At 12:57:21 on 14.10.11, Trot ON Comment wrote:
Read the Trot ON blog about the rising cost of hay and straw. Is it a problem where you live? Do you have any advice to add on keeping hay and straw safe from thieves? Or do you have any more cost cutting tips?
http://blog.trotontv.com/2011/10/hay-hands-off.html

At 19:26:53 on 04.01.12, OffTheTrack wrote:
It is massively expensive in our area and it costs over £2000 just to feed haylage to all 14 horses over Winter. But we've come up with a solution. On the stud farm, where we keep the ex-racehorses, we have 37 acres but only 14 horses, so we've ended up with a lot of spare land. We grow the grass in the bottom 10 or so acres (the fields on roattion to rest them) and have a farmer cut, bale and wrap it for us. This produces a lot of haylage, almost enough to last through winter and surplus if kept harvesting through Spring, Summer and Autumn. In return, we let him graze his sheep when a field is at rest. This neighbourly practice works excellently for us :) The problem we still have, though, is damp and fungus growing on them when they're stacked outdoors. We have yard cats but mice still make holes in the plastic and once the bale is mouldy, it all has to be thrown away :( x