17/05/2024
A mixed bag
Horses who are stabled and yarded can miss out on varied grazing
Different species bring different things to the diet, and the horses gut microbiome benefits from this.
Horses that are not grazing a varied pasture, or the pasture is over grazed lack the ability to forage for different things. Have you noticed your horse will wander around grazing a bit of this from here, and a bit of that from there?
But when the pasture isn't great, or the horse can't have pasture...what then?
Making mixed bags of hay is a great way to help replicate natural grazing. A variety of different hay all mixed in the same hay bag (or several hay bags in the yard/stable) is a great way to help mimick natural grazing.
Tying up two or three different bags and let the horse wander between then, or several different bags in the stable to allow them freedom to "graze" what they like.
I often do this with mine...a bag of say teff with some lucerne through it. Outside our mixed bales, this gives you more control over the amount of lucerne that particular horse is receiving.
Adding a mixed grass hay bag is good too, again, you can sprinkle some lucerne through it to entice a horse that might be fussy about grass hay.
We are thinking about stocking Rhodes too, primarily just to give people (and horses) more variety in their diets. Again, this is a great hay to use in your mixes.
Of course mixing hay if you feed out on the ground (rather than bags or nets) is a bit more tricky to mix. Mine are exceptionally good at digging out the lucerne in this situation. But again, offering your horse various species even on the ground is still a good way to replicate grazing.
Mixing hay in this way can be labour intensive and messy, but the value of mixed forage can absolutely outweigh the inconvenience!
