lupinfarm
Loving the herd life
I was just on the equiman forums where someone was talking about feeding second cut hay to their drafts. I mentioned that I had fed second cut to my pony mare (You know Luna, 14hh QH X mare) and a few people replied saying to seriously reconsider feeding it to her because she'll founder. Luna was on Second cut all winter, at both the rescue and at our farm. They mentioned that it would have too much alfalfa and clover in it and would be like candy. Ours was field grass hay with a bit of alfalfa, we only started to get a little bit of clover in the field this year which I have been diligently pulling out because I know clover is more the problem than the alfalfa is.
Luna has not foundered, and she has no founder lines on her hoofs and there aren't any of the telltale sounds of founder or colic.
Am I totally putting my pony on death watch like they say? She's just finishing up the hay right now, it's now a year old and has lost a bit of it's quality over the year, I have about 50 bales left for her and our layover to share and they do pick through it and find the best bits. I'm getting first cut this year, only because it's available now and we've found a great and reasonably price source for it.
I haven't had any problems with Luna's feeding, and she's not on any grain, and unlike most of the horses that those King Township owners have, she doesn't get hay in a stall or anything since she's on 24 hour turnout.
I think we've become hypersensitive about feeding to the point where we CAUSE the founder and colic. We also used to feed our Draft X's second cut and they also say to not do that too! We have never bought that "special horse mix seed" for seeding fields and thus have no clover intentionally in our fields.
Luna has not foundered, and she has no founder lines on her hoofs and there aren't any of the telltale sounds of founder or colic.
Am I totally putting my pony on death watch like they say? She's just finishing up the hay right now, it's now a year old and has lost a bit of it's quality over the year, I have about 50 bales left for her and our layover to share and they do pick through it and find the best bits. I'm getting first cut this year, only because it's available now and we've found a great and reasonably price source for it.
I haven't had any problems with Luna's feeding, and she's not on any grain, and unlike most of the horses that those King Township owners have, she doesn't get hay in a stall or anything since she's on 24 hour turnout.
I think we've become hypersensitive about feeding to the point where we CAUSE the founder and colic. We also used to feed our Draft X's second cut and they also say to not do that too! We have never bought that "special horse mix seed" for seeding fields and thus have no clover intentionally in our fields.
