Going from round bale hay to small bales - how many per month...

Mince Pie

Mince Pie

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For a 16.2 TB and a 14.2 fatty cob?
I usually use around 1 round bale per month in the summer and maybe 2 in the winter.
Also how much is a small bale of hay these days? Surrey/Kent area.
 
Don't do it! £4.50 - £5 a small bale seems to be the norm.

I'd say in Winter you would be doing five bales a week perhaps....

Edited to say - obviously this would depend on how much winter grazing you have....
 
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I don't have a choice - no storage for large bales at new yard :(
Ponies are out at night atm so still 5 bales per week?
 
Id say youd be doing more than 5 bales a week in winter. Our liveries use 1 bale a day per horse who get a good 6/8 hrs turnout as well and feeds.

Youd be best sticking to round bales youll be spending alot more on smaller ones!!
 
Let's imagine that they are always going to be out for 10 hours a day.... do you feed adlib? I don't - I have to restrict her as even in the depths of Winter she turns into a barrel.

So, at the minute my mare is in during the day with 2-3 thinnish sections of hay and then grazing all night. So I will go through about 1.5 bales a week this way.

In Winter she only has grazing from 6am to 12 noon and so she will have a net to come in to (3 slices) and then a night net (five slices). I reckon I will use about 3-4 bales a week in Winter.

Poo to having no round bale storage - me neither :( Might it work out cheaper to have the big bales of farmers haylage - it has done for me in the past but I want her to have more fibre with less calories so have gone back to hay.
 
Large bales around here tend to equal about 12 small or so I've been led to believe - always use small tho
 
Billie1007 said:
Let's imagine that they are always going to be out for 10 hours a day.... do you feed adlib? I don't - I have to restrict her as even in the depths of Winter she turns into a barrel.

So, at the minute my mare is in during the day with 2-3 thinnish sections of hay and then grazing all night. So I will go through about 1.5 bales a week this way.

In Winter she only has grazing from 6am to 12 noon and so she will have a net to come in to (3 slices) and then a night net (five slices). I reckon I will use about 3-4 bales a week in Winter.

Poo to having no round bale storage - me neither :( Might it work out cheaper to have the big bales of farmers haylage - it has done for me in the past but I want her to have more fibre with less calories so have gone back to hay.
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Mare yes but cob is restricted as he is a fat git and gets his in a double net which is soaked for 12 hours.
Would ideally prefer haylage as cob coughs and mare is a TB but still have same problem? When you say farmers bales do you mean these:
Small-Bales-of-Hay-Round-Bale-Haylage-Silage-20120113183528.jpg

Used these in a racing yard and had little storage so stood them upright on short end which could work?
 
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How much storage do you have? Surely if you have storage for two hundred bales you have room for large bales? Or is that a pre order for the season? Haylage can be stored outside - is there nowhere it can go?
 
I have the bales like the pic you just posted.

Pay £5 a bale (although I've heard of some going for £4 so will try him next time!) and for my 15.3 get through 1.5-2 per week? Thats just with one net of about 3-4 slices a day.

I too would love round bales but don't have storage for more than one at a time really but may switch to it for winter!
 
Zoon - That's pre-order and storage from farmer/LL.
Storage at the yard is about 10x10 foot shed, shared between 2 for hay & shavings, however I buy shavings as I go so don't need to store them.

Summer - that's a large square bale haylage - about £35, may work if stood on end?
 
Can't you keep it on pallets under a tarp outside? either the hay or haylage, thats how I have always kept mine and no probs if inside storage is a problem.
 
No I'm not allowed - I asked :) it's annoying but yard seems perfect in every other way so just have to deal with it I suppose. Just need to re-think my hay/haylage order as have already reserved 18 bales haylage for this winter.
 
Broke_But_Happy said:
Zoon - That's pre-order and storage from farmer/LL.
Storage at the yard is about 10x10 foot shed, shared between 2 for hay & shavings, however I buy shavings as I go so don't need to store them.

Summer - that's a large square bale haylage - about £35, may work if stood on end?
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Yes, Id get those then and stand on end. Hmmm, I wonder how long one of them would last? May work out cheaper for me too.
 
