Good ol TSC. I mostly go to the one in Belton, the nice lady that's the cashier is always so friendly and helpful and she is a pleasure to deal with. They are sometimes stocked a little better with fresher feeds. 

I've been going there lately for feed. Somehow the whole store just looks cleaner than the others around. It's worth the 10 mins extra I need to drive... lol...

I would hope that feed stores go through most feeds to not worry about sitting outside in a covered area, most people keep it stacked somewhere in their barns anyway so its exposed to temps after it's purchased. I'd think as long as its not super old its fine, and if its kept dry. 

In an unexpected turn of events, an incident Friday night left me saying goodbye to the 29 year old on Saturday...so I guess thats how I'm now cutting my feed bill. He had dsld for years so I knew someday soon it was going to come, he unfortunately just slid in the the mud the wrong way & one of the suspensories just let loose. He lived a good life with me for 21 of his 29 years. I will still buy the same amount of hay monthly for the remaining two, can't have too much hay. I actually moved my other gelding next to my mare that was bonded with the old guy, so he's in his paddock now so she has company. It had a full bale hay chix net and he had it ripped wide open within 4 hours. Hay everywhere, which all got rained on. So going to have to adjust his hay presentation, he had the panel feeder in his last paddock and he's never been able to rip one of their nets before. But I will definitely be staying with just 2 horses for a long time 

We've sold a lot of cows that normally would stick around, but other than that we aren't making any decisions until we see what our hay crop looks like this year. So far it's looking a lot better than last year. 

Last year my hay guy ran out of small bales of alfalfa/grass mix before he got to me, luckily I was able to get a load this year. It wasn't cheap but I got it. 

I've cut back on the amount of grain I am feeding. I feed roasted to perfection and it went up $5 a bag in a month. My old guy is getting the same amount, but my other horse isn't running right now so he gets a tiny amount. 

I'm lucky that we have pasture that gets me through some of the summer without having to feed hay, and that we put up our own grass hay. If I was having to buy hay to feed year around to 13 head we'd have to do a herd reduction. 

What am I doing? Sitting at home. For this first time in many years, I'm passing up groceries I usually buy. We got lucky and got last years price on 2nd cutting hay. He went up on 3rd cutting. We feed a locally milled feed that keep them looking good. Thank goodness it's summer and we have plenty of grass. If economy doesn't level out this winter will be tough.

So sorry for your loss!

Unfortunatly not all people working the feed stores rotate feed as needed... First in-first out is a concept not many off them know or use.... Most of the time I am checking dates and shuffling around bags to get the freshest.

My store is out of stock of a lot of the feeds, a lot of the time, so I think they go through it fast enough that nothing sits for long. But who knows with other stores, I've bought dog treats and stuff before not checking & got home and they were like a year expired 

Sorry I missed these questions earlier. On hay quality, you really do not need or want dairy quality hay. A mature performance horse works well with 11% or so protein for the entire diet. That is usually pretty easy to hit in your case by adjusting your alfalfa to grass ratio depending on the quality of the grass hay. Alfalfa is usually higher in protein, so that is your ration balancer rather than a soy based protein supplement. If grain is greatly reduced, or eliminated completely from the diet, Renew Gold will give you a real boost in hind gut digestive effeciency. This means that you get more complete use of that expensive hay that you bought, and eliminates the need to try to replace previously lost calories by adding another calorie source. A fully functioning hind gut will supply most of the water soluble vitamins that the horse needs. In most cases Renew Gold will provide the fat soluble vitamins that the horse can't make or is provided by the roughage. So much for vitamins. As to minerals, you should only need to add those that may be deficient in the region that your hay was produced. If you were in the Pacific Northwest, you would be looking for additional selenium for example. For obvious reasons, a regional mineral defeciency can not be addressed in a Nationally available feed. Other than that, the vast majority of Renew Gold customers do not supplement further, with the exception of salt, nor do they need to. The answer to needing more, if in fact you feel that your specific horse does, is better hay, or a slightly higher percentage of alfalfa in the mix. This is both safer and more cost effective than adding grain based feed. As to when to use Renew Gold Senior. This is a product for heavy use, high stress or very active older horses. It has a great application for the "Road Warrior" younger horse also, as they seem to develope senior horse issues due to heavy work load. I hope this answers most of your questions.

Win

This is at a sale barn I believe in Emory, TX.  Miles of trailers loaded with livestock to unload because of drought,  hay prices feed prices and fuel prices driving it all up.. fertilizer etc... we need rain.... badly... there doesn't seem to be much relief in sight.. maybe a 40% chance of rain Friday. This is a pretty sobering sight. 

Hay is the same price here that it was last year but I'm stocking up in case it goes up. Also not wasting any. I'm usually pretty liberal about it but now I don't waste a drop, plus they have lots of grass. I'm not running any horses and the new guy I'm riding lives on air so luckily I don't have to use a lot of grain. 

We are lucky here in the NW with an abundance of high quality alfalfa and also grass hay.....at least in Central WA. I know on the coast it is super high. But here, it is up from last year to $14/bale. I can NOT imagine having to pay almost $30 for a bale of hay!

This hasn't gotten any easier this year! Drought conditions from summer to now. I stockpiled good grass round bales, continued to buy extra bales of colorado alfalfa off every load we brough in, picked up some alfalfa round bales, some extra bermuda round bales, and to finish up my inventory I bought a mostly full load of alfalfa/brome/orchard/timothy.  I have mineral tubs set back for February when it's normally the coldest for us and just feed what concentrates I have to that are the least cost per day. I only feed supplements as needed and try to minimize vet visits.

I have to bring in some small square alfalfa bundles for customers and it's terrible what they are costing! 55# - $14/21bale bundles ($294)