Archive for It's About The Horse The Free Forum for those Doing Parelli - and a whole lot More! "Anything forced and misunderstood can never be beautiful." Xenophon (430-355 B.C.),
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ladycfp
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Square bales or round bales?I have always fed square bales and am wondering about changing to round since they are in such greater supply around here. Quality issues aside- not that this is not important but assume equal quality- or can you?
I know nothing about feeding from a round bale. Do I need special equipment? Help!
Right now we throw hay twice a day for 3 horses, mostly easy keepers. What are the considerations? I have heard you have to immunize for botulism if you feed rounds- fact or crap? Thanks for weighing in with your experience.
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Leah
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Re: Square bales or round bales? | ladycfp wrote: | I have always fed square bales and am wondering about changing to round since they are in such greater supply around here. Quality issues aside- not that this is not important but assume equal quality- or can you?
[I don't think you can-but that does not mean a round bale is worse-quality can even vary from square bale to square. So as a generalization, there is nothing wrong with round bales. They are usually more economical as well]
I know nothing about feeding from a round bale. Do I need special equipment? Help!
[It depends-the feedstore here has 2 sizes-one is small enough to fit on the back of a truck and could be driven to the pasture and dropped-the other size is bigger.
If you are not going to plunk it in the field immediately, you could have trouble moving it once you get it off your truck. Some creative friends have rolled them-but not recommended!]
Right now we throw hay twice a day for 3 horses, mostly easy keepers. What are the considerations? I have heard you have to immunize for botulism if you feed rounds- fact or crap? Thanks for weighing in with your experience. |
The other option is place the round bale in shelter and peel off what you want to feed, put in a wheelbarrow and cart it out. It can be a PITA BUT again more economical that squares.
The biggest consideration is the size of the bale compared to your herd-at 3 horses, a big bale make get pretty icky before it is finished....but that just depends.
The other factor is waste-many horses will trompse the bales and potty on them so the money you save is gone with the wasted hay.
I don't have a definited answer on the botulism though I don't anyone personally that does-but the people that I know that use them have a greater number of horses on each bale so they go pretty fast.
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cheerios
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Re: Square bales or round bales? | ladycfp wrote: |
I know nothing about feeding from a round bale. Do I need special equipment? Help!
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You'll need a tractor or truck capable of moving a round bale. The ones we get down here are usually 1000 - 1200 lbs or so. The tractor at the camp I worked at last summer couldn't handle a round bale this size and it was a PITA trying to find smaller ones for sale.
Might want to consider buying a hay ring. This will help keep the hay in one spot and keep the horses from walking through it, peeing on it, rolling in it, etc.
Round Bales are much more economical. The rescue I work with has 40 horses. I can't imagine how much more it would cost if we were feeding square bales. We have 20 horses currently turned out on a friend's 35 acres. The 20 horses (along with 5 cows they share the pasture with) went through 4 round bales last week alone.
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becky b
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I stopped using round bales 2 years ago. My reasons were
1. Too much wasted hay, they would pull it out away from the bale, and make a big mess on the ground and then potty on it. Roughly 20 to 25% of each bale was wasted.
2. I have some easy keepers that were getting too heavy due to the endless supply of hay.
3. Around where the round bale is on the ground gets very muddy and icky really fast. I didn't use them last winter or this winter and I still have bald spots in the pasture where the round bales were.
4. My husband doesn't let me drive the big tractor and it is the only one that you can move round bales with. It is a pain in the but to put the round bale spear on the bucket of the tractor and take it off and put it back on and take it off...
5. My neighbors cows can no longer get out and pull the tarps off of my round bales and destroy them!!
6. My hay barn used to be a horse barn, so I keep square bales in the stalls on pallets, nice and secure. I didn't have a secure place to keep round bales.
7. I can throw the square bales where I want too. I can make as many piles as I want as far from each other as I want. One bully can no longer guard the round bale and not share with others.
I fed round bales for over 10 years, and I don't miss them one bit.
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becdubie
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We will continue with small squares mainly.
We have bought the rounds a few times just to try them out. But since we don't have a tractor, we had to rely on the neighbor to move them around.
