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  • From: Karen Nesbitt <spanishequines@yahoo.com>
  • To: MSAR <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [MSAR] Seed stage....
  • Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:44:10 -0700 (PDT)

Mary Lou,

Optimum time to harvest alfalfa hay is at 10% bloom.  That means that when 10% of the field is in bloom, that is when the  alfalfa field is going to be the best nutrition however getting it harvested in primo conditions, well, that is totally another ball game given what could be instore regarding the weather..   Alfalfa is not a grass it is a legume.  It is not used for pasture.  But people do try.  Alfalfa is too rich to free feed.  Grass hays however, those hays are ok to free feed.  By free fed I mean give the horse access to all it can eat. 
 
Once the hay has set the stage to flower, it is over the threshold of losing its nutritional value.  In order to get to flower, the plant has to spend itself so actually the primo time is before bloom.  The 10% rule is what I was taught as a kid and in how to judge the entire alfalfa feild for maturity for best harvest.  The  remaining 90% is not blooming and that is what the hay will be consistant of a greater percent that is free of flower.
 
If you want seed free of any hay you have to get absolutely cut it at the stage BEFORE it heads out.  It is not always possible due to the growing conditions to get the perfect hay for the reason you need it and hay will lose some of its nutritional value in the cure.
 
Balancing the horses ration is a total new issue.  Perhaps someone out there can address that matter in regards to digestable protiens, T.D.N., calcium, phosphorus  etc.    Adjusting the horses diet for energy levels is another area and soley an individual matter in feeding and if the horse is idle or not, what breed, what use etc..  But that is off topic from being weed or seed free.  And then there is the matter of supplements.. ugh!
 
Bottomline, ideally, I would want to maintain the ideal MSAR mount on both a seed and weed free hay consistantly.   If I had a horse with allergies.. I would really have to consider considering a new mount inasmuch as that horse might be good for performance... I would be concerned in taking that mount to an area where it could be further prone to upset its allergies.   Just my humble opinion and in as much as it would be less complicated when you consider you could deploy at anytime.  I think it would just make life simpler to have a more ideal mount where caring for it is less complicated as well.  But then, that is me making a cull on an animal that I see as unfit for a particular duty. 
 
Also there is not anything worse than having to take care of a sick mount when away from home or likewise then being out into a position whereby you might have to stay at a location away from home long enough for your mount to recover.  Worse yet if you have crossed state line and have no access to a vetrinarian.
 
One thing on a staged event, perhaps a vetrinarian might be there, but on an event that is a mission, well, there you go.  Now what?  Just trying to cover both sides of the fence.
 
        Karen



  • [MSAR] Seed stage...., Karen Nesbitt, 04/11/2009

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