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RE: [SPAM] [RC] round bales-anybody feeding? - heidiI feed round bales exclusively. I buy them straight out of the field as soon as they?re baled and store them inside of my barn. I don?t put a whole round bale in the pasture w/ the horses ? they just waste most of it. I've had just the opposite experience. I kept track of how many horses in the pasture, weight of bales, etc. for about three years, and found that I fed about 5% less hay by weight when I went to free-feeding large bales. Hay was not strung out over as much space for them to tromp it in the dirt, and there was no feeding frenzy at feeding time, during which the piggy ones would consume too much if you fed enough for the skinny ones to get anywhere close to enough. I also found that I no longer had "skinnies" and "fatties" when I went to free feeding--the hogs got sated in a week or so and backed off, and the hay was always available to the more timid and the slower eaters. All around it was far more economical to just put the whole bale out, never mind the savings in labor. What I do instead is flip a round bale on its side inside of my barn and peel off enough hay for each horse for each feeding. I do still have stallions up in individual runs where it isn't practical to put out big bales, and I've had to meal feed my stallions a few times from large bales, and I hate it for reasons of labor. It takes me twice as long to feed that way than when I leave small bales stacked in front of each paddock, and is WAAAY more effort. It wouldn't probably be a big deal if you only had a couple of horses, but it is a real p.i.t.a. with very many. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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