>Does anyone know about feeding Timothy hay? I feed free choice Eastern OR grass hay but >added a little nice looking Timothy (as a
treat) and my boys gobbled it up and are insisting >on more.
>------Karla Watson/Portland, Oregon
We’re starting to get a lot more of the PNW grown
grass hays down here in So Cal and I love the stuff. It’s still
pretty pricey--- $15 for a 120-lb bale of orchardgrass and $18-20 for
timothy---but I’d rather see horses get either of those over most of the
grain hays we get down here. The digestibility is higher, they don’t
waste nearly as much and the overall nutritive profile is better IMO.
As far as timothy versus orchardgrass, if the quality is comparable,
than they’re pretty similar nutrition wise. Orchardgrass sometimes
has a very slightly inverted calcium-phosphorus ratio, so I feed it with a few
pounds of alfalfa, along with a good vitamin-mineral supplement. Anyway,
as a forage source, I like orchardgrass and timothy about the same. My
guys prefer orchardgrass, and since it’s slightly more cost effective,
that’s what they get. Digestibility of either hay is superior to bermuda,
and although I fed bermuda for years, I still prefer the temperate grass hays
(orchard and timothy) over the tropical grasses (Bermuda)
any day.
Coming from the PNW, they also get supplemented with
selenium yeast, but even if I were feeding only locally grown hays, I’d
still supplement with some selenium.
