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| I am a firm believer in keeping forage in front of my horses 24/7. However my horses are pigs and they seem to waste a lot of hay just throwing it around. lol I don't have access to omnis cubes or any of the other premium cubes some of you do. What I DO HAVE access to is a super nice alfalfa/Oat cube that is clean, my horses love them etc. Does anyone JUST FEED cubes? THanks! Will add, these cubes I can get are very soft and do not need soaking. If you feed just cubes, how do you keep hay in front of them all the time?
Edited by FLITASTIC 2015-10-13 2:54 PM
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 Undercover Amish Mafia Member
Posts: 9992
           Location: Kansas | Have you thought about investing in a hay hut? |
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| I do have a shelter if thats what you mean. But I only buy about 20 bales at a time. With only 2 horses hay would get really old until I fed it all. |
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 Undercover Amish Mafia Member
Posts: 9992
           Location: Kansas | Oh I figured you fed round bales. I would think feeding just cubes would get expensive fast. A 40lb bag of alfalfa cubes is $16.95 for me, my gelding gets 5lbs soaked daily...so a bag wouldn't last me long lol.
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 I Prefer to Live in Fantasy Land
Posts: 64864
                    Location: In the Hills of Texas | I keep coastal hay in front of mine and for what ever reason, he is good and keeps it all neat in the corner of his stall. LOL |
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| Nevertooold - 2015-10-13 1:05 PM
I keep coastal hay in front of mine and for what ever reason, he is good and keeps it all neatΒ in the corner ofΒ his stall.Β LOL Β
Mine are probably spoiled and just fling it everywhere... We don't have round bales here in CA!!! LOL |
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  Twin Sister to Queen Boobie
Posts: 13315
       Location: East Tennessee but who knows?! | Usually if they start wasting it, I cut back quite a bit and just give them the max that I know they'll clean up. They'll usually make it last all day anyhow. I use hay bags too to keep the mess down. |
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 Jr. Detective
      Location: Beggs, OK | hoofs_in_motion - 2015-10-13 2:57 PM Oh I figured you fed round bales. I would think feeding just cubes would get expensive fast. A 40lb bag of alfalfa cubes is $16.95 for me, my gelding gets 5lbs soaked daily...so a bag wouldn't last me long lol.
Select Way cubes are made by Midway in Herington, KS. They're the bigger diameter cubes, but they're soft and do not need to be soaked. They are MUCH more affordable as well.
http://midwayforage.com/select-way-premium-alfalfa-cubes.html |
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 Undercover Amish Mafia Member
Posts: 9992
           Location: Kansas | rachellyn80 - 2015-10-13 3:21 PM
hoofs_in_motion - 2015-10-13 2:57 PM Oh I figured you fed round bales. I would think feeding just cubes would get expensive fast. A 40lb bag of alfalfa cubes is $16.95 for me, my gelding gets 5lbs soaked daily...so a bag wouldn't last me long lol.
Β
Select Way cubes are made by Midway in Herington, KS. Β They're the bigger diameter cubes, but they're soft and do not need to be soaked. Β They are MUCH more affordable as well.
http://midwayforage.com/select-way-premium-alfalfa-cubes.html
That's about an hour and half from me. I'll have to give them a call and see what a bag runs to see if it's worth driving that far lol |
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Expert
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| I also feed the alfalfa/oat cubes. I have 3 and they also are on pasture. Grass not lush by any means and they have to travel some to get the good part. What I did as I got tired of them wasting so much hay that I got the slow feeder hay nets and put them up. Mine are spoiled also as I also have fan in the barn for them. When the grass is good I would only put maybe a flake in the hay nets. Of course they would eat that first then go out. When the grass was good right after all the rain here in OK I didn't give them any hay, only the cubes and would soak them so that THE products would stick to them. I gave my older senior guy some weight supplement also and he was doing really well, but now I am having trouble keeping the weight on him. I need to get his teeth checked and I just worked last week. He is looking better and looks to be putting weight on. Anyway you might try the slow feeder hay nets. |
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Red Bull Agressive
Posts: 5981
         Location: North Dakota | Financially it would make no sense for me to do just cubes. I board and hay is included in my board price...cubes are not. Plus my barn wouldn't soak them for me. Anywho, one of my horses especially uses loose hay as a toilet. I put everything in giant hay nets and that prevents them from wasting it.
ETA-If you are buying hay and/or cubes anyway (unlike me as stated above) and have some grazing then I've seen no evidence that replacing hay with cubes has any negative side effects. 
Edited by cavyrunsbarrels 2015-10-14 12:50 PM
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Expert
Posts: 2531
   Location: WI | Get a Hay Chix net! They have sizes for 1/2 bale, full bale, large squares, round bale, etc. |
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 Good Grief!
Posts: 6343
      Location: Cap'n Joan Rotgut.....alberta | We feed strictly cubes to a lot of ours..and we have the 3/4 hard cubes and i dont soak them as when it gets -35 that gets to be a bit impossible..lolM |
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| THanks all! I did try the slow feed hay nets. THey lasted maybe a day and my horses chewed a hole and made them not so slow feeders.lol Turds |
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  Warmblood with Wings
Posts: 27846
           Location: Florida.. | Horses are grazers.. Id think youd have to give them cubes several times a day.. |
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 I Prefer to Live in Fantasy Land
Posts: 64864
                    Location: In the Hills of Texas | FLITASTIC - 2015-10-13 3:15 PM Nevertooold - 2015-10-13 1:05 PM I keep coastal hay in front of mine and for what ever reason, he is good and keeps it all neat in the corner of his stall. LOL
Mine are probably spoiled and just fling it everywhere... We don't have round bales here in CA!!! LOL
I don't feed round bales. He gets $10.00 a bale coastal. I put a few flakes in the corner of his stall and when he eats most of it, he gets 2 more flakes. |
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 I Prefer to Live in Fantasy Land
Posts: 64864
                    Location: In the Hills of Texas | Bibliafarm - 2015-10-13 8:24 PM Horses are grazers.. Id think youd have to give them cubes several times a day..
I feed cubes three times a day and in the morning he gets Renew Gold and at night he gets 4 cups of Beet Pulp along with FORCO and Redmond salt minerals and has flakes of Coastal in front of him all the time. |
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  Warmblood with Wings
Posts: 27846
           Location: Florida.. | Nevertooold - 2015-10-13 9:42 PM Bibliafarm - 2015-10-13 8:24 PM Horses are grazers.. Id think youd have to give them cubes several times a day.. I feed cubes three times a day and in the morning he gets Renew Gold and at night he gets 4 cups of Beet Pulp along with FORCO and Redmond salt minerals and has flakes of Coastal in front of him all the time.
agree.. they need hay to chump on.. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
      Location: West Texas | I have fed only cubes for 3 years. I feed 18-24 lbs daily. Half at 7am and half at 5pm. |
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 Tried and True
Posts: 21185
         Location: Where I am happiest | I have 3 old horses here and this years hay was very dry so made it hard for them to eat. It was more like baled twigs. So they to were throwing it all over the place wasting exhorbatant amounts of hay. So I am feeding cubes, and just 1 flake of hay with their cubes. It's working beautifully! |
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