Hay

[Mini Mouse]

Hi, I was wonder which you all preferred in hay, 1st or 2nd cutting? Timothy or Alfalfa? I'm getting ready to order mine and would like your opinions on which I should get.

 

[AppyLover2]

I don't know much about it but, according to my hay man, the 2nd (or even 3rd cuts are best.

 

[Warpony]

I don't want the best, the best founders my pony, hehe. I go for first cutting, it tends to be the softest, with fewer stalks and weeds. I try to find a nice grassy soft first cutting. I want it to be palatable but not too rich, That way they will eat it and get the long fiber they need without getting the runs or causing trouble for my pony.

 

[chandab]

Any cutting of clean hay I can get. We are dryland here, so there is only one cutting per year. I prefer grass hay, limited choices around here; brome, prairie hay, bluejoint, crested wheatgrass and a little timothy if you are on a creek bottom.

 

[Bess Kelly]

If a hay field is kept up the way it should be, either cutting could be good. Most often the first cutting will have more weed as it has emerged and grown faster than the early grasses. As to the stemminess, that most often comes with the maturity of the grass they cut -- i.e bad weather makes them put off cutting for an extra 2-3 weeks and this allows the grass to send up the seed spikes. That's really what the stems are, overmature & seeding stage grass.

The richness depends on type of grasses, the fertilization time & amount, time of the season, soil conditions, weather conditions and the time of day the field is cut. You can only tell by testing, truly. Stems -- you can see.

Personally, I look for 2nd or 3rd cutting, few stems.

Hay "farms" usually manicure their fields and have far fewer weeds, overall.

 

[Margo_C-T]

High quality grass is not really grown in this immediate area; we have to get the better grass hays(and by that, I mean timothy, orchard grass, brome, and the like)from the far north of my state, or from CO. Since it is impossible to view the fields to see how well it is being/has been grown, you really need to 'know' your supplier-not easy! I have found that much of the grass hay available here is often over-mature-as Bess said, too stemmy; I think this is often because of weather conditions-most grass out in this part of the country needs cutting during what we call 'monsoon' season-meaning farmers often wait past an optimum time to cut because of rain. This year has been especially difficult; much of the hay has been 'bought off' by other states that usually raise enough of their own hay-AND, the weather has made it difficult to produce good hay, period! This has been true of both grass AND alfalfa(NM is a pretty big producer of alfalfa.) I feed both hays, but grown separately-I don't care for 'mixed' hays, as it is next to impossible to cut/bale at an optimum time of quality/nutrition for BOTH-and, when I mix them, I know exactly how much of each is in each feeding-with 'mixed' grown hays, one bale may be 50-50, and the next, 80-20-and so on.

With grass, a fairly early cut suits me best; if the farmer is a good one, there should NOT be a problem with weeds in any cut! With alfalfa, I want 2nd or 3rd cut. First cut is too 'rich' to be safe for horses, IMO-and often, not 'fibrous' enough--I WANT some stems in my alfalfa, just not woodiness and few leaves! I would prefer 3rd cut, but it is too likely to get rained on around here, so I opt for second cut. I drive a 240 mile round trip to get my alfalfa, because I can get absolutely reliable, ALWAYS top quality, hay! These great folks sell it to me by the ton-and I come out ahead on the price noticably, even with the current cost of fuel for my truck(Diesel, which is now as high-priced as Premium, or more so...

- on a per bale basis, compared with local prices!

Margo

 

[Minimor]

The good hay people around here keep the weeds out of their fields, so weeds in the first cut of hay aren't a problem.

We generally get only 2 cuts around here; first cut will be grass or grass mix in many cases, and that is what we go for. 2nd cut is mostly alfalfa. 1st cut alfalfa is often very coarse; 2nd cut is (usually) finer & softer & if you're going to feed rich alfalfa, it's nicer for the horses. Depending on the year it can happen that the 2nd cut grows very fast, then it too will be coarse.

It seems to be very, very difficult to get good grass hay in this area any more. I find that when many people say they have grass hay for sale, they actually mean "mostly grass with 20 or 30% alfalfa". THis year with the drought we had, the grass was very short, while the alfalfa, with it's deeper roots, flourished. Fields that are normally 80% grass produced hay that was 50/50 grass/alfalfa. 2nd cut didn't grow at all.