Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Hay, I Have a Question

Yesterday we loaded the last bales of hay from our old barn and brought them up to our new barn. Our hay has been stored on pallets, which had plywood on top. But, there is still an amazing collection of hay chaff and seed heads that became packed into the pallets. I had to pull the clumped chaff out of pallets in moving them. The pile of chaff smells like good hay. It doesn't appear to be dusty. I didn't see any evidence of mice. So I'm wondering if this chaff could be used to supplement the feed for my guys, or whether I should simply spread it on the pasture hoping some of the seed will produce lovely new grass. With the cost of hay rising..... a person wonders!


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11 comments:

  1. Lori SkoogAugust 17, 2011 at 8:13 AM

    Spread it on you pasture...it will be like top seeding and more grass will grow. Do you feed much hay now that there is grass?

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  2. ShirleyAugust 17, 2011 at 8:17 AM

    The thing about chaff is that it is so fine- unless you are really spreading it on coarse hay it could cause the horses to choke if they take big bites of it.

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  3. DreamingAugust 17, 2011 at 8:27 AM

    Lori - our pasture is getting really dry. Pippin had founder problems years ago so I limit his pasture time - although now that it is drying up, it isn't such an issue. They are out for about 5 hours a day. I am still feeding them 8-10 pounds of hay, each. I use a nibble net so it takes them a bit more time to wolf it down!

    Shirley - choking was a concern. I had figured I would throw a cup or two of it in with their grain if I decided to use it that way. I am leaning toward overseeding part of our pasture...and I WILL move it to the new house to do that!!

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  4. JennAugust 17, 2011 at 10:07 AM

    Overseed with it...between the seeds and chaff it will be a nice mix to start the grass nicely. I don't know about your growing area, but around here we can't plant grass seeds for fall growth until mid-September.

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  5. KimAugust 17, 2011 at 1:14 PM

    I don't know about the chaff but I do know it feels nice to have hay on hand with a drought like this. We are having 20 large bales delivered this week which we got at a bargain price. Yeah!

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  6. PatriceAugust 17, 2011 at 4:19 PM

    I think I'd spread it on the pasture. I'd be afraid of it causing a respiratory problem if they breathed it in. I know hay is expensive, but so are vet bills. Just a thought. I might be wrong on this.

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  7. TerryAugust 17, 2011 at 6:37 PM

    I think I'd spread it before a big snow and let the melt "plant" it.

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  8. LouiseAugust 17, 2011 at 8:44 PM

    Terry has the perfect plan, I think.

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  9. Laughing Orca RanchAugust 17, 2011 at 11:54 PM

    Sprinkle it on top of their grain...like sprinkles on ice cream. :)

    Or like the cookie crumbs at the bottom of the box, let them nibble and enjoy.

    I feed the "crumbs" to my mare and she hoovers them right up, just as she does with the "crumbs" that fall from her flakes of hay.

    Never considered using the "crumbs" to reseed a pasture, probably because we don't get enough rain to grow good pasture grass and because watering a large pasture is too expensive in our area.

    ~Lisa

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  10. Leah FryAugust 18, 2011 at 4:24 AM

    I would spread it, but that's because I have one (Jaz) that is sensitive to dust. He's never given me a reason to fear choking, but I've had to give him TriHyst for wheezing.

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  11. Far Side of FiftyAugust 18, 2011 at 8:02 AM

    Spread it out and let it grow..if it has laid in that area since last fall it is probably dusty:(

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