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 Expert
Posts: 1392
  
Location: Central Texas | Can someone educate me on Chaffehaye. The good and the bad. I've read several posts on here today concerning feed and I never hear anyone mention Chaffehaye.
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 Jr. Detective
 
Location: Beggs, OK | Chaffhaye is safe and I've fed it on and off for a few years.
Pros:
Soft for old horses
Very digestable
We could feed it free choice
Cons:
Messy
Some horses won't touch it
It's very moisture dense and feeding rates are higher than what is advertised.
It's hard to get past the smell and we had issues this past year with moldy bags.
We have since found a product that works much better for us and has added nutrition that makes it a complete ration...super simple to feed, completely safe, and there's NO waste! Omnis Complete Performance Cubes are all we are feeding now. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
Location: West Texas | Yes, I can do that for you. I have quite a bit of knowledge and experience with Chaffhaye. On one hand, it is a great product. On the other hand, it has some severe negative issues for me, none of which are feed quality.
The pros:
1. It is very good hay. The fields are local to the bagging facility, in Dell City, TX, and the quality is very good.
2. It is very digestible and safe for all horses to eat. Although, it is no where near as digestible as Chaffhaye claims. I hate to say that, but it is true.
3. It is loaded with natural water and an extremely easy way to make sure your horse is getting plenty of liquid.
4. "Most" horses really like it. It is soft and easy for all horses to eat and it is easy on the digestive system. One of only a handful of products good for the youngest to the oldest, right out of the bag.
5. The bags are weatherproof. You can store it right on a trailer outside.
6. Produced by a great company with good values. This may not be important to some. I have spent the last couple of years finding myself getting pushed into the feed business. I can tell you there are some businesses and owners that are not good people.
The cons:
1. The biggest con to me is price, price, price. The product is about 50% moisture, compared to 15% for hay, 10% for cubes. While this is a pro above, it is a con, due to the cost per dry matter. Even though it is more digestible than hay, that cannot make up for the fact that 50lbs a bag only has roughly 25lbs of matter. This means you have to feed more of it to get the desired results and that ultimately is expensive.
2. Although the bags above are a pro, they are still relatively easily punctured. If you are careful this is not a big issue, but if you have cats, rats, or any animal that punctures the bag, or if you have people working for you handling the bags that aren't so careful as you, exposure to air will mold them easily.
3. If you are educated and used to feeding them, the mold is fairly easily differentiated than the good hay. If you are not or again you have people feeding for you, you might feed moldy hay.
4. They are hard to measure and feed. You have to cut the bags open and by hand pull out the hay into a bucket or feeder. It is not easily scooped or measured. It needs to be fed in a bucket or tray feeder, so to feed by itself, its rather a pain to do. If efficiency and easy of feeding is important to you, this will be a negative
5. It dries out relatively easily if not all eaten. This isn't that big a deal.
6. If you only feed as a supplement and you don't feed a bag out quickly, it will mold. You really need to reseal the bag if not all fed, because it will either dry out in dry climates or mold fast in wet ones.
There you go. That is as complete and as accurate as I can possibly be. It is a good feed but has some drawbacks, mainly price. I have actually been to the farms and seen the product made. I fed it fairly extensively as well.
Edited by Tdove 2015-09-25 2:09 PM
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | Have fed it and I liked it. The horses I really wanted to eat it (the oldies) wouldn't touch it, but the others loved it. I was able to buy off one pallet locally, and they wouldn't order any more, so it's no longer an option for me. My gelding choked on pellets a couple of weeks ago, so I would really like to put him back on chaffhay to avoid soaking, but oh well. |
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Expert
Posts: 1392
Location: Central Texas | Thank you for the replies!!
I have an older TB that does not drink well and colic'd on me no less than 7 times this summer. (went to the vet many times and had to leave him for fluids plus just finished a full round of ulcer treatment)
I had not heard of Chaffehaye until my friend recommended it to me. I have to drive about 30 miles one way to get it but that's not a big deal.
