Fescue is not recommended for feeding to pregnant
mares. It can cause abortions.
Bermuda grass is not grown up north. Some
grasses perform better in cold regions while others are hot weather
performers.Typically bermuda is a southern states grass. In my
area most of the horse hay is of brome, timouthy, orchard or other
native prairie grasses. Key word, NATIVE. Some areas use
native grasses such as Big Bluestem, blue grama, texoka Buffalograss,
green sprangletop, indiangrass, little blue stem, sideoats grama and
some of these grasses will only grow in certain environments depending
on soil quality and if the ground is a wetland or not. Some are
more suitable for pasture vs hay but can be hayed all the same.
Just depends on you having the right equipment.. Some hay round bales
better where other hays square bale better and some people still do hay
by hay stacking.
Horses can eat wheat and rye grass hays as
well. Using both of those may have to be custom grown to order to
get it at the prime feed value stage where it has not gone to
seed. And both are then cut green when used
for hays. After that they still can be fed, but those are at
the stage of growth where then they typically head to use as
bedding..
Horses like a variety. When you say your
horse has allergies, what caused that?.. Usually its mold or dust
or it could have been a weed. Your vetrinarian would be the one to
ask on what to feed. You can water down your hay or shake it out
to help reduce the dust in it. All dust is not necessarily mold,
but could be the soil residue that may get picked up when baling.
Mold, dust all can also cause choke or coughs, and eating too much sand
can cause sand colic. Feed in a feeder and not in your
corral on the ground. Flakes of hay are notorious for being
full of dust and mold. SHAKE THEM OUT. Round bales can harbor
dust too. Do your mount a favor and fluff his hay. You can
then put it in a hay net if you are on the road to feed. There is
nothing worse to a horse than eating in a manger in a trailer that when
you give him a moldy or dusty flake and how nasty that is. The
dust has no place to go in an enclosed feeder. YOu should not feed
it if it is moldy anyway.
When feeding a round bale, we peel our rounds and
throw the lose hay into a feeder. It reduces waste, but some
horsemen will use a round bale feeder. The only problem on those,
if you only have a few horses the hay can spoil or be terribly wasted
because it is not consumed quickly and may get rained or snowed on and
then mold. Feeding a round bale on the ground wastes a lot of
money.
It gets to be a pain when we all suffer hay
shortages, then we end up feeding something different. Most people
take a little time to gradually switch to the new feed. Sometimes
that is not always possible. Hard times force bad things on many
people. And most horsemen I know these days are all suffering a
lousy economy and the tightening of rules. Its a hardship on
everyone. Everything is going save the environment.
Likewise it is not always possible to get hay that
is not stored outside.
Occassionally there might be a little
red clover in the hays. It is not a grass. Alsike clover is not the best to feed
horses. Red clover is better, but typically it is best to stay
away from the clovers on horses. Alfalfa in my opinion is too rich for
horses although many people do feed it. It is not a grass but a
legume. Seems race horse people prefer it, but then they are also
heavy grainers or pellet users and have to be to balance
out the diet. Alfalfa can also harbor blister beetles and those
are a detriment to a horse. It is a very hard hay to put up as it
is common for it to heat and mold. It is a major cause of hay
fires if the hay is not cured. Grass hay can heat too but not
nearly like alfalfa.. If you are getting it out of the field you
need to check that new hay daily for the heat to make sure it is
not getting too hot or your barn could burn down.. The curing
process is about a week could be longer and needs to be monitored.
Depends a lot on how dry it was when going up and how high the current
humidity is when curing.
Importing hay from outside your areas can get
costly. Finding someone to custom grow your hay can be difficult,
but gratifying.
Getting cheap dusty moldy weedy hay at any
cost is not a wise move. Putting the wrong seed in a pasture
is not effective management either. Not managing your weeds
is your own demise.
And finding hay that is affordable in todays
poor economy is getting harder and harder. We are all suffering
some kind of difficult times.
Um, Irv, yes seed can to pass through a horses
gut whole to the manure. That can be proven from a manure pile
that has set too long without turning and the seed within it will start
to grow. If you got weeds on top and all you got was the manure..
that is what passed through your horse. It is
possible for grass seed to pass through as well as whole corn or whole
oats. Horsemen can however feed a cracked grain feed.
Grains that are cracked or milled cannot germinate. Seeds of
many kinds can lie dormant in the soil for years too before they
germinate. These seeds are seeds that require a
stratification process in order to grow. The stratification can be
either cause by heat as such from a fire or by cold as through a
winter. The harder the shell of the seed, the longer the
stratification process can take.Pinetree seed for example have a
remarkable ability to germinate after they have been exposed to
fire.
The manure is also a nitrate issue. You
can rinse manure to flush the nitrates like if you are needing
fertilizer on a garden.. but a huge pile of manure can be an issue of
continuous nitrate concentration in one area. Maybe soemone else
can explain this nitrate issue.
IN brief though a little manure too close to a bog
can cause algeas to spawn. That my friend is the detriment to an
ecosytem. The algea along with potential nitrates. The algae
chokes the water. Waterfowl are super polluters when it comes to
messing up a pond. They are grazers and so their manure is full of
nitrates.
You can request of your growers hay that is of
various seasons. Hay cut before it heads out to seed is the hay
you might be looking to travel with. Hay cut after it is headed
out, well, that might be your best bet for winter feeding to make use of
the natural grains that would be a horses diet. What kind of hay,
well that depends on you, your need and your suppliers.
As for what can be taken into the conservation
lands, that is up to the local authority incharge of the parks where
horsemen are allowed.
Lastly, there are many weeds that are a detriment
to horses. Scout your pastures and hay feilds for them and cull
them out. That though is another long and complicated topic.
Karen