Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Another Chore Having horses on our property and caring for them ourselves has really been an eye opening experience. The work that goes into maintaining horse facilities is a never ending job. Combine that with having to provide for all your horses physical needs can make for an interesting life. I work at an office and they are floored when I might say that I’m tired from being up late shoeing my horses (we have 5) or when asked what I’m doing for the weekend and I respond by saying I’m getting hay in. I get the usual blank look and then the question comes…. So that takes all weekend. Well, Yea! Putting up hay for the entire year accounts for 2 or 3 weekends. I mean were talking about 400 small 70lb square bales and just under 100 large 800lb round bales. I never in a million years would have thought 15 years ago that I would be so concerned about the weather and crops. But I do now because it effects how much I have to pay for feed and the quality of that feed. It’s amazing to me how obvious we can be when we have horses in boarding situations. Did you know that Legumes (leafy plants such as alfalfa, clover and lespedeza) hays are considered to be better for your horses due to higher nutritional value than grass(fescue, blue grass, orchard grass, timothy, and Bermuda grass) hays. Did you know that the leaves contain two-thirds of the protein found in hay? Outside factors like when a field is cut and the weather conditions can greatly impact the quality of hay. So many farmers wait till late June to take off 1st cutting and they are loosing so much in quality of their hay by doing so. It further effects 2nd cuttings value as well because now your talking about a very stemmy hay which reduces the number of leaves further. The following is a widely accepted method of grading hay. If you use the numbers as a ranking system the lower the total number the higher quality the hay is.Stage of Harvest
- 1. Before heading or bloom 0-5% of leaves are old and brown
- 2. Early heading or bloom 6-15% of leaves are old and brown
- 3. Mid-to late-heading or bloom 16-30% of leaves are old and brown
- 4. Seed stage (stemmy) >30% of leaves are old and brown
Leafiness
- 1. Very leafy
- 2. Leafy
- 3. Not leafy
- 4. Few leaves
Steminess
- 1. None or only small diameter stems
- 2. Few or medium diameter stems
- 3. Many or large diameter stems
- 4. Mostly stems or very coarse diameter stems
Color
- 1. Natural green color of crop
- 2. Light green to slightly brownish
- 3. Yellow to straw to brownish
- 4. Brown or black
Odor
- 1. Clean
- 2. Dusty
- 3. Moldy - Musty
- 4. Burnt
Softness
- 1. Very soft and pliable
- 2. Soft
- 3. Slightly harsh
- 4. Harsh and brittle
Also remember to penalize hay with foreign objects and insects.
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