Prime Lucerne Hay for horses

[dullbird]

I know there are a few horses owners on here so I thought I might ask

is anyone using Prime (1st grade) Lucerne for their horses and if so how much are you paying?

I'm currently paying 18.95 a bale:eek:

I'm looking to find some good quality soft leafy Lucerne and I'm willing to travel a couple of hours to pick up say 30 bales if the price is right.


I want to get some soon as with the drought conditions coming in its only going to get more expensive and I think my local produce has a fairly hefty mark up.

I thought I would ask here as I have seen ads for 11 and 12 bux a bale but for a 4hr drive its a long way to go if the quality is not what they say it is...

so I thought might be worth asking people that use Lucerne what there quality and price is like:)

[Diff]

That is about what we pay in Brisbane but we don't get prime hay anymore. We found it went straight through our pinto's and their poo stunk. Talking to a few people who know a lot more than us the grassy hay is better for them. The roughage stays in there gut longer and fills them up more. We also feed maxi soy, copra and chaff. Grassy hay is $10 -$12 a bale delivered.
It probably depends what you are doing with the horses, ours are for sporting events and pleasure riding.
Lucky we don'own a boat, two horses and a land rover are enough to keep us broke

[dullbird]

That's strange because my mares Poo is fine...I'm keeping her up on the Lucerne because I'm avoiding pumping the hard feed through to keep the weight on as she is only in very minimal work.

my grass has really dropped off so the grazing is not good quality either and I'm only on a small parcel of land.

[1976_michelle]

different strokes for different folks; many will find straight lucerne too rich, some won't. Fed alone is not ideal, something to do with the calcium phosphorus balance. We always fed two parts grass hay to one part lucerne for the racers
Of course none of that helps you with an ideal supplier (good luck with that, I think many hay producers cut and bale too late out of greed, all stalk and not enough leaf) but at least you might be able to use less of it and supplement with a nice pasture hay (I personally don't like oaten hay, gave my old boy the runs and he wouldn't even eat it when he came across it again)
yours is very dear, here it is about 12 to 15

[Epic_Dragon]

lucerne is preetty expensive down here in SA too. i can get good stuff from about $15 a bale to about same price as you are finding. I do not feed much of it, probably 1 smally biccy a day with good meadow or good oaten, what ever i can get at the time. it is good for horses with ulcers/etc. cannot find round bales anywhere either. hope new hay comes soon!

[Epic_Dragon]

haha and no joke, i own a boat, plus 3 horses, and the landy plus one silly vw gti! haha i am definitely broke. boat is getting sold very soon though!

[disco gazza]

Hi Dullbird,
There's a bloke up the road from me that grows lucerne year round,from the cheap to the dear stuff.
Will get his number for you and pm it to you later this morning.
He's at Castlereagh.

cheers

[Don 130]

We use round bales to keep costs down, but don't feed pure Lucerne. A round bale is equivalent to about 16 small squares. $100 delivered for a round of lucerne/ meadow hay. Not quite what you're after, I know.
Don.

[dullbird]

just so you guys know I don't feed a lot of Lucerne (well I dont think I do anyway), and you are correct in relation to calcium phosphorus balance, but you can supplement to balance that out or at least we used to in the UK when we feed alfalfa which is Lucerne.

she is getting 2 biscuits a day (that's if she eats it all)because she wont actually eat any more. she is probably getting enough roughage through the grass at the moment I guess (hence not hungry) as its drying out and dying off...its just that I don't think the grass is really providing the nutrition and energy currently to keep the weight on, and I dont want to pump her full of hard feed. She is working on the weekends but not hard so does need that bit of energy

I'm also going to get a stash of a lesser quality hay too because once the grass really dies off over winter she will need heaps more roughage and I would like to leave hay in the field for them to both pick at. But that hay is not as expensive and is easy to pick up from the produce store.

[Tote]

Might be worth a drive out to Cowra with a car trailer and tarp provided you have somewhere to store it.
$6.80 -$8.80 a bale sounds reasonable
http://www.lucernehay.net.au/

A quick google found that site but I'm sure that there are others in the district.

Regards,
Tote

[dullbird]

actually I did find a place in Cowra but that was still 11 bux so that's a good find

[Roverlord off road spares]

I recall seeing on TV that lucerne is a good cash crop worth a bit of $,may be the case with the price and I also found out lucerne is Alfalfa, lucerne seeds are sprouted and put on sandwiches, if left to grow it's lucerne