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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 319
| Do you think it is better to feed fresh hay from bales? Cubes? Pellets? Dehydrated?
Is the nutrition benefit the same for all? I've only been feeding it for 3 months or so. Horse loves it (from bales) but don't know if I'll be able to get it year round. He no longer touches the grass hay and eats the alfalfa before his feed. Just wondering if the "real" alfalfa is better for them. | |
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 Shelter Dog Lover
Posts: 10277
 
| I think good quality bales are better. I fed the Omnis Cubes and they were good quality but found I can get great baled alfalfa for less then what the Omnis costs me. I always question the quality of what is used for pellets. | |
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Meanest Teacher!!!
Posts: 8555
  
Location: sunny california | i have found way too much junk in the cubes like nails and such so I prefer hay | |
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  Warmblood with Wings
Posts: 27846
Location: Florida.. | horses are grazers and foragers. I love cubes but would not replace my loose hay with only pellets or cubes but thats just me.. | |
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| I think the hay is better IF you know for sure where it comes from. Freight is too expensive to have alfalfa shipped down here in South Texas so I get the Omni cubes. My sister had a horse die from blister beetle poisoning so I am paranoid about where the hay comes from. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1131
| We keep full hay bags in front of the two performance horses full of bale alfalfa 24/7 and supplement their feed with 3 quarts of alfalfa pellet/Essential K 50/50mix. Keeps them looking and working great. | |
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| A flake of Baled alfalfa, 3 lbs of whole oats and a half pound of rolled or chopped corn is the best balanced natural feeding program you can do. I also like to toss a handful of ADM GroStrong minerals in their feed every other day.
Be careful of overdosing on alfalfa since it runs from 16% to 24% protein ... a block per day or per feeding is plenty along with good quality hay and your grain.
On the subject of blister beetles ... they are chasing baby grasshoppers and not eating alfalfa ... so whatever your warm climate growing season is in your area .. buy your alfalfa in the cooler spring months before the bugs start to hatch .. my tx/ok border area dictates I buy no later than the month of May .... | |
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Veteran
Posts: 139
Location: Abbotsford B.C. Canada | Contact Dr. Bob Coleman U of Ky horse nutrition extension expert.
He did his PhD on feeding alfalf hay to horses from the same field harvested at the same time and made into hay or cubes. The digestibility was about the same but horses ate 25% more when the hay was cubed VS long hay. So cubes may be fine if long hay not handy.
We always use some alfalfa as a natural buffer for horses and time it for 1-2 hours before a run . This means the little mat of alfalfa is in there and can catch the acid being splashed up or pushed up where it should not be in the stomach. Goes with the action. It does not seem tp hype up a horse or sand bag them .
The pellets are easier for old horses who cannot chew well but may have less bulk than you want as a main part of the diet as they are finely ground. I have not seem horses choke on them but if a horse was hungry and dehydrated it could happen so use wet cubes if long hay not an option.
My horse did really well with 6 lbs a day alfalfa cubes split in two feedins mixed with basic grass hay . I board out so they just were fed dry no issues. My horse was well fed so never dove into them !
Horses can eat more alfalfa than grass hay with the same fiber levels .
I would not use straight alfalfa for a barrel horse but half with grass is ok and has no negative side effects from any research I have seen.
Do not use it for an HYPP horse as potassium a possible issue.
Cubes may be surprisingly low in sugar content and help a PSSM horse stay in line for sugar content in the diet. A tim / alf cube really works well for those horses for us.
Cheers,
Coastal rider
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Warmblood with Wings
Posts: 27846
Location: Florida.. | thats what I use cr.. timothy cubes soaked for my cushings horse prone to laminitis .
i think what I am trying to say is its good to have something for the horse to nibble on if possible thru out the day. not just stalled and fed cubes or pellets at feeding time.. loose hay is always a good choice IF horse can chew. | |
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 I Chore in Chucks
Posts: 2882
Location: MD | I've been using cubes. And meadow/orchard grass hay
My horses are on a basically free choice hay "diet". I love using the cubes for a few reasons:
A) the extra water they are getting especially when they don't want to drink for whatever reason.
