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How picky are you?

3K views 24 replies 22 participants last post by  Cowboy Ringo 
#1 ·
I am quite fussy about my horses feed, and am curious as to how picky others are about their feed. I know some horse owners that aren' too fussy, and others that are. Many people around here put out a round bale for a few weeks and let their horses pick through the good parts and the bad. Others hand feed off the bale, and others feed squares to have even more control over what their horse ingests.

Let's say you go out to feed some hay to our horse(s). You have spent the big bucks to buy quality square bales. You pull a bale from the bottom or outside of the stack and notice a bit of mould on one side where some moisture has got in the bale. You open the bale and see the mould has penetrated about 2" on one side only. What do you do? Do you...

Throw out the entire bale. After all it is contaminated.
Separate out the moldy bits and feed the section that looks good.
Shake the mould out of the bale, water it down and feed it.
Just feed it and let the horses pick the good stuff.
 
#2 ·
We would feed it anyway, because we also have cattle and the horses won't eat the moldy parts, but the cattle would as they can digest it.

Of course, if our hay and land situation were up to me, the cattle and horses would be seperated through winter and fed different hay.
 
#3 ·
I wouldn't feed any part of that bale to my horses. Once it has mold, it will have mold spores all through it. I would be worried about them eating and inhaling the mold. Horse's are too sensitive to risk feeding anything that may be contaminated to.
However, I would offer the hay to my goat. He will pick out what he can eat and use the rest to pee and sleep on. At least the bale wouldn't technically go to waste
 
#5 ·
I am personally very picky about the feed which I feed my horse. Think of it this way, if I open a loaf of bread and find mold on it, I will not eat it. Therefore, I do the same for my horse. I am aware that horses are entirely different, their bodies can handle different things, etc. But, that was sort of just an example.

Also, just because you can physically see the mold only on the edge, doesn't mean that it is the only place that it is. I would prefer to throw out the feed - no matter how little the amount of mold is, or how expensive the bale was. The vet bill would be so much more.
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#7 ·
My supplier will take back any mouldy bales. I wouldn't feed it. Horses will avoid the mouldy parts but its spores that you cant see that do the damage as they get into the horses lungs - and they can also be getting into your own - something worth thinking about if you are feeding it to cattle etc or using it as bedding where there is a risk of you breathing in spores as they get loosened by any shaking out process
This is quite a good article which explains risks
http://www.extension.umn.edu/issues/lateharvest/MoldyHayForHorses.pdf
 
#9 ·
There are a lot of uses for moldy hay, there is no need to feed the moldy parts to your horses. Horses are like humans in that some of them will eat the mold, others won't. Bad hay can ruin a good horse faster then a lot of things.
 
#11 ·
I'd happily toss it, or just mention it to my supplier to see if they'll exchange it, assuming it came to me moldy and I didn't cause it :P though I've been known to only throw out the moldy half if it's obviously clean on the other side and I'm broke xD My draft doesn't mind if it's not perfect but I'll never risk mold.
 
#13 ·
With moldy hay that was good quality hay, I break it up and mulch down into the yard with the mower.

With my usually high quality grass hay that was chuck full of hop clover last year? I sold the worst of it (about 60 bales) for 25 cents on the dollar to my cow neighbor.

The bales that weren't too bad, I picked the hop clover out, then took it up on the ridge and threw it into the woods area we have fenced off from the horses for the deer to eat, get moldy, whatever--------------
 
#15 ·
Since the picky hay subject has been brought up, I forgot and so has everyone else:

Pitch the bale if you see droppings on it. I had to throw out a perfectly good and very expensive bale of bermuda hay because the droppings on it were either Raccoon or Opossum.

While it looked like Raccoon droppings, I swear I caught something light colored skitter under the pallet a few weeks before I found the droppings. Light color means Opossum and Opossum MIGHT equal EPM if the opossum was a carrier:shock:

Mr. WTW said "I think you should just pick the manure off and feed it". I told him "there you go thinking again, if there's p**p, there's probably urine. If the critter has EPM my horses are dead. d-e-a-d dead and you'll wish you were" :think:

Since archery was coming in and I was closing off the high ridge pasture anyway, I took the bale up there and scattered it. That section of pasture won't be re-opened until next year; by then the hay will be either eaten by deer or will have "returned to dust", so-to-speak.
 
#16 ·
I`m quite picky about the hay I feed in the stalls as it is such a confined space.

