Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

rjkopp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

. The rest of the time they are on pasture eating the brown grass. No grain.

Roxanne

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I feed one meal alfalfa, one meal bermuda. 5 horses and a donkey, just pile a mass on the wheelbarrow and go. A few years ago, when I had enough money, I bought hay by the 1/2 semi. A grower I dealt with called me one spring, said he had a friend who was with the tribe, selling bermuda for $7/bale, 130#, delivered to where I was. At that time, 100# bermuda was $11 locally. I ordered 3 squeezes. The grower called me back, said he'd seen the hay, it was brown but would feed out the same as green. I took a risk, figured if I (or my horses) didn't like it, I could resell it as cowhay, which was selling for more than $7. The truck drove up, I thought "My God, what have I gotten into?" It was BROWN, not just on the outside. Not moldy, just brown.

 

I thought I'd try it anyway, since I still had some nice, green bermuda left, and could transition them over if they even ate it. (Living in central Arizona, where the native grass has a very short growing season, and turns brown quickly, and is brown for a long time, I've seen ranch horses thrive on brown grass. Recognizing that native grasses and bermuda probably have different nutrition contents, it was worth a try anyway).

 

My horses LOVED the brown bermuda, they walked over the top of the green stuff to get to it, ate it up, and then ate the green bermuda. Shook my head, I did. Fed it for a year, along with alfalfa the other meal, and never had a lick of a problem. As a non'horse friend said, "Maybe it's a good thing horses are colorblind."

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