Alfa A consistencey - very powdery

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Tangaroo

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My boy has always eaten alfa a without any problems but this winter i have found it to be much more powdery and finer chopped. He doesnt like it like this and tends to pick his nuts out and leave a lot of the Alfaa.
I bought a bag of Dengie hifi today in the hope he might prefer that and when i opened it , it also seems much finer chop than it used to be.:confused:
What other fibre feeds is he more likely to eat? What do you all use?
 
I switched to Spillers because I also found Dengie was starting to get very powdery.

I am currently feeding Spillers Conditioning Fibre and I highly recommend it for adding condition! Have also fed Spillers Happy Hoof too. Pony loved both!

Spillers chops are much softer and chopped shorter which my pony finds easier to chew. It smells lovely and is roughly the same price as Dengie :)
 
yeah my recent bag of alfa a is basically dust - emailed dengie they have sent me a sample bag and return postage - I have put some in the bag and posted back to them so they can analyse - hopefully i will get something back - as not happy with its consistency. tbf horse is eating it (didnt want to get another bag in case same and feed merchants dont stock any other alfafa brand)
- but she is a right greedy mare and will eat virtually anything. It is very dry and i describe it as dust with odd green bits in.
 
mine is all powdery too. i tried the Dodson and Horrell alfalfa but that was really dusty. the TopSpec topchop ones was nice but more expensive.
 
How strange n, none of my alfa-a orginal, lite, hi-fi original, lite or healthy hooves has been powdery. I've just bought a bag of hi-fi today and it was the same as normal - I wonder if it's a regional thing, like a different batch that's a bit dodgy or something.....
 
I gave up using Dengie after years in about October last year :o- apart from the dust there was a strange smell and mine wouldn't eat it:o - they are dustbins that eat everything:rolleyes::D. Changed to Topspec Alfalfa - much nicer and has the added bonus of absolutley no molasses just a coating of soya oil and added mint. Clean bowls everytime.:cool::D:D:D
 
T_K said:
Like a fishy sea type smell? I have noticed that.
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Yep thats the one. I have told Dengie about it when they sent me a customer satisfaction survey to fill in. When it started to smell was when they stopped eating it and as my boy needs to eat his alfalfa because of ulcers I had no choice but to swap to one he would eat.:o
 
slinkyunicorn said:
Yep thats the one. I have told Dengie about it when they sent me a customer satisfaction survey to fill in. When it started to smell was when they stopped eating it and as my boy needs to eat his alfalfa because of ulcers I had no choice but to swap to one he would eat.:o
Click to expand...

I bought a bag of Hi-Fi orginal yesterday and it's stopped smelling - i don't think The bag i had before that did either. Just FYI.
 
I gave up with Dengie feeds as I had the same problem, I now feed Falcon Fibrecare (which is the Falcon version of Healthy Hooves) - which is not only cheaper but also has an Equine America hoof supplement in it too. I have been so impressed that I wouldn't change back to Dengie now, or any other feed in fact!
 
That is so odd. I've been feeding Greengold pure Alph Alpha for over 8 years with no probs. But this year its terrible. In fact I've been having to sieve it and I reckon at least a third of the bag is pure stoor :(

Unfortunately I've still got another 5 bags to go and my supplier won't take them back. But once they are used I doubt i'll get it again :(
 
I have tried both Dengie Alfala A Lite and Bailieys Alfa both were so powdery mine would not eat it, am now using the spillers conditioning fibre and he is loving it!
 
I think when this last came up, Dengie said it was down to the growing season they had had, which had made the alfalfa very leafy. Apparently the leafy stuff goes more dusty when it is chopped up than if the crop is more 'stalky', iirc. My horse is such a gannet that she doesn't care either way :D

ETA - found this page on their site - scroll down to 'Why does the appearance...vary?'
http://www.dengie.com/pages/about-alfalfa/from-field-to-feed.php
 
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I wonder where the alfalfa was grown. If it originated in an area with a very wet summer it might be more leafy than normal, or perhaps it was harvested at younger age. Not much alfalfa is grown in GB. Some brands originate from Europe.
When I lived in Nairobi we grew it at the bottom of the garden. It was quite soft and we used it to improve the nutritional content of hay (which was little more than fibre). A racing stud near Naivasha used to grow lots of it and sell it in small bales like hay. Alfalfa has very deep roots, so it can grow rapidly during the wet season and then survive the dry.
I have more deep green "dust" in my AlfaAOil than usual, but as long as it is fed wet the horses like it. I've tried a Molli version but its quite the reverse - all stalk. I'm really wondering how the nutritional content of "leafy-dusty" Alfalfa compares to "stalky" versions.
 
I had the same with greengold so changed to alf alfa last year and it started getting the same way at the beginning of this year., just all dusty and stoory.

I have b on top chop now and it's a lovely crunch consistency, although it is a little more expensive.
 
I use readigrass and my WB gelding loves it. It has kept him at a steady weight and he has been fine on it. I found out that the apple chaff I was previously feeding my horse was making him put on loads of weight as it was so heavily sugared. Sometimes my readigrass gets quite dusty but its normally towards the bottom of the bag and I always heavily wet my horses food anyway.
 
We have had some awful summers recently, I wonder if a lot more people have gone onto alfalfa cos the hay has been harder to get hold of and often older/ less nutrition. They could be having difficulty sourcing enough high quality stuff.
 
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