Hayburners
Yes, horses like to eat hay, but my god – these guys EAT HAY! Lots of it! Each of our horses can eat several hundred pounds of hay a week.
We have had a pretty cold winter, so far, and so they eat even more than they usually would because when it’s cold their metabolism kicks it up a notch to keep them warm. In the fall I started buying 1,300 lb/650Kg hay rolls of nice fescue hay from a local farmer. The last one (number 5, I think) they ate up in 2 weeks. That’s 300 lbs per horse per week! The quest for hay – good quality hay – for our horses has become a significant part of my life. That’s fine – I am not complaining. I am just amazed at their ability to chew through huge amounts of hay.
My previous supplier ran out of hay, and so we’ve been buying square bales of hay at the feed store, which is pretty expensive ($5-$10 a bale). Last week I found another local farmer who still has some for $60 a roll. It’s a bit more expensive than the other guy, but it’s a very nice fescue/orchard grass mix. I got two rolls last week and today I put one out in the pasture today.
These are 900 lb rolls, which is nice, because they are a bit easier to manage than the enormous 1,300 lb rolls. I dropped one roll in the pasture and Wally and Cleo got right down to business and started ripping huge mouthfuls of hay from the roll and munching on it with great gusto.
The second roll I dropped on my little trailer and put a tarp over it. It’ll stay there until they are done with the other one and ready for a second roll.
