Grass nuts as hay replacers for veteran?

[Hels_Bells]

I have been feeding my 32yo (almost toothless) veteran a stubbs scoop of soaked grass nuts from our local mill's economy/own brand range each evening. He absolutely adores them!!! They are so cheap and he loves them so much that I am considering upping the amount and reducing some of his other replacers in lieu. There is no nutritional info on the bag, but i'm told by the shop staff that they're purely processed grass.

He currently gets a large trug of redigrass, small trug of mollichaff, a stubbs scoop of fast fibre soaked and stubbs scoop of soaked speedibeet plus various supplements, oil, balancer and some haylage which he just picks at/wastes (at night) and a smaller version of this in the morning. Then is turned out all day and manages to graze fairly well. He does very well on this diet but it's expensive so wondering if anyone knows much about grass nuts and what their nutritional value etc is compared to some of the other replacers i'm giving him!?

 

[piebaldsparkle]

Can't find any feed values for grass nuts, but guess it will vary between companies as will depend on the variety of grass that is cubed and the time of year and stage of growth it was cut at.

Graze-On dried grass = protein 16%: Oil 3.5%: Fibre 25%, so I'm guessing cubes would be similar.

Can't see why you couldn't replace some of the Redigrass with soaked nuts.

 

[HOLCHE]

I contacted Northern Crop Diers about this, a while ago. They advised me to feed up to a couple of kilos of grass nuts each day. As they are 100% grass, they have a higher nutritional value than hay so could not be replaced weight for weight.

I actually feed local mill own brand grass nuts as they are cheaper. My veteran loves them too, he probably gets between 2-3 kilos a day. I feed them along with fast fibre, hi fi senior & sugarbeet. I cut out the balancer he used to have, as providing he receives at least 1 kilo of fast fibre, Allen & Page advised he would receive all the vits & mins he needs.

To be honest he's never looked better, but I feel your pain regarding how expensive it is to feed.

 

[Hels_Bells]

Ooooh that is so interesting HOLCHE - thanks very much!!! Right... I am on it. At present I think he gets about 1.5 kilos per day before soaking, so I will up them gradually. That explains why he loves them so - he's such a low maintenance would live on grass all year if he could kind of horse!! This means I could probably cut down the readigrass quite a bit!! Cheers!!!