Most of the country is under a drought this year, but it's our worst since 1956. Round bales of coastal are up to $95 and square bales $7. We go through a square bale a day. Our feed store has started carrying "forage replacer" which is mostly alfalfa and anothe store carries alfalfa/hay mix cubes when they can get them. Does anyone have experience using these? We're thinking of getting them for our 2 younger horses but, if they don't help hold weight, we'll just suck it up and pay for hay as long as it's available. Our old horse eats Senior so can get along on it if necessary. All the horses get extra feed everyday so they could get along with alfalfa as their hay source if needed.

I use the alfalfa/timothy cubes everyday as a supplement treat. One heaping scoop is like 1 flake of hay/alfalfa/timothy.
I feed 2 scoops of Brant's Best 3 and 2 flakes of alfalfa with one flake of timothy in the mornings, and 2 scoops feed @ night with 1 heaping alfalfa/timothy cubes and 1 flake timothy.

This is for a sport horse so you would need to maybe feed half a scoop per flake of timothy/alfalfa. And what ever grain you give.

Now, Tony my 36 year old eats the above and a scoop of crushed corn with the grain.
In his older age I noticed as soon as it goes in it comes out and it's harder for him to keep his weight so the crushed corn is more like the supplement compaired to the cubes and it builds weight in the older horse.

Corn oil is good for weight too.

Where do you live that the round bails are 95.00 ? And what mixture is that?

What are the square alfalfa bails cost you?

I live in south Texas but the round bale price seems to be about the same up to Dallas. Our family in OK are also paying double for bales. The hay here is Coastal Bermuda. Cow hay is Sudan and can get it for $50 but it's not good for horses. Normal year prices are $30-$35 for Coastal and $25 for Sudan. Alfalfa doesn't grow down here so runs about $10 a bale even in good years.

Dang Staflady! $7 a bale? We are in a drought here on hay too, but I get mine from a private grower and I pay $4 a bale for Timothy...same for alfalfa and that is delievered to my barn. I have used the alfalfa cubes before...my girls didn't care for them all that much, but still ate them...however I didn't feed them it long enough to see if it kept weight on them or not. I just go with a feed with a higher fat content. I feed pelleted feed or textured feed...minimum of 6% fat.

HB

I once had a horse that was "allergic" to hay (the dust and seed pollen) and would get severe heaves when fed hay. We tried the hay cubes and she would eat around them so we tried to feed them separate from the grain and still no go. Even my other horse snubbed them so I haven't tried them since. Now I know there is some pretty decent pelleted feed out there now but I haven't tried them. Let us know how it goes if you try them. Good luck.