WE've been getting ours for several weeks now. One more load to go as soon as we make the room-just need to be sure. It's a good feeling knowing you're ready for winter....busy, busy, busy!

Carol, so glad to hear. i bought mine this week too, hay is quite scarce in our area due to the drought. i wanted 100 bales for our 3 horses, but due to paying $5.50 per bale, lol, i decided i could get by with 89. but, thats enough.

WoW! $5.50 per bale? That hurts.
I love the smell of a barn full of fresh hay too!

I paid $5.00 a bale, plus $20 for delivery. The feed store usually sells it for $4.50 a bale, but I look forward to my yearly chats with the local hay guy.

This'll be my first full winter with this horse. She's quite the hay-burner. Thoroughbreds (even retired ones!) sure do eat a lot. My old Morgan was two hands shorter and seemed to ate half as much hay.

We have ours in also, about 1100 bales. We were really exhausted at the end of it!! However I sure like walking into a full barn, ready for the long, cold winter. We have room for about 300 more, but husband is sure we won't need that much.

We have a grass mix, looks real nice. Horses seem to like it. We only feed small bales, easy to see if hay is clean or moldy, has any wildlife baled into it! Much less wastage.

We feed wetted beet pulp as a roughage, filler, for the horses. Ours are TB crosses. They get a very small amount of grain, 1# or so a day each. Wet beet pulp puts a nice finish on them, keeps them filled out nicely, doesn't make them act grain silly. They get about as much hay in winter as they will clean up. The digestion of hay keeps them warm out in the fields. Much better winter feed than grain.

I must admit, I was shocked at having to pay 5.50 a bale too, but the next load they get in will be higher. truckers are charging 2.25--2.75 per mile to bring it into our area, because of the high gas prices.last year, I was upset at having to pay 3.75 a bale !just nice to have it in the barn, and glad we only have 3 horses. they get hay, with a lil grain thru the winter, one could stay fat on air!!
glad there's still people using small square bales, getting harder to find in our area.

it's always the best feeling in the world to have a barn stacked to the rafters with good hay!! we got ours a few weeks ago, lovely grass hay, 260 bales. with just one horse, a goat and a couple of llamas, this hay will last a very long time.

i bought extra because i know it's gonna go way up in price. didn't want to have to be scrounging around and settling for inferior hay at exhorbitant prices in the middle of january!

we paid $2.65/bale, that's stacked and delivered. i have heard that hay will be upwards of $4-$5/bale this winter. the drought took its toll on hay crops around these parts! :)

goodhors, how much dry beet pulp per horse do you feed. I know it swells after you wet it. And do you mix anything with it, my horse hates it. But the vet wants me to feed it to one of my horse to fill him out a little more. I tryed molassas but he still didnt like it.

Theresa, we start out with pretty small helpings of beet pulp mixed with daily grain. Our beet pulp is plain, no molasses added. Check the bag label to make sure no molasses. The beets used are sugar beets, squeezed to remove sugar, still have a little sweet taste when rehydrated, not sugary though. I don't like to feed any molasses in our grain mix, gets moldy in our humid weather.
We buy the beet pulp pellets, they are cheaper than the shredded beet pulp, around here. Pellets take about 3 parts water to one part beet pulp to swell up to maximum expansion. Should have no lumpy feel when you run hands thru it, add more water if still lumpy. Pellets do take longer to be ready to feed, very hot water will speed up absorbtion time.
Shredded beet pulp is mixed about half water and half beet pulp for best absortion. Ready to serve much quicker.

I have only had one horse who didn't care for the beet pulp right away. We do start with small quantities to begin feeding to a new horse. For the picky horse, I just put about a cup in her grain for a week, then went to a cup and a half the second week. She developed a taste for it, so we kept gradulally increasing amount to what we wanted her to eat. She did sort it out for almost a week, then started eating a little each day, then finishing it off.
You do have to remove uneaten wet beet pulp. Hot days I give them a couple hours then remove. It will ferment in hot, humid temps. Colder days they have until we put them back outside to clean it up, several hours. I reduce quantity if they regularly don't finish the serving. Some horses like it any which way, while others prefer drier off the top or drippy wet from the bucket bottom. Quantity fed depends on individual. Working horses get a couple large, wet scoops. Young horse, 2-3yr old, might get 2-3 scoops of wet beet pulp. Horses not working get 1 scoop.

We really like the results of feeding beet pulp, nice shiny coats, lots of working energy, fairly inexpensive to feed. Horses are not too silly to listen to riders, drivers, like straight grain fed horses can be when fit. We go thru about 50# dried pellets a week with 9 horses. Feed 5 gallons wetted beet pulp daily, between the 9. Winters, cold days, we make the beet pulp with very hot water, horses like eating warm feed.

Try just feeding your horse a tiny bit to start, couple handfuls or a cup measure with his grain. Persist, over at least 2 weeks. See if he tosses it out or eats even a little. You can start increasing by tiny amounts, as he continues cleaning wet beet pulp up. Work him up to a scoop full daily, continue for a month, see how he looks. Might need to increase if he still is low-weight. That smaller amount may be all he will eat. We have a horse who only eats one scoop, all he wants. Every bit helps.

I really have found no down side to feeding wet beet pulp!

I would NOT advise feeding beet pulp dry, despite the information from many vets, tests, researches. We have seen SEVERAL horses choke on dry, both pellets and shredded.
Horse parents just decided the wetting time was too much trouble, read the reports about feeding dry matter. Lost one horse, others had throat problems for a long time. Had not had any problems with the wet beet pulp during feeding. The beet pulp mixed in feeds is a very small percentage in the finished feed mix, not the same as feeding straight beet pulp pellets or shreds.
Not worth even a single CHANCE of choking for me. Wetting the beet pulp is really not that much extra work for me, just a couple minutes.

There's nothing like a barn full of good hay, and that smell!
Did you get your hay from Slack's? I go out of my way to get my few bales at a time from him. What a guy :)