I`m more lenient, but not a lot, about the hay I feed outside. If it has minor mold, I`ll take that off and if the rest passes my sniff and shake test I`ll feed it loose on the ground (not in the feeders); if a bale has weeds in it, I`ll feed that loose on the ground as well.

We make our own hay so it`s either use it or toss it. We have a spot out in one field where we put the garbage hay to decompose.

Let me preface this by saying I am definitely not a supporter of mold. However, if you take a good look at your pasture (particularly one with trees in it), I think you might surprised with the mold and fungus that can be found there depending on the seasons.
 
#20 ·
Let me preface this by saying I am definitely not a supporter of mold. However, if you take a good look at your pasture (particularly one with trees in it), I think you might surprised with the mold and fungus that can be found there depending on the seasons.
You have a good point here. I am still picky about what I feed but know I can only control so much. While we have no trees in our pasture, I do notice some moulds on some of the weed. I don't know how these are different from hay mould. The pasture plants are all common to this area and found in most hay, but I still hand pull the weeds the horses seem to dislike.
 
#17 · (Edited)
Round bales, which I very rarely feed, I am not so picky about, I put it out, it better be good, what happens in the 10 days that my horses chow through it, I don't care. As far as bales, I rarely find a rotten bale, once in a blue moon, I will find with a spot of mold on the top, I throw away that section & feed the rest. My horses are more picky about the hay than I am, I notice they leave hay sometimes & pee on it, must mean it didn't taste right or something, I don't know.
 
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#18 ·
I toss it. I came to the conclusion many years ago that it was cheaper to buy and feed only the best feed than to pay vet bills. A colic vet bill for 1 horse is just about equal to the price of 1 pallet of the good stuff for concentrates or 2 tons of good hay. Both of the later will feed my 10 horses a lot longer than that 1 vet bill will keep that one horse healthy if I feed crap feed.
 
#21 ·
I live on a dairy farm, so I've always been taught that white mold is alright, but green/blue etc is definately not.

White mold is just yeast forming, and horses will eat it just fine, however I prefer not to feed it anyway, if it is in a piece of haylage, I throw it out and forget the rest of the bale (I pick bits off the bales dad feeds to the cows anyway), because the bale has to be monitored carefully so as not to make my horse get the runs anyway.

In a bag of feed, if it is SMOOTH white "mold"(yeast), I will still feed it, if it is only a little bit. As soon as the feed starts to look gray from mold in the center, nah, its gone. I have noticed if I don't throw it out (eg if I leave it in the shed unfed) it goes all slimy and disgusting rather quickly.
 
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#22 ·
Soon after I got Brock I arrived at the stables one morning to find a leathery and very flat dead cane toad at the bottom of his manger. It had been in the biscuit of lucerne hay I'd given him the previous night - supposedly this isn't uncommon for QLD hay if they don't rake it before baling it. After that I changed feed supplier, broke biscuits up before feeding and always kept an eye out for unusual plants or objects in the hay.

The worst was when I would have a pile of bales and the rats would get into the bottom one, then the whole bottom bale would stink of rat pee and I'd have to chuck it. I always hoped I wouldn't find a floppy dead or decaying rat in amongst the hay (found one in the tackroom once, the rat bait made them disgusting).

My logic is: Brock's not fussy about food so I have to be fussy for him...
 
#24 ·
I am picky. I get hay from the same supplier that is not the cheapest around, but very good quality. I also did lots of research on different grain/pellet feeds, so paying more for low starch/low sugar pellets (traditional sweet grains are much cheaper usually). Plus flax, sometime oil in winter, etc. :)
 
#25 ·
A horse is different than a cow and does not have four stomachs like a cow. They also dont "just pick the good stuff". They will eat the mold as well.
This past weekend i bought 5 round bales of hay, with a lot of timothy and fescue.
As i opened the first bale today, there was white mold. It was also so dusty it almost took my breath away. You can bet you bottome tomorrow i will return the hay for better ones. Never feed your horse moldy or dusty hay, unless you want a sever case of the heaves or colic, especially if there in the barn.
I also want to add theres a difference in dusty hay and moldy dust. Usually, all hay will have some dust, just because. When you have hay with mold spores or is really moldy and damp, the dust will stay in the air for a lot longer than just regular ground dust.
I was so mad when i opened that bale today. I had to get into my clover reserves to feed today.
 
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