Partially replacing hay with chaff?

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SpruceRI

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Does anyone do this?

I have 3 pones. They mostly live out in the winter on zilch grazing so they eat hay ad lib and some added haylage.

If hay is going to be in short supply or mega expensive, I was considering replacing part of their rations with chaff.

I have very little hay storage so the chaff can live out under a tarp.....

How much would I need to feed given that I have a piggie Shetland, a piggie Welsh D and a fussy Welsh D?

At the mo, the shettie has access to everything the girls have, but I wouldn't want him stuffing his face with more than his fair share of the chaff.

Should I buy Dengie unmollassed/half Alfalfa stuff, or my feed stores' cheapie (mollassed chaff)?

Or.... should I just chuck some of my own straw over the gate as this is all chaff is essentially isn't it? Chopped straw, hay and some binding agent (like mollasses)

Is it wheat or oat straw I should feed and how do I tell the difference?

Thanks
 
My veteran cob (good doer but not dangerously so) comes in during the summer for about 5 - 6 hours across the middle of the day. At the moment he has a chaff based feed when he comes in, mainly to hide his Ventipulmin and Cosequin in and the same before he goes out again. This feed is just a bit of speedibeet, bit of Mollichaff Veteran chaff and bit of Hi Fi Lite. He also has a medium trug tub of Hi Fi Lite as a hay replacer. Never finishes it. Molly, my 16 yr old Shetland x pigmy hippopotamus has been coming in as per Sunny but just having a handful of Spillers high fibre cubes to come in to and a standard feed bowl of Hi Fi Lite. But she takes being a good doer to Olympic levels so from tomorrow she has to be stabled 21 hrs out of 24 or she'll be down with laminitis before you can say Jack Robimson. She will only have 1 small-ish haylage net plus 2 feedbowls of Hi Fi Lite plus a handful of high fibre cubes in a boredom breaker ball. Take care feeding straw as it can cause impaction colic in piggie ponies.
 
Seriously expensive way to feed! My two (both medium sized good doers) would easily eat a whole bag of hifi between them a day if given the chance. At not far off £13 a bag, that's a hell of a lot of money a month!

Why can't they just get adlib haylage? Or even slightly resiticted haylege. It's a very cheap way to feed and no more fattening than hay. A big bale is cheaper than hay, will keep a good week+ if it's decent horse stuff (drier than cattle stuff) and can be stored outside, uncovered.

If you feed it in the field, put it into some kind of feeder that the shetland pony can't reach into - we used to have 'hayboxes' for the bigger horses - at 3ft high the big horses could easily get their head and neck over it and onto the ground but the welsh A didn't have a chance.
 
Seriously expensive way to feed! My two (both medium sized good doers) would easily eat a whole bag of hifi between them a day if given the chance. At not far off £13 a bag, that's a hell of a lot of money a month!

Why can't they just get adlib haylage? Or even slightly resiticted haylege. It's a very cheap way to feed and no more fattening than hay. A big bale is cheaper than hay, will keep a good week+ if it's decent horse stuff (drier than cattle stuff) and can be stored outside, uncovered.

If you feed it in the field, put it into some kind of feeder that the shetland pony can't reach into - we used to have 'hayboxes' for the bigger horses - at 3ft high the big horses could easily get their head and neck over it and onto the ground but the welsh A didn't have a chance.
 
It would be a very expensive way of feeding - even the bale of oat chaff I bought cost around £4.50 and my pony won't even try it. The Dengie feeds are even more expensive.

Could you pay a farmer in advance to store some hay for you?
 
Hum.... see a bag of 'cheap chaff' is about £6.... so if that lasted 2 days, it wouldn't be too bad... just not sure whether that much mollassed chaff is a good thing...

In the worst of the winter I feed a tad more that one bale of hay a day, and a section or 2 of haylage.... plus hard feed.

That keeps them going all day....

I wouldn't want to feed 100% haylage because it would blow their brains and make them fat. Great for keeping weight on the skinny cob but it would be too much for the shetland.

If hay is going to be as expensive as haylage £6.50 ish... then haylage would in theory be better as it has a higher feed value, but I'd have to feed it in smaller quantities and would need to fill them up with something else.

Hum.... don't know any farmers that would store me some hay :o(

I know someone who runs a scaffolding company, was thinking maybe asking him if he'd put me up a roofed (no sides) barn... but friend I spoke to the other day said I'd need a serious amount of roof to cover even a small amount of hay because otherwise the weather would blow in and ruin it all.

I can't get big round hay/haylage delivered, so that's not an option.

Ooh... so difficult :o(
 
madhossy said:
Hum.... see a bag of 'cheap chaff' is about £6.... so if that lasted 2 days, it wouldn't be too bad... just not sure whether that much mollassed chaff is a good thing...

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Its my understanding that not all chaffs are suitable as hay replacers. I dont think a "cheap" mollased based chaff would be one to be honest. I think youd be looking at hifi or happy hoof etc which would be more expensive than £6 a bag :(
 
Stinkbomb said:
Its my understanding that not all chaffs are suitable as hay replacers. I dont think a "cheap" mollased based chaff would be one to be honest. I think youd be looking at hifi or happy hoof etc which would be more expensive than £6 a bag :(
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Yes, that's what I wondered...

I hate handling the mollassed ones, so sticky!
 
The oat chaff was not molassed at all and did come in a large bale size (larger than a Dengie bag). You could mix it in to make a more expensive one go further if you didn't want to feed it alone.
 
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