B) in the winter when it's so cold it's hard to breathe outside, it must feel pretty darn good to be a horse getting a hot bucket of alfalfa cubes.
C) zero waste!
They also get a few flakes of 50% orchard/50%meadow grass in stalls and on pasture in a round bale. I have thought of just buying the bales but to be honest I really like how my horses look right now and don't want to "fix what ain't broke." Also the joy on their face when Im carrying their alfalfa buckets down the aisle is enough to keep it this way! | |
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 Serious Snap Trapper
Posts: 4275
Location: In The Snow, AZ | Baled alfalfa, for sure, as long as it was good quality. But I like keeping a slow feed bag of grass in front of mine at all times as well.
I find it interesting about using alfalfa as a buffer before a run! Not a bad idea! | |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
Location: West Texas | All forms are "real" alfalfa.
In my opinion, they each have their attributes. Quality matters most in all forms. Baled alfalfa, cubed alfalfa, and pelleted alfalfa are all alfalfa. I have fed every form extensively and can tell you hands down, a top quality cube is the best form of alfalfa hay, bar none.
I personally disagree with baled alfalfa being better. Good baled hay is better than a poor cube. But if top quality hay is compared in both forms, cubes are superior. In some areas pellets have their merit, especially as a protein supplement or if used as a base in a forage concentrate.
Everything aside, including costs, a high quality cube will do much more for any horse than baled. Both pellets and cubes are screened and cleaned bales that increase digestibility, decrease waste, and add convenience.
This is unbiased assessment. We feed about 50 horses/month (the majority utilizing cubes). I am a representative for Danco Forage, which makes and sells cubes. However, Danco also sells baled hay and pellets.
Edited by Tdove 2015-09-15 10:36 AM
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
Location: West Texas | Here is posting I wrote about the benefits of our Mustang Sally alfalfa cubes. It touches on some of the reasons why we feel cubes are a better choice than bales. This information will be accurate for other top quality brands of mini cubes, that are relatively soft. I hope you find this beneficial information.
This was before we introduced the Omnis cube. Note: Omnis cube should really not be compared to baled hay, since that would be an apples to oranges comparison, especially when comparing on costs.
1. Convenience - Mustang Sally cubes are more densely packed than baled hay. They can be shipped and stored more efficiently. Bagged cubes take up a fraction of the space as baled hay. They come on pallets that are easily moved around with a tractor and when you’re on the road, you can take twice the amount of feed and tuck it away in just your tack compartment. Mustang Sally is scoop-able and can be fed at whatever amount that you desire, with very little time and effort involved. Whether you are at home or at an event, all you need is a bag, a scoop, and a bucket. Feeding times, barn clean up, and stall clean-up are all cut down considerably.
2. Consistency - Baled hay, in many parts of the country is very inconsistent. Poor quality, lack of availability, and high fluctuating prices are all things that customers tell us they do not miss about feeding baled hay. Mustang Sally is grown in-house, on private, irrigated farms. Our cubes are made from the same top quality hay that you want to feed to your horses. Because it is Northern grown, on extremely nutrient dense soil, there is generally only one cutting (and a whole lot of it is produced). This means that there is little variation from one batch to the next, due to seasonal weather conditions and decreasing quality of multiple cuttings. The hay is stored, covered, and cubes are made fresh when truckloads are ordered. This means Mustang Sally cubes can offer guaranteed minimum nutrition and we offer forage that is marked 55% TDN, right on the label! In addition to the consistent nutritional qualities of our cubes, we can also offer year round availability and a price that does not move from month-to-month and skyrocket in the winter. This allows our customers to better budget for their feed costs.
3. Versatility - Mustang Sally cubes are small and soft enough for weanlings, contain potent protein and nutrition for broodmares, are packed with highly digestible, energy dense calories for elite performance horses, and can be soaked in minutes for even the most geriatric equine. The feeding directions are anywhere from one cube (for a healthy treat), to the entire sole ration (replacing all baled hay and grain, even for competition horses). On top of that, it is scoop-able (for accurate measurement), contains long stem fiber (like natural pasture), is low in NSC (for carbohydrate sensitive horses), and economical enough for the entire herd!
