Roundbale Dilemma

[lupinfarm]

I'm getting 4x4 rounds for Luna this year and I remember way back that 4 horses got through one large 4x5 round in about 2-3 weeks depending on the weather so I figured to a lot little more than 1 bale per month for her. I contacted someone via the internet who lives just in town to deliver the bales for us and asked him how much he thought, and he said get this... 40 bales!!! 40 4x4 rounds, this sounds like an outrageous amount of hay to me! She only gets hay over the winter so it's not a years worth of hay that I need. We have no other horses, just her. Her pasture is good enough over the summer months from about mid-late April until the first week of October that she doesn't need to be on hay and she eats 4 cups of Purina Horse Chow a day.

How many small squares would you say is in a 4x4? last year we had 60lb bales and it took her a couple days to get through one completely.

I'm not really sure how many bales we had last year, somewhere between 300 and 400 and just over 100 bales didn't get used (they went to a neighbour for bedding for his cows in the end). I could see at the max, worst case I'd be looking at about 24 rounds, but thats if we get a whole winter of -30.

What do you guys think?

 

[big brown horse]

Seems like a lot of hay for just Luna.

 

[lupinfarm]

Thats what I thought... 40 bales is a HUGE amount considering most 4x4s around here are between 500-600lbs. She's not even underweight this year. I'm going to get 14 I think... he delivers and he's only in Stirling.

 

[mully]

I would think 12-15 max..... 2 round bales a month would be a lot as that is 30 lbs of hay a day. If you can store the extra get some, especially if it is at a good price.

 

[()relics]

I use round bales for some of my horses. I have found that 1 bale, 12-1300#, will last about 2 weeks. Taking into consideration there are 4 quarter horses and a donkey that have access to this free choice bale. I guess that would work out to about 100-150# per week per animal? They also get a feed concentrate so the hay isn't their only feed source...and the pasture, whats left of it.

 

[dianneS]

That is a tremendous amount of hay. I feed 1/3 of a bale of hay to my mare every day, the square bales that is about 50 pound bales.

I have really good pasture that seems to be hanging on each season well into the fall and early winter. My horses won't eat hay that I put out in the pasture for them until about January. I've only been feeding hay in the barn at night.

If I were to do round bales I would imagine I would only need about two for my mare for the entire fall and winter.

 

[lupinfarm]

Thats what I thought, well we were going to get 14 bales, putting in a couple extra incase we have a long nasty winter. Actually though, now we have to get more than expected becuase we've just bought another horse, a 15.2hh friesan/QH mare, she's palomino and she'll be separated from Luna for a bit, Luna gets herd bound easily and i don't want an issue waiting for me so they'll be in seperate fields with their on rounds. Now all I have to do is finish the fence quickly, get the gates up, and get the rounds and then going to the Royal Winter Fair and cause everything is on sale I'll be able to get a blanket for the new horse, and some other things (her name is Miley).

 

[unionwirewoman]

The " general rule " for average sized horses ( 14.5-15.5) that I was told is 20# per horse per day . Now depending on how big your round bales are ( they can go from 400- 2000 # ) you calculate the 20 # times how many horses you have , times the days for feeding and should come up with how many bales you need . If you listen to my mother...they never gave any shots , never fed hay , and the only thing they got for 6 months was a scoop of grain once per week . I can see where she's coming from , but most people out there don't have the land to support this . Keep in mind that it takes months to actually see that a horse has lost weight . I don't care if you groom them everyday...it's the human mind , and the horses body that play tricks on you . Now I know measuring off 20# off a round bale is hard....I do it all winter....but if you're skeptical , just shovel out a little more . Also keep in mind that buying hay in season is cheaper than running out of it in the middle of winter or close to spring...this is when the price of hay doubles !

 

[jhm47]

There are waaaaaay too many variables for anyone to make a blanket conclusion on how many bales you need. First of all, exactly how much do these bales weigh? I make 4X4 bales with my JD baler, and the alfalfa bales routinely weigh between 800 - 900 lbs. They are very tight, and don't sag a bit when we let them lie out in the field for a week or so. I've also seen 4X4 soft-core bales that barely weigh 400 lbs. It all depends on how tight they are. I really doubt that grass hay would weigh much more than 600 lbs per bale.

Then, there's the question of quality. If this hay has been rained on several times, and has had most of it's nutritional quality leached out, the horses will eat much more of it just to maintain their condition.

The weather is also important, and very cold weather will make any horse eat more.

If the bales are of good quality, and you can get them at a great price, I'd buy more than you actually need, and store them for a "rainy day".