So far my gelding loves it. I started out with just a little bit to see how he would do and now he is going through a bag in about 4-5 days. He still gets a round bale of coastal free choice in the pasture plus his daily grain. ( I would really like to get away from the grain but he is not an easy keeper)
It does smell but I'm ok with that.
The feed store that I bought it from said if I see white stuff that it is not mold and that it was supposed to look like that?????? I have only found one bag that had a questionable white looking section to it.
I was just curious if anyone had anything good or bad to say about it and wondered why I had never heard of anyone feeding it.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
Location: West Texas | That is good. If it is compaction colic that often, you might consider taking him off the grass hay. Bermuda is known to have a compaction tendency on some horses.
Yes, the white stuff is not harmful. If it is moldy it will be dark, stinky, and slimy. You are feeding right at 10-12 lbs. That is a decent amount and should be helpful to his health. Of course you could up that if you wanted to feed less grain or less grass hay.
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Expert
Posts: 1392
Location: Central Texas | Tdove - 2015-09-25 2:30 PM That is good. If it is compaction colic that often, you might consider taking him off the grass hay. Bermuda is known to have a compaction tendency on some horses. Yes, the white stuff is not harmful. If it is moldy it will be dark, stinky, and slimy. You are feeding right at 10-12 lbs. That is a decent amount and should be helpful to his health. Of course you could up that if you wanted to feed less grain or less grass hay.
Thanks for all the info. The vets never found an impaction and are calling it gas colic. The most notable thing was that he would not drink and his manure went from apple size to golf ball size. He usually colics (mild) once a year during a weather change but this summer was absolutely horrible. Knock on wood and thank you God, he has been doing good for the last month....about a week after I backed off the grain ( he still gets grain but not near as much) and added the Chaffehaye ( he was also about halfway through his ulcer treatment)
I think I will continue with the chaffehaye and see if I can continue to reduce the grain amount. 
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Expert
Posts: 1392
Location: Central Texas | Three 4 Luck - 2015-09-25 1:38 PM Have fed it and I liked it. The horses I really wanted to eat it (the oldies) wouldn't touch it, but the others loved it. I was able to buy off one pallet locally, and they wouldn't order any more, so it's no longer an option for me. My gelding choked on pellets a couple of weeks ago, so I would really like to put him back on chaffhay to avoid soaking, but oh well.
I was soaking pellets before I found the chaffehaye. I now refer to this as the stinky hay LOL but I would rather deal with the smell than having to soak!!
I had a hard time finding the chaffehaye but a google search kept pulling up a drive through beer barn about 30 miles away. At first I skipped that one thinking it had to be wrong but out of desperation I called the drive through beer barn and found out it was also a drive through feed store. I found this funny and brilliant all at the same time!!! |
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  Friendly horse swapper
Posts: 4122
Location: Buffalo, TX | I feed Chaffhaye to one horse and I have to go to a different feed store to get it....This horse never looked good on any kind of grain or supplement that I tried...a friend suggested this, and after a month, I could see a huge difference in this horse, so I think it was digestion related....Chaffhaye digests more in the foregut (or so they say) and it is fermented and has white patches of yeast throught the bag (it's not mold)....anyway, it really helped this horse.
I use one bag every 3 days, so the cost is not a big deal because it's only 1 horse, and it's the only thing I've tried that I see results with, so I keep buying it....$14 a bag.
It's more of a supplement to his pasture because I don't want this particular horse to have grain. I have to say that it absolutely put a bloom on this gelding, he looks awesome and with grain, he looked weedy and had a dull coat. I also switched him to daily wormer, which I normally don't use, but I was trying every option to see his neck and topline fill out, so I think I have stumbled on the right comination for this particular horse....
Here's a picture of the yeast, you see it all through the bag, it's not mold....
