get the proper amount of Equalizer per horse twice a day.
 

abooth

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That sounds about right. Horses need one to three percent of their body weight in feed per day. 1/4 of a 60 pound bale is fifteen pounds. So each horse would be getting 30 pounds of hay per day. That is exactly 3% of 1000 pounds ( the average weight of a horse ). You could probably go a little less than the 1/4 bale twice a day if your horses are less than 1000 pounds or if they are eating grass/grain etc.
 

lupinfarm

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Brilliant thanks, I reckon Mylie is probably about 1300lbs and Luna around 900lbs..
 

Chickerdoodle13

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That is basically waht we feed our horses, sometimes more or less depending on whether or not there is grass for them to graze on.
 

ducks4you

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You need NO special equipment to handle small bales. I'm sure that is why so many people bale it that way, now.

Lupin, do you know how many bales fit in the back of your truck, yet? I used to get hay from this guy who would pile 53 bales on the back of his small pickup. He used rope to tie them on and keep them from falling off. WITHOUT a rope I can "tie on" about 40 bales, and, if I drive slow nothing falls off. My loft door is only 9 feet off the ground, so I can park my truck next to it, and load to the loft from there. I have a profound satisfaction when I retrieve, unload and stack my own. ALSO, I know exactly how to count the bales that are left, because I know how they are stacked. I just wish it wasn't 90 degrees in the shade during baling season!! :lol:

BTW, there was this guy who helped me at one place, and he could throw them from the ground into my truck and land 'em just where he wanted them! He'd load my truck for me, but many times I've had to do it all. A couple of years back, this farmer did a cutting just for me. I was there when the baler did the field, and it took me 2 days to retrieve 115 bales. You get creative--by the 3rd truckload, you unload low enough to park the truck in the garage so the hay doesn't get damp. You make deals with your kids to help you do what they really DON'T want to do in their free time. You stack low, then spend the next week re-stacking. I'm hoping this year that my DD's boyfriend is gonna pitch in! :D sooo ccoooooollll....
 

lupinfarm

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I know we can fit about 15 small squares (80lb alfalfa bales) in the back of our truck. We have the short bed unfortunately on our pick-up, only 5.5ft and thats stacking them almost above the roof wit the tailgate down lol. Trust me, I picked up 40 bales for the goats in November and we took them all home in a few trips. This guy'll do delivery too but our driveway is just too bad ATM to consider it. I think I'm going to store them on pallets in the lower half of my barn. I've got 1 1/2 roundbales still to use that I'm "peeling" and shaking out before feeding to get rid of most of the dust. Seems to be working out pretty okay with the two horses, but I can imagine with more it'd be a nightmare!

I am the kid ;) and I don't mind hauling bales. As Blackbird knows, I can haul at least 4 small squares out to the field by myself, two in each hand. I used to work at a big stable and thats how we had to carry them out LOL. I thought this year of trying it out by using one as a backpack too, so 5 small squares hahahaha...

I'm going to invest in a little cart to take around, I saw it at Lowes today and its just big enough to fit one small square so you can load up a square, and it should be enough for the day between the two horses. I feel pretty proud to know that LOL.

Our first year on the property the farmer who used to own the homestead (owns all the cropland around us actually...the guy with the big draft horses) baled up the alfalfa fields (we have 3 small alfalfa fields, used to be one big one and Mylie has been on the one small one all season and pretty much obliterated the alfalfa, horses are so great LOL I had mowed it down before she moved in and then between eating it and trampling it, its pretty much gone now and ready for seeding) and he also baled up the bottom pasture which was like a grass/alfalfa mix. At the time we didn't have Luna and off the pasture down there he got about 400 - 60lb bales!! We only used about 300 bales of it, and we wouldn't have used as much but when we got Luna she was really underweight and was on free choice hay, and man could she pack in the hay.
 

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