We believe in a forage diet. Our ultimate goal is to get the horse to be on hay with a ration balancer like Omega Match or Enrich. If you know Our Story, we bought land that was covered in trees. So when we cleared it to build the Rescue, it also took all the grass away. Since it costs about $5k an acre to try and plant a pasture and we want all our donations to go to the horses, we rely 100% on hay.
However, when a horse first comes in or the mom’s we have brought in to deliver their babies, they need grain to grow.
GRAIN
We get our grain from Bryant Grain Company, They are a local manufacturer – just 2 miles away, so we get to support another local business.
As stated above, grain is used to get the rescues healthy. Then we work to move them to forage. Many get adopted before they get there and if this is the case, we also send a bag of grain with the adoptee so they can transition them well.
HAY
For hay, there is no place else on the planet we would buy from other than Hay USA in Weatherford, Texas. Liz, the owner, is a fanatic about the quality of her hay. She visits the fields before harvest. She tests the hay when it comes in to measure its makeup. And no one knows more about hay than Liz. Its not wonder people drive up to 12 hours just to get hay from Hay USA.
Liz (seen with Catherine to the right) has been a real partner in helping us with the rescues. And often times when we go to pick top hay, one of her Customers has left us a bail as a donation. We cannot tell you how magic that is – when you get a donation from someone who just wants to help you.
We feed 1 flake of compressed alfalfa from Washington each morning and then Teff (also from Washington) for the rest of their diet. Teff is low in sugar and high in nutrients.