 (chaffhaye.jpg)
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 chaffhaye.jpg (21KB - 171 downloads)
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Jr. Detective
Location: Beggs, OK | GraciousLegacy - 2015-09-25 2:58 PM Tdove - 2015-09-25 2:30 PM That is good. If it is compaction colic that often, you might consider taking him off the grass hay. Bermuda is known to have a compaction tendency on some horses. Yes, the white stuff is not harmful. If it is moldy it will be dark, stinky, and slimy. You are feeding right at 10-12 lbs. That is a decent amount and should be helpful to his health. Of course you could up that if you wanted to feed less grain or less grass hay. Thanks for all the info. The vets never found an impaction and are calling it gas colic. The most notable thing was that he would not drink and his manure went from apple size to golf ball size. He usually colics (mild) once a year during a weather change but this summer was absolutely horrible. Knock on wood and thank you God, he has been doing good for the last month....about a week after I backed off the grain ( he still gets grain but not near as much) and added the Chaffehaye ( he was also about halfway through his ulcer treatment)
I think I will continue with the chaffehaye and see if I can continue to reduce the grain amount.
What grain are you feeding him? |
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Sock Snob
Posts: 3021
| I feed 2 bags of the stuff a week and put a small amount of grain on top horses gobble this up. When it was really hot and muggy. Had problems with the stuff molding. It will get hot andi have a barn with tons of fans. The feed store is supposed to keep a special tarp on thks stuff. I opened a bag yesturday eve, was packed a little tighter had a lot of that white in it so its hard to,distingish other than sticking my nose but it did have some warm chunksand a little stinky, further down was really packed and it was sticky and dark. And warm. I know the smell,of musty hay. Any one else have problems.
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 Warmblood with Wings
Posts: 27846
Location: Florida.. | Im feeding this now as my hay I have plenty of pasture so dont need large quantities of hay yet so decided to try this.They love it and eat it first.. its 18 a bag.
https://www.triplecrownfeed.com/triple-crown-safe-starch-forage/ |
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 Maybe Someday
Posts: 4551
| Not sure how this compares, but last winter I fed Manna Pro high fiber chopped hay purchased at local TSC.Its a mix of Timothy alfalfa and oat hay with molassas Both my horses did great on it. Its about $15 for a 40# bag.I currently have them on barley, beet pulp, alfalfa pellets along with hay and pastureI'll probably add the chopped hay again if I think its needed, which I think my OTT QH will need as he's not an easy keeper.
Edited by Tennbarrelracer 2015-09-26 7:41 PM
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 Twin Sister to Queen Boobie
Posts: 13315
Location: East Tennessee but who knows?! | I feed it more like a supplement to the hay they're already getting. Just took on a OTTB that needs a good bit of weight so he'll be a good test. I started feeding it on two of our others and they both did really well. |
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Expert
Posts: 1392
Location: Central Texas | rachellyn80 - 2015-09-25 3:56 PM GraciousLegacy - 2015-09-25 2:58 PM Tdove - 2015-09-25 2:30 PM That is good. If it is compaction colic that often, you might consider taking him off the grass hay. Bermuda is known to have a compaction tendency on some horses. Yes, the white stuff is not harmful. If it is moldy it will be dark, stinky, and slimy. You are feeding right at 10-12 lbs. That is a decent amount and should be helpful to his health. Of course you could up that if you wanted to feed less grain or less grass hay. Thanks for all the info. The vets never found an impaction and are calling it gas colic. The most notable thing was that he would not drink and his manure went from apple size to golf ball size. He usually colics (mild) once a year during a weather change but this summer was absolutely horrible. Knock on wood and thank you God, he has been doing good for the last month....about a week after I backed off the grain ( he still gets grain but not near as much) and added the Chaffehaye ( he was also about halfway through his ulcer treatment)
I think I will continue with the chaffehaye and see if I can continue to reduce the grain amount.
Safe choice senior. He is a 23yr old OTTB. |
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