My reasons for not using Round:
2) difficult to guage how much you feed. WE can not leave a bale out for them to munch on...they would never leave it I'm sure.
3) to much waste.
4) no tractor
5) no place to store them
so for us...until we physically cannot buck bales anymore we just deal with hauling hay 3 days a year in the summer. Good exercse..... when we can't do it ourselves, we will hire the local football team! LOL 
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PasoBaby_CarolU
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I don't feed round, but have fed the big squares (3' x 3' x 8') at 830 lbs each and the huge squares (4' x 4' x 8') 1300 lbs each. All my horses are easy keepers so putting the hay in a ring and letting them free access has never been an option. Whatever kind of hay I get, I weigh individual portions. If I had space I'd consider one coral with the big bale and then time their access to it, but that isn't an option here and now.
Our tractor is too small, so I also have to get the neighbor to stack them for me. This is much easier then hand-stacking over 600 small bales. I get the hay delivered and stacked in one day, at a better price, and this has it's advantages. If I can get it all from my preferred grower this way, it's the way to go for me. He only does large bales.
Disadvantages. Waste, although I solved this by putting down tarps before cutting the twine and moving them as I moved into the bale. I would get a complete feeding for one horse out of the 'waste' every day, so it can be substantial if you don't do this.
If you run into a bad bale, it is impossible to do much with it...move it section by section by hand to your waste pile. Really a pain, especially when you are allergic to mold.
If you travel with your horses, it's impossible to get enough loose hay in a hay bag for a several day clinic or camping trip. I buy the Standlee compressed bales (which are really my VERY favorite, but way too expensive to feed all year).
The Standlee hay from Idaho in the compressed bales is actually the best way if you can afford it. If I had the $$ it is what I'd feed. It's consistent, clean, the 50-60 lb bales can be moved easily. They come on 1-ton pallets of 36 bales that can be moved with a fork lift. And you can put a LOT of hay in a small space. The price may have come down with the cost of fuel, but the last time I checked, to get one tractor trailer full, 24 tons, delivered here was $360/ton. Way too much. I do buy a dozen bales for traveling each year.
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Clarissa
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I like using round bales. However our rounds are much lighter it seems than the ones you all are talking about. We do have pure lucerne rounds(4x4's) that would go about 300kgs but our grass hay are 3x4's & only about 100kg. Even now in my deminished physical capacity, I can still manage to roll them off the back of my 4WD & land them on a pallet under cover beside my horse float where they get covered with a big tarp.
Each feed I unroll the right amount for that feed into my big builders barrow. My horses stand patiently at the fence in their respective positions & wait to have their hay placed in front of them against the fence. I will not tolerate bickering amongst my horses. If they steal from each other or bully, I chase them mercilessly just like the alpha mare might do if they annoyed her. I only had to do that a few times to stop any stealing & bullying behaviour.
There is no waste. Jude always tidies up after the others have finished. Since I feed them against a netting fence they can't walk through it & if there is rain I move the feed place along the fence a bit or if heavy rain & lots of mud, they have to wait. They are lucky in that they have a whole 16ac to feed from also.
The other thing to note is that they are also trained NOT to poop in their feed area including all along that particular fence. Once I show that I have designated a given area as a feed place they know not to toilet there. Of course that works well because they aren't confined.
I used to feed squares but lucerne is very expensive here & it was very hard to avoid waste. I soaked the biscuits before feeding & used old shower trays as extra large feed bins but still they dragged it all out onto the ground where it got tromped into the dirt or mud. I tried putting the bathtubs against the fence but they always tried to get the spilt leaves from behind the tubs & pushed the tubs away from the fence. It was just because it was lucerne they were eating which they loved so much. Most problems stopped when I moved to feeding rhodes grass hay from round bales.
For me round bales = problem solved! 
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Pyrgirl
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I've stuck with the small square bales because of the ease of storage, of moving, of being able to weigh my portions, lots less waste, and a bit safer on the botulism scale. I used some round bales one winter and had to hand carry the hay in portions 1/8 mile to the horses. Never again if I can help it.
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