Also, it is not just for horses! All forage consuming animals from cattle, to goats, to deer, and even exotic species thrive on Mustang Sally. It is simply THE MOST VERSATILE feed product on the market, period!
4. Cost Savings and Nutritional Comparison to Other Forages - Okay here is the big one and requires quite the detailed explanation. There are several parts to this answer. Many times people fall into the trap of looking simply at a portion of their feed costs instead of the total ration's costs, or they fail to take into consideration things such as waste, digestibility, percent moisture, and even labor and storage costs. It is only when we take into consideration all these factors, can we really begin to see the cost benefit of Mustang Sally cubes.
First, let us look at Mustang Sally cubes compared to baled alfalfa hay. Mustang Sally contains approximately 10 percent moisture, compared to 15 percent for baled hay. Also, all of the hay contained in cubes is consumed by the horse. With baled hay you have WASTE at almost every corner. You lose leaf and stems (mostly leaves, the most nutritional part of the hay) each time the bales are handled, when they are stacked from the field, stacked on the transport truck, as they fly down the highway, as you un-stack and stack yet again in your hay barn, when you break open to feed, and finally when the horse pulls out large chunks from the feeder, sorts through the leaves, and tramples the stems, possibly urinating on them as well. All of that contributes to a significant amount of waste! Mustang Sally cubes have a higher leaf to stem ratio than baled hay and there is no sorting. All of the hay in the bag gets into the horse. In addition to this, hay cubes have a higher digestion rate than baled hay, and because the hay is chopped, you have increased surface area. This is very important because of the way a horse digests food. It is microflora in the hindgut that are able to break down the thick cell walls of forage. This combined with the high speed in which fiber passes through the horse’s digestive tract, creates a big need for high digestibility. With Mustang Sally cubes, the rate of consumption is slowed, the horse masticates (chews) the hay more thoroughly, and with the much larger surface area of the product to begin with, Mustang Sally offers around 25% more efficiency than baled hay (small bales). With large rounds and squares, the efficiency percentage is even greater, due to the considerable waste of large free choice bales. When you combine this with the labor savings and time savings of the convenient bags, coupled with less clean up (both loose hay on the ground and less manure to clean), it is easy to see how Mustang Sally saves you time and money compared to bales.
But, "what about alfalfa pellets?" you ask. A couple of things, the alfalfa used in pelleted hay is often times not of the same quality as cubed or baled hay (although a few are). Secondly, because the hay is ground very fine, pellets actually pass through the digestive tract much faster than cubes or baled hay. This offsets some of the advantages in percent digestibility that grinding and pelleting provide. Also, alfalfa pellets are NOT long stem fiber, like hay cubes and baled hay. Long stem fiber is important for the health and motility of the horse’s digestive tract.
And, what about the lower cost of grass hay? I really won't go into that in detail here. Grass hay compared to alfalfa is simply apples to oranges. We have already laid out the benefits of Mustang Sally cubes over alfalfa hay, so let us just look at alfalfa vs. grass. Alfalfa is not only higher in quality protein than grass hay; it is again, a more digestible source of forage. So, pound for pound alfalfa contributes to more digestible calories than grass hays do. On top of this, there are much more nutrients available in alfalfa. This gives the horse growth, performance, and increased vitality. In fact, just 10 lbs. of early cut alfalfa will out yield most horse "conditioners" on every ingredients, except B-12 (which is manufactured in a healthy hindgut). By feeding alfalfa instead of grass hay, you not only get the benefits listed above, but you are able to drastically cut down on the amount of concentrates (which are either full of dangerous and unwanted starches or by-products that are void of wholesome nutrients found in natural whole fibers and must be fortified), which are by all accounts very expensive, AND can lead to digestive upset (colic, founder, etc.) and a LOSS OF EFFICIENCY of the micro-flora in the hindgut to digest forages!
