This message is from: Marsha Jo Hannah <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > "Claudia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I am tired of my horses wasting hay, and I'm tempted to have some > old-fashioned mangers built in, to keep some of the hay off the floor. I am > thinking of putting one big manger along one whole wall of my loose area, and > perhaps one in each stall. The slanted wood ones, fairly deep, is what I > want. The kind in old wooden tie stalls. > > I don't remember having this problem other years--they ATE their hay. So it's > possible they just don't like the hay I got this year, and therefore push it > around and waste it.
I've handled feeding hay in a variety of ways. When we lived in California, two of my Fjords got their hay just tossed into a corner of their rubber-matted stall (no bedding, no feeders, and the outer door was always open to their adjoining pen); they pushed it around some, to get the best stuff first, but rarely was there any left for them to mess in. The third Fjord ate his hay out of a galvanized water tub (the oval kind, 2' wide by 4' long by 2' deep), tied to the fence of the pen, again on rubber mats. (I had 3 Fjords sharing 2 "run-in stalls".) This one invariably flipped the flake of hay around (trying to rattle out the leaves and seeds first), and usually managed to flip it out onto the rubber mats. On a windy day, some of it would blow away, but if it stayed in the pen, someone would track it down and eat it. The donkey had separate quarters, with a galvanized box feeder, mounted low on the wall (top at about 4' high). She was more opinionated about her hay---if it was particularly coarse, she'd pull the straw out onto the ground and pee in it! Oat hay (grown under irrigation) was the worst, as she'd pick off all the grain and leaves, leaving the straw. When we first moved to Oregon, their quarters were pipe-corral pens, a part of which extended into a pole barn---basically a "mare motel"; feeders were watering troughs or galvanized washtubs. Everyone soon learned to leave their hay in the feeders, as if it was out on mats, the prevailing wind would carry it away, under the fence, out of reach! Now, they're in a hybrid barn---stalls with 3 walls, but no outside wall, leading out thru a roofed "porch" to adjoining corrals. Each has a watering trough feeder (the donkey's is only 1' tall, as she was having trouble getting to the bottom of the deeper ones). For the most part, they leave the hay in their feeders. The exception is the donkey, especially if there are "bears out there" (e.g. cattle almost visible in the fog). She'll grab a big tuft of hay, go out to where she can keep an eye out for "monsters", stand there and eat most of it (dropping some), then going back for some more. But, usually, she vacuums up most of the crumbs. Granted, here the hay is better than what I could get at "hay stores" in California. We bought from a guy who does "custom farming", i.e. leases places (like ours) to run cattle or cut hay. I tell him what I want (grass, no clover, few weeds), and he tells me when he has successfully baled an appropriate field. First cutting can sometimes be over-mature and a little strawy by the time the fields dry up enough to cut it; second cutting (grown under irrigation) is cut when it's all leaf. Usually, if my equines leave any of either, it's because of a spot of mold or "mystery meat". I rake it out and leave it where I'd like them to pee; that works for the donkey, less so for the 2 Fjord geldings. It is probably relevant that I feed hay at about 1% of body weight per day (i.e. the 400 lb donkey gets 4 lb of hay, divided into 2 meals), NO grain (a small amount of alfalfa hay pellets, to "carry" supplements), plus 1 hour of pasture time. I.e. mine are always hungry, so the hay goes away. (They're also always fat, so they don't need any more.) Marsha Jo Hannah Murphy must have been a horseman-- [EMAIL PROTECTED] anything that can go wrong, will! 15 mi SW of Roseburg, Oregon Important FjordHorse List Links: Subscription Management: http://tinyurl.com/5msa7e FH-L Archives: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw Classified Ads: http://tinyurl.com/5b5g2f
