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 Owner of a ratting catting machine
Posts: 2258
  
| ND3canAddict - 2017-02-24 10:06 AM
wyoming barrel racer - 2017-02-23 10:11 AM I have 7 geldings and 4 mares on nothing but pasture grass, year round. They are far from starved. I guess they have a protein block during the winter, until we start to have to mix cattle in with them in April. If I am riding something hard, I supplement them with some alfalfa pellets instead of grain. They are ridden hard in the spring and fall and on and off in the summer for ranch work and they hold their weight just fine and have stamina. I am talking checking calving cows for 2 hrs at sun up, again mid day and that evening. Rough country at a fast trot.Â
I think the need for bagged grains is a huge misconception and the reason so many people have ulcer issues, along with behavior issues. Most hard keepers are that way for a reason. Something is wrong. Teeth, ulcers, internal parasites, metabolic or poor quality forage.Â
I know there are exeptions to the rule, and I do give small amounts of grain to my senior horses that can no longer eat hay or pasture due to teeth, or lack of. And my weanlings get some grain, but not the amounts stated on the bag.
WBR, totally agree.  Even my 28 year old mare is out on pasture with 13 other horses. We roll out a round bale the day after they clean up the last bale. Why do I leave a senior horse out in the pasture during ND winters? Because she looks great! I could show a zillion pictures of ultra shiny, fat (fit) horses that never see a stitch of grain all year.Â
You chicks up in the north have it easy. My horses (used) to only get grass pasture or good grass hay, never worried about graining them much.
Pretty much anywhere in the southern states, the pasture and grass hay goes to hell nutritionally. It has to be fertilized to have much content to it, and not very many hay producers bother with that.
My pasture horses, for example, have 6" of awesome looking pasture, but I keep them on a round bale November-April and they're still getting 6 lbs of HayRite pellets to maintain on. They also get 3 lbs of HayRite pellets during the summer months. These are the exact same horses that do fantastically on just pasture and just grass hay in Sublette County, Wyoming. | |
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| I'm in South Texas, our pasture horses look great and the only thing they get is unfertilized pasture and unfertilized grass hay. The riding horses are kept at the house on the same hay, but they get alfalfa cubes and flaxseed and look great.
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Owner of a ratting catting machine
Posts: 2258
| GLP - 2017-02-24 7:19 PM
I'm in South Texas, our pasture horses look great and the only thing they get is unfertilized pasture and unfertilized grass hay. The riding horses are kept at the house on the same hay, but they get alfalfa cubes and flaxseed and look great.
I had mine on a similar program when I was down there for several years. They did fine. I always added rice bran though, and that kept them super shiny and fat. :) | |
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | In the spring/early summer mine will go days at a time without coming to the barn to be fed. In the south. My finished horse has to be stalled to prevent his becoming obese when we've had enough rain for the grass to be good. | |
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  Neat Freak
Posts: 11216
Location: Wonderful Wyoming | classicpotatochip - 2017-02-24 6:13 PM ND3canAddict - 2017-02-24 10:06 AM wyoming barrel racer - 2017-02-23 10:11 AM I have 7 geldings and 4 mares on nothing but pasture grass, year round. They are far from starved. I guess they have a protein block during the winter, until we start to have to mix cattle in with them in April. If I am riding something hard, I supplement them with some alfalfa pellets instead of grain. They are ridden hard in the spring and fall and on and off in the summer for ranch work and they hold their weight just fine and have stamina. I am talking checking calving cows for 2 hrs at sun up, again mid day and that evening. Rough country at a fast trot.
I think the need for bagged grains is a huge misconception and the reason so many people have ulcer issues, along with behavior issues. Most hard keepers are that way for a reason. Something is wrong. Teeth, ulcers, internal parasites, metabolic or poor quality forage.
I know there are exeptions to the rule, and I do give small amounts of grain to my senior horses that can no longer eat hay or pasture due to teeth, or lack of. And my weanlings get some grain, but not the amounts stated on the bag. WBR, totally agree. Even my 28 year old mare is out on pasture with 13 other horses. We roll out a round bale the day after they clean up the last bale. Why do I leave a senior horse out in the pasture during ND winters? Because she looks great! I could show a zillion pictures of ultra shiny, fat (fit) horses that never see a stitch of grain all year. You chicks up in the north have it easy. My horses (used ) to only get grass pasture or good grass hay, never worried about graining them much. Pretty much anywhere in the southern states, the pasture and grass hay goes to hell nutritionally. It has to be fertilized to have much content to it, and not very many hay producers bother with that. My pasture horses, for example, have 6" of awesome looking pasture, but I keep them on a round bale November-April and they're still getting 6 lbs of HayRite pellets to maintain on. They also get 3 lbs of HayRite pellets during the summer months. These are the exact same horses that do fantastically on just pasture and just grass hay in Sublette County, Wyoming.
I actually live in short grass country. The grass is super nutritional other than lacking in phos so we have to supplement a higher ratio mineral to the high calcium they get from the grasses. It is so rough with a lot of deep draws that criss cross all over, that where I live we figure 40 acres to feed a cow. Really the way this area is made, horses and sheep do wonderful. Pretty rough for cattle and they have to travel a longer distance for water. We luck out and have a creek run through us, and some of our other pastures have run off that sometimes keeps water in the draws. I am from Cheyenne area where it is green, flat and very pretty. | |
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