she will not eat her hay

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Yorkshire dumpling

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i spent a fortune (nearly £200) on some very good quality hay and £50 on some bales of straw.....

the cow bag will NOT eat the bloody hay!! it has been in the field now for 6 days and hasnt been touched! but as in another post about her breaking out, she had broken out YET AGAIN and was in the open barn/shelter munching on the frigging straw!!!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad::rolleyes:
so i put a few sections of straw in paddock this morning before i left for work to try persuade her not to escape again .....
it was gone (the straw and the horse) she was back in the barn munching straw again hay not touched :mad::mad::rolleyes::mad::mad:
so that was it, a bale of straw got thrown in the paddock with her and she happliy trotted over to it and stuffed her face..


why is she not eating the god dam hay!!!????? and why is she liking this straw so much???

stupid bloody horse lol :)
 
LOL, there's your answer!!!! Horses love to eat oat straw!! She's obviously developed quite a pallet for it and is turning her nose up at the other alternative!!! I don't believe it will do her any harm, it's long fibre and alot of natives etc this year have been given oat straw added to hay or hayledge to stretch out the hay supply due to shortages etc, the only thing is nutritionally it isn't high in anything so you'll need to ensure she's getting a balance of vitamins/minerals from feed or supplement etc.
 
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You'll prob find alot of people are having the same problem myself including.

The hay smells amazing looks amazing, but they wont touch it. The reason being is its cut from Sour Grass.

Basically when the grass grows, it is sour and then when it gets long it sweetens. Whats happenned this year is due to the change in weather the hay was cut to early. Making it sour to the taste.

I have found this week, if I open a bale and spread it a bit for a day or so, and let it air before giving it he will eat it.

I have also been spraying my straw with dettol, so that tastes worse. lol.

Its so annoying cause it costs us so much money!
 
Just to add where oat straw is given with hay it's given in rations, not sure what adlib would do health wise, you could look at putting rationed quantities of both hay and the straw out mixed, therefore not adlib at a large bale, and this may then encourage her to eat/nibble at the hay too? You could also try spraying the hay with countrywides hay boost, it comes in peppermint or molasses flavour and increases palatability, plus increases the nutrional content of the hay.
 
competitiondiva said:
Just to add where oat straw is given with hay it's given in rations, not sure what adlib would do health wise, you could look at putting rationed quantities of both hay and the straw out mixed, therefore not adlib at a large bale, and this may then encourage her to eat/nibble at the hay too? You could also try spraying the hay with countrywides hay boost, it comes in peppermint or molasses flavour and increases palatability, plus increases the nutrional content of the hay.
Click to expand...

A welsh stud local to me has always fed oat straw adlib to their section D mares and has never had any problems.
 
I <3 My Teddi said:
You'll prob find alot of people are having the same problem myself including.

The hay smells amazing looks amazing, but they wont touch it. The reason being is its cut from Sour Grass.

Basically when the grass grows, it is sour and then when it gets long it sweetens. Whats happenned this year is due to the change in weather the hay was cut to early. Making it sour to the taste.

I have found this week, if I open a bale and spread it a bit for a day or so, and let it air before giving it he will eat it.

I have also been spraying my straw with dettol, so that tastes worse. lol.

Its so annoying cause it costs us so much money!
Click to expand...

That's interesting...would bagged haylage be similarly effected? As our cut this year seems like it's been when the grass was quite short and my usually will eat anything and everything pony is turning his nose up at a lot of the new haylage in the last few weeks when we moved onto it. However, most of the other horses are tucking into theirs with glee...so maybe it's just mine that is special :)
 
Hello

I3mT - Thank you very much for the idea. I am now drying/airing out
some haylage and, so far, the fussy one is eating more of the dried.

I sure hope it keeps working! -- dene
 
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