Chopped hay
Shannon
I think this was mentioned last year but heregoes: my old horse needs chopped hay. He is missing lots of teeth and cannot properly chew the regular stuff. I seem to recall someone mentioning how to do it at home. The bagged stuff is quite pricy and I was hoping for an economical substitute.
Thanks,
Shannon
Sent from my iPod
Bonnie
It was probably me ;-) We have directions on how to do it here
with pictures.
http://www.b4boots.com/w/
Basically what we do is use a chipper shredder. We run our regular hay
through the chipper shredder. We found we have to run it through twice
to get the hay chopped fine enough. Perhaps a different style chipper
shredder would do better than ours and manage to get the hay chopped
fine enough in one pass. We run the hay through the shredder part not
the chipper part that you put the tree limbs through.
So instead of paying the price of 11.99 for hay cubes or shredded
alfalfa, we were using the regular hay we purchased and the price of
fuel to run the shredder.
--
Best regards,
Bonnie mailto:bon...@b4boots.com
http://www.b4boots.com
check out our blog at http://www.b4boots.com/w
Patti Woodbury-Kuvik
batch through to get rid of any old grass clippings. Not real
convenient but OK in a pinch. (I've also used scissors but that gets
old fast).
Though I haven't used one myself, I know people have used leaf
shredders (like http://www.amazon.com/Flowtron-Ultimate-Mulcher-Electric-Shredder/dp/B00006XMTM).
You probably need a heavy duty shredder if you're going to process a
lot of hay.
I have several clients who use plain hay pellets (Mountain Sunrise
Timothy, Bermuda or mixed) as 100% of their horse's ration along with
a flax-based supplement, usually with some beet pulp and their horses
do very well. The Mountain Sunrise pellets tend to be small and soft
enough for easy chewing; can add water to just moisten or to make
pretty soupy. If you get hay pellets locally, make sure they're not
too hard for your horse to chew. If you decide to use pellets, he
would need about 1.5% of his body weight fed per day (with additional
long stem hay or pasture solely for "entertainment").
Older horses produce less saliva, so soaking hay or adding water to
pellets can also help these guys process their feed (and have less
chance of choke).
Hope this helps.
Patti K
Vail AZ
www.DesertEquineBalance.com
Carla Richardson
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Bonnie
I couldn't afford the beet pulp since my horse would have needed 25
lbs a day ;-) He was a big horse! I used soy hull pellets and
distillers grain which I get now for $7.50 for 50 lbs. I used to get
it much cheaper, everything goes up rarely goes down. But I always
tried to provide some chopped/chaff hay or soaked hay cubes. I was
able to provide even more chopped/chaff hay when we figured out how to
make our own using a chipper shredder.
--
Best regards,
Bonnie mailto:bon...@b4boots.com
http://www.b4boots.com
check out our blog at http://www.b4boots.com/w
Carla Richardson
Carla
Bonnie
I hope that it can help someone else that has a dentally challeged
horse ;-)
--
Best regards,
Bonnie mailto:bon...@b4boots.com
http://www.b4boots.com
check out our blog at http://www.b4boots.com/w
Thursday, November 3, 2011, 11:52:31 AM, you wrote:
> I think it's very smart of you to figure out how to chop your own hay!
> Carla
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 9:44 AM, Bonnie <bon...@b4boots.com> wrote:
> Hello Carla,
> I couldn't afford the beet pulp since my horse would have needed 25
> lbs a day He was a big horse! I used soy hull pellets and
Elyse Carreno
-Elyse
Shannon Loomis
Shannon
Lif Strand
>The challenge will be finding a yard shredder amongst all the snow blowers
Anyone have recommendations on what to look for in a shredder that
will work for hay?
_____________________________________
Lif C. Strand
Technical Writing
Local Economic Development
check out www.critterwalls.com
life sized wild animal wall stickers
Karen Everhart
Executive director and co-founder
Rainbow Meadows Equine Rescue and Retirement, Inc
www.rainbowmeadowsranch.com
Bonnie
The one we have we got used from a friend. It is a 8.5 horsepower
that has a separate chipper from the shredder. This is the only one we
have tried and it works. I have seen videos of a electric shredders
used for shredding hay but heck we couldn't afford one. We have been
keeping an eye out for another good used one but the fall is not the
time to get them cheap ;-) We were thinking of connecting them so we
could run the hay through twice by having the first one shred the hay
then the next shredder could suck it up through the vacuum attachment
and shred it again. That way we wouldn't have to run the hay through
one chipper shredder twice and it would save time. The used one we
are currently using is a craftsman with a briggs and stratton engine
and it has the lawn vacuum attachment on it.
Another way to chop hay would be one of the feed/bale choppers that
farmers use to grind and mix hay with feed. I have seen them go for
$600 on Craigslist every once in a great while. I wish I could afford
one of those as supposedly they can chop up a large round bale and
that would certainly save some money in the long run ;-) I am sure
there could be a business opportunity there offering hay chopping for
a fee and or selling chopped hay made from large round bales.
--
Best regards,
Bonnie mailto:bon...@b4boots.com
http://www.b4boots.com
check out our blog at http://www.b4boots.com/w
Lif Strand
>We have the Stihl brand and it works GREAT!!
Thanks!