Have any of you used any bagged compressed hay?

For four years, I used bagged compressed hay. It is awesome feed. The hardest part is breaking it apart in cold weather, but my horses were so healthy with all the good nutrition. I know there was so little waste and each bale fed a horse for three days. There was no need to feed grain unless you worked your horse hard.

The only bagged compressed hay I have seen is Alfalfa which I only use as treats or during extreme cold weather. They make other kinds?

I'v seen only alfalfa either. Bought once, but my horses didn't like it. :(

Check with Triforage Farms in Ontario. They carry several kinds. Alfalfa, Tim-Alf, Timothy, and a couple more. There is also I belive someone in California or out west doing this. Interesting, There was a girl who called me way back who was studying the process for one of the universities. I was kinda hoping she would move forward with this. The feed I got was organically grown. Great Stuff, the worst part right now is the fuel charges for a truck load to come. I bought 5 gallons of Diesel Fuel yesterday for over $20. We used to buy 25 gallons for that when we put in crops. We sure should expect feed prices to really go up a bit next year!

Have used hay extender for an esophagus injury in my cob, soaked to facilitate swallowing. He loved it so much that I had also started to give awhile after grain/hay to bulk up calories for extreme cold. HOWEVER, my morgan has an incident last nite where he ate it too fast and experienced "choke" , terrified me when he went into distress. I am very concerned now that he did not aspirate any and have to watch closely for awhile for signs of respiratory/pneumonia. Would recommend WETTING or SOAKING to avoid trouble it can be too dry to give plain.

I'll have to look for the other types. It would be really handy when traveling, not to have to haul bales of hay.

I feed my horse Alfalfa, she likes it too but I was told it was too rich to feed them Alfafa all the time. I don't know if that's true or not but Janie seems fine! Lol

Never heard of this before

I used some to supplement bad hay one year. I don't care for it much though, as it has molasses. And the brand we were feeding was 100% alfalfa, which I don't care for either.

I currently feed just good Bermuda grass hay with Purina's FreeBalance mineral/vitamin supplement, no grain or pellets. They're doing great! I'm adding some black oil sunflower seeds (4 cups a day) to my Anglo Arabian's feed as he can drop weight in the winter. BOSS is very high in fat and has some great nutrients in it, and it won't hype them up like sweet feed and some pellets will.

I don't like feeding grain or pellets. Molasses, corn, wheat, and "sweepings" are just not good for horses. Recent research has found that a lot of horses are IR and even mildly laminitic (without the owner's realizing it) because of all of the rich high sugar and high starch feeds we give to them. Horses are built to eat GRASS, not sugar!

Triforage feeds are not dry they are a moist, like balage. It is a fermented feed with all the nutrients locked in. I even has natural yeast. I believe it just cleans out the respitory tract and all I can think of is It promotes wellness. Very unlike the dry hay mentioned above. Most of these are chopped hay with nutrients including molasses added. Triforages feeds are out standing, you just break off and feed. One bale feeds a 1000 pound horse for 3 days. I have brought horses out of colic by getting them to eat a couple of mouth fulls. It just works its way and helps the horse relax.
Choke is scary. I would suggest putting rock or a salt block in that bucket to slow the horse down on its feeding. I think I would soak it good to soften it and adding water fill them up as they are eating and maybe in it's self would help in this situation.. Maybe feed it in smaller batces. Hope your horse is doing better Majormounted. This is my first time on a forum like this, and I realize I probably put this in the wrong category. SOOOO Thanks for writing.