There are a lot of misconceptions about horses and hay. For one thing, hay don't produce weight, grain does. People who have horses want square bales simply because that's what they were told to use, they saw fed on television or read in a book or by a "friend", I've heard from many folks that rounds are no good for horses. That's false, completely false. If a horse is stalled, squares work, but I have a question for you and all the other horse people here and that is in a natural environment is a horse stalled? Of course not. Horses are herd animals and they prefer to be outside so long as they have a sheltered area to get out of the weather. Horses don't like hail or rain driven wind. Other than that, nothing affects them. It's actually better to let a horse run. Horses develop bad habits like cribbing because they are bored and they don't like being contained in a stall. Horses on free range develop a better immune system, suffer fewer health problems and are much happier. My wife has a 32 year old old style Morgan who has never seen a stall until this winter and he just a spry as a yearling most of the time.
People build elaborate hoarse quarters, indoor riding areans and so on. For what? So the horses can, in boredom, chew it apart. Morton builds some fancy barns and stalls and a good horse can and will masticate it away in short order. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Our horses aren't treated like a "Herd". On the contrary. Our Percherons are very expensive, pure bred horses. One of our mares is a Salerno Degas granddaughter and she is one of 2 left in the world. We do stall the Percherons but only during foaling and only so that the vet and my wife and I can make sure the foal is okay, delivery went as planned, the placenta is expelled and so on. As soon as the foal has it's "sea legs" and is reasonably secure and is nursing, we turn the mare and foal out, only bringing them in at night and for the proper veterinary procedures. That nightly confinement is eliminated as soon as possible, that is, as soon as the mare/foal combination is accepted into the group and the mare has set her territory.
We have 13 stalls available at all times but we seldom use any stalls.
Back to rounds. Horse people for the most part don't have the equipment to feed rounds anyway and that's good for me and good for any hay grower, however, 99% of the horse people I deal with haven't the faintest idea what the difference is between good hay and poor hay. We perform either Near Infrared or Wet Chemistry on our hay segregating fields and cuts and can provide scientific analysis on all our forage if need be but that 99% wouldn't have any idea what they are looking at anyway. The prime reason we do chemistry is because we were selling rounds for dry cows and certain minerals in those rounds have to be below a pre-described level.
Our horses, because they free range, are very affectionate toward humans. We have never tried in any way to control or confine them and because of that, you can go in the pasture, any one of the pastures and they will come right up. You don't need a treat, they just like to be, should I say, groomed. Percherons weight in the excess of 2000 pounds each so you have to be very careful about where they place their feet. Their hooves on your feet, without steel toes can result in a trip to the emergency room and a cast. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
I find that peoples misconceptions about horses are to my advantage in so much as forage sales. I chuckle about them though.
