The Case Family:

$4.00 a bale

How much $ per ton or how many bales per ton? 

As we all know, bales are not all equal.  Our neighbor is currenty having their hay baled at 50 pounds.  That's 40 bales per ton.  They are selling "in the field" for $125/ton.  So that's $3.13 for a bale of "fair" pasture mix (timothy, orchard, rye, fescue, clover, vetch).  They have their cows and horses pastured on this mix. 

We tried a bale on our horses tonight mixed with Easter Oregon premium at $290/ton.  Our horses overwhelmingly voted for the Eastern Oregon premium.

Tomorrow morning, I'll try reconstituting a bale with water before feeding.  We'll see if they like it better.

Gypsy fly,not sure pounds on that one. They had round bales advertised for $50.00 at 700# this was a different ad in our local paper. There is a dr. across the road who lets someone bale his field for half the money made and the last two years they've let it get wet and nasty before the pick it up.It's real nice alfalfa ,what a waste. I would think since they took the time to bale and rake they would try a little harder to get it off the field before it gets ruined,can cows eat that?

The Case Family:

can cows eat that

Funny you'd ask.  Our neighbor's hay is really cow hay not horse hay, IMO.  I was counseling my wife to try out a bale or two before buying a lot of it.  She wanted to mix it up with Eastern Oregon premium. 

I'm told we'll be picking up 2 tons in about an hour.  Seems all of our hungry horses ate up the cow hay for breakfast this morning.  I suspect they'll probably like it more if it's soaked.  We ride by the field on the way to some trails.  So our horses have snacked on that grass.  We grain them anyway.  Now I'm wondering how much more grain we'll need to make up for the nutritional deficiency of this pasture mix.  In my mind, if the pre-soaking makes the cow hay more palatable, but looses even more nutritional value by pre-soaking, then why not mineralize the spray water?  That way, there's a net gain of nutrients instead of a loss.  Oh well, we'll figure it out.

Anyway, if the horses reject this hay or loose weight on it, then we'll be getting long horns.  All I know about cows is that they can digest just about any plant matter.  Long horns!!  What are we getting ourselves into?

Adopt and adapt, eh?