This leads me to the last point on how Mustang Sally cubes can save you dollars. It is by looking at the value and cost of your TOTAL feed ration. Much the same way that alfalfa vs. grass allowed better nutrition and required less undesirable and more expensive concentrate to be fed, Mustang Sally cubes further that concept when compared to alfalfa hay. Because of the increased leaf to stem ratio, less waste, and even the increased nutrient value of the Northern grown alfalfa that goes into Mustang Sally, we can further reduce the expense of the costly and heavy by-product laden concentrates. When you give your horse the highly nutritive and highly digestible Mustang Sally cube, you are decreasing the amount of more expensive and highly processed concentrates, thus providing better and more natural overall nutrition to your horse, all the while reducing your overall costs, in the process. In fact, the nutrition in Mustang Sally is so high, that many of our customers (riding top quality show and performance horses), choose to feed our cubes as the SOLE Ration! They feel that this has been a positive benefit, not only to their horses' health and performance, but they all agree that their pocket book has really benefitted.
Edited by Tdove 2015-09-21 6:49 AM
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 Expert
Posts: 5293
| Tdove - 2015-09-15 7:44 AM
All forms are "real" alfalfa.
In my opinion, they each have their attributes. Quality matters most in all forms. Baled alfalfa, cubed alfalfa, and pelleted alfalfa are all alfalfa. I have fed every form extensively and can tell you hands down, a top quality cube is the best form of alfalfa hay, bar none.
I personally disagree with baled alfalfa being better. Good baled hay is better than a poor cube. But if top quality hay is compared in both forms, cubes are superior. In some areas pellets have their merit, especially as a protein supplement or if used as a base in a forage concentrate.
Everything aside, including costs, a high quality cube will do much more for any horse than baled. Both pellets and cubes are screened and cleaned bales that increase digestibility, decrease waste, and add convenience.
This is unbiased assessment. We feed about 50 horses/month (the majority utilizing cubes). I am a representative for Danco Forage, which makes and sells cubes. However, Danco also sells baled hay and pellets.
Danco might have a quality product, but not all cubes were created equal. I feel 24/7 Orchard alfalfa mix and streight alfalfa 2x a day. I also picked up a bag of alfalfa/Oat cubes. Horses really like them. THe oat makes them nice and soft.
Someone above mentioned corn. Corn is really bad choice for horses. | |
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Expert
Posts: 1695
Location: Willows, CA | FLITASTIC - 2015-09-15 3:00 PM
Tdove - 2015-09-15 7:44 AM
All forms are "real" alfalfa.
In my opinion, they each have their attributes. Quality matters most in all forms. Baled alfalfa, cubed alfalfa, and pelleted alfalfa are all alfalfa. I have fed every form extensively and can tell you hands down, a top quality cube is the best form of alfalfa hay, bar none.
I personally disagree with baled alfalfa being better. Good baled hay is better than a poor cube. But if top quality hay is compared in both forms, cubes are superior. In some areas pellets have their merit, especially as a protein supplement or if used as a base in a forage concentrate.
Everything aside, including costs, a high quality cube will do much more for any horse than baled. Both pellets and cubes are screened and cleaned bales that increase digestibility, decrease waste, and add convenience.
This is unbiased assessment. We feed about 50 horses/month (the majority utilizing cubes). I am a representative for Danco Forage, which makes and sells cubes. However, Danco also sells baled hay and pellets.
Danco might have a quality product, but not all cubes were created equal. I feel 24/7 Orchard alfalfa mix and streight alfalfa 2x a day. I also picked up a bag of alfalfa/Oat cubes. Horses really like them. THe oat makes them nice and soft.
Someone above mentioned corn. Corn is really bad choice for horses.
I mostly agree here. There are some advantages to long hay in that a horse "may" chew it longer if their teeth are in good shape and they are comfortable to chew. This is a good thing as it generates more saliva, but relies on the horse owner making sure that the mouth is right.
Quality makes a huge difference and it may be easier to identify good hay compared to recognizing good cubes from bad. These are all points that vary greatly upon your supplier.
