Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

We don't have people who have massive hay fields of any type in Egypt. If you can imagine farm plots the size of most of your back gardens (in many of your cases, the size of a quarter of your back garden) you have the farming situation in the Nile Valley. They grow berseem here, which is a clover, and from October to June it is cut fresh for the animals daily. The last face is sometimes dried. Then from June to October we feed a South African grass, also cut daily for the horses. I rent an acre just for growing forage for my beasts and also grow about a half acre of corn that is very closely planted so that it remains thin in the stalk and can be fed easily to the water buffalo, goats, sheep and donkeys. The horses like the stuff too, but since I have the better green fodder, they get that for the most part. We still end up with corn coming out of our ears, but the rabbits, chickens, ducks, turkeys, and parrots are very happy with it.

Our dry forage consists of the rice stalks from the rice harvest, the chopped wheat stalks from the wheat harvest, and dried berseem. At one point, we simply had too much ready for cutting so we dried an extra face. Traditionally, horses here are fed berseem and barley with a bit of bran and chopped wheat straw, and they are kept in boxes. Traditionally the most likely end of a horse here is colic. When I built paddocks and began feeding the rice  and chopped wheat provided constantly in feeders, everyone told me my  horses would die. So far they are doing ok. Because occasionally I can't get good quality rice hay or wheat straw, I make sure that we have multiple sources of fodder so that it isn't a shock to anyone's system when we have more or less of something. There is only one company here who makes hay cubes from the berseem and their hay cubes get wet and crumbly in the winter so unless you stock up in the fall, most of us don't buy them. The horses have done very well with their varied diet so far.

Maryanne

On 6/18/07, Tx Trigger <txtrigger@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Oat, barley, and other "grain hays" are very popular out west. We rarely see it here in Texas unless imported from other regions. I think an oat timothy would be an excellent mix. Some horses love the oat hay, others will get the "good parts" and leave the bigger stalks. I think it depends on when it was cut. I had someone try to tell me oat hay did not exist, and that was straw. <grin> Nope, two different beasts.  Maybe you can try one bale, see if they like it before buying a large amount. On the other hand, if hay is gonna be short in your area, might grab what you can.

 

Jonni

-- 
Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
msgabbani@xxxxxxxxx
Egypt Face to Face
www.alsorat.com
Weblogs
Living In Egypt
miloflamingo.blogspot.com
Cairo/Giza Daily Photo
cairogizadailyphoto.blogspot.com
Turn Right At The Sarcophagus
haramlik.blogspot.com
Photos of Egypt
http://www.flickr.com/photos/livinginegypt/