Well mine last over a month in the summer with all the wrapping off.

As a follow on, where in Surrey can I get small bale hay/haylage if standing a big bale on it's end doesn't work?
 
Im interested in this too as i have gone from 1 idxtb horse and a 14h Haflinger i was using 1 meduim sixe round bale which lasted them between 10 and 14 days.

Now i only have the IDXTB but he is a good dooer and therefore i will not be using the round bales quick enough. I have been using small bales of hayelge at approx 2 per week when he was in during the wet weather.

Cost wise the large bales were £15.00 and the small one are £4.00 so give or take a pound or so its the same cost at the moment but not sure what the winter will hold.
 
IDxTB? how big is he? Am thinking that my mare and my fatty cob would probably eat the same amount?
How long was he in, in the wet weather?
 
He is about 15.2-15.3ish although I haven’t measured him for a while (5yo). I worked out that he needed 13kg’s of feed per day so he had 1kg of readygrass plus a small scoop of mix split between 2xfeeds then 2kg of haylege in the morning 2 kgs at lunch and 8kgs at 6pm to last through the night in the middle of winter as when the weather is really wet he stays in. If he was out during the day then he just gets his feeds and his night time hay net.
 
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Just to double check - a horse needs 2% of it's bodyweight in feed a day, split between forage and hard feed?
 
I was taught a horse needs 2.5% of bodyweight per day which is what i go on. It seems to work for him but if i had a fatty pony i would adjust accordingly. Just to give you an idea this is my boy coming out of the winter based on the feeding routine i gave you (However he had been out of work for much of the winter as he needed time to chill out due to being moved around alot)
T2photo.jpg
 
Ah ok, I generally have cobby coming out of the winter a lot slimmer than that as he is a typical native that balloons on spring grass (and the fields at the new yard are huge!):
1540e96b.jpg

(bear in mind he had no topline!)

With the big bales I use 3/4 a slice between them in summer, and 1 1/2 between them in winter. Going on 2.5% for the TB and 1.5% for fat-boy it's 21.5kg of feed per day between them inc hard feed.
 
Broke_But_Happy said:
With the big bales I use 3/4 a slice between them in summer, and 1 1/2 between them in winter. Going on 2.5% for the TB and 1.5% for fat-boy it's 21.5kg of feed per day between them inc hard feed.
Click to expand...

Yes my pic is a bit deceptive because of the angle i actually weighed his haynets while i was using the large bales of haylege. He doesnt tend to ballon in the spring like a native but he is a little fat now but we are working on that with excercise.

He gets nothing but a hand ful of ready grass not with his vits and mins once a day now and he is out 24/7.
 
Broke_But_Happy said:
Just to double check - a horse needs 2% of it's bodyweight in feed a day, split between forage and hard feed?
Click to expand...

No. ... The figures are 2- 2.5% of body weight AS DRY MATTER. Hay is typicaly 12% moisture .So for example 11.36 kg of hay is equivalent to 10 kg dry matter.Haylage is an entirely different ball game because at roughly 30% Moisture, 14.3kg of haylage is equivalent to 10 kg of dry matter.
 
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Ok so a 550kg TB fed at 2.5% needs 13.75kg, and fatty cob at 1.5% of 500kg needs 7.5kg.

Mare gets (stubbs scoops per day) 1x nuts (2.2kg), 2 x alpha a oil (800g), 1/2 x dry scoop sugarbeet (1.1kg) and 1 x dry scoop copra (2.2kg) = 6.3kg hard feed, so around 8kg hay(lage).
Fatty cob gets a token feed so 7.5kg hay(lage)

Total = 15.5kg so based on a hay bale weighing about 25kg is 2/3 a bale per day? or 3/4 of a bale weighing 20kg.

Does that sound right?
 
I'm guessing that as they'll have at least 10 hours per day grazing that should cover the 12% water content?
 
I was told 10 small .to 1 large square bale. Less to a round bale. I find the large bales have about 20 slices in and I fed a slice a day with a forage feed to my 16.1 IDx mare who out wintered. Large field but poor grazing. She is on the good side of average this year!
 
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