Flitastic is right about less waste, less dust, and ease of feeding. She is also right that there can be better value if cubes if they are the right cubes. Bad hay is as bad as bad cubes, but often easier to identify.
When we hauled a lot, we fed a super quality cube that we had made to our spec with our label on the bag. They were 50/50 Alfalfa and Timothy from Canada. The Timothy made them soft and the quality was great. I wish I could get them again. She is also right about corn. Please do not feed it.
Edited by winwillows 2015-09-15 6:50 PM
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Tried and True
Posts: 21185
Location: Where I am happiest | When feeding cubes do you soak them or not? | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
Location: West Texas | My experience is horses eat pellets very fast, bales next, and cubes the slowest. They salivate and chew cubes more. Cubes help keep their teeth in better shape. It is like this nearly 100% of the time.
Bottom line, they are all good and useful. I like all forms of alfalfa and quality is the biggest criteria for any of them. Look for pellets or cubes that are soft. Personally, I will not feed pellets or cubes that you have to soak.
Here is the real issue. Unless you are able or willing to purchase large quantities, you will be at the mercy of price and availability of pellets or cubes. Alfalfa is more available, but the question posed was taking cost and availability aside. All pellets, cubes, and baled hay is not equal.
Pellets are not long stem forage and best used as a supplement along with hay. You can feed pellets as the sole ration and I have done this. This is just a really hard question because of the variance in quality and texture. I am answering by comparing top quality of all three.
If I couldn't get good cubes for a good price, then I would look for a good pellet. If good pellets weren't available, good hay would be the best way to go. Of course some personal preference is involved in all feed discussions and there are always several ways to accomplish a goal of good feeding.
I personally feed 18-22 lbs of Omnis cubes and nothing else, to the stalled horses and weanlings/yearlings. Before that, I fed the same if straight alfalfa cubes. I still currently utilize large bales of alfalfa/brome (group fed lesson horses) and Tifton for our and broodmares, along with supplemental cubes as needed. Pellets would work in the later as well.
Edited by Tdove 2015-09-15 9:25 PM
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| ThreeCorners - 2015-09-15 8:42 PM
When feeding cubes do you soak them or not?
I feed the Omni cubes and do not soak them. When I fed the Standlee cubes, I did soak them. They were bigger and harder than the Omni cubes. My sister feeds a different brand of cube and does not soak her cubes. | |
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Expert
Posts: 1695
Location: Willows, CA | I have heard very good things about the Omnis cubes. A friend once told me that you don't need to know everything about buying diamonds, but you do need to know everything about your Jeweler. It is kind of the same when buying cubes. It can be pretty easy to hide poor quality hay in cubes, and a lot of people do. If you are using cubes, and I like them, you need to get them from a manufacturer that you feel you can trust to provide a quality product. The mixed cubes tend to be softer and, in general, do not need to be soaked. I personally prefer these. I do still like long hay fed from a slow feeder, but often use alfalfa cubes in the diets I do to slow the hind gut down some so that the grass hay portion of the diet has a little more time for digestion. As to straight cubes being the only roughage in the diet, I have done that with good result also. But, I did this with very high quality cubes. The old saying that hay is cheaper if it has already been through the horse applies to cubes as well. | |
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 Undercover Amish Mafia Member
Posts: 9992
Location: Kansas | I feed soaked alfalfa cubes. | |
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Rad Dork
Posts: 5218
Location: Oklahoma | GLP - 2015-09-16 1:17 AM ThreeCorners - 2015-09-15 8:42 PM When feeding cubes do you soak them or not? I feed the Omni cubes and do not soak them. When I fed the Standlee cubes, I did soak them. They were bigger and harder than the Omni cubes. My sister feeds a different brand of cube and does not soak her cubes.
This. I (personal preference) wouldn't feed the Standlee cubes without some soaking.
I feed my mare the Omnis (about 6-8 pounds at a time) and it takes her about an hour and a half to eat. She's not picky, just slow. I find that if I soak the Omnis that she will leave some at the bottom of her bucket. I guess the moisture content makes her feel more full faster? I'm not sure. | |
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Alfalfa - if cost & availability is not a factor