Winter Hay Feeding: Round Bales vs. Small Square Bales

I've found sourcing good hay to be one of the most difficult and stressful parts of horse ownership. I'm lucky to be in an area with many options, and I still struggle. I try to choose what I think looks good (nice smell, no apparent dust/mold, no apparent weeds/trash, not too stemmy) but my horses can turn their noses up at stuff that looks and smells perfectly fine to me, even in winter when they have little else to eat. So, I like to pick up a few sample bales to feed before I commit to a whole load. That doesn't work 100% but it's better than relying on my own senses.

Turns out it's not always this easy...

Last year for the first time I tried feeding large bales (round bales or large 3'x3'x8' square bales) in the winter, and it's been a really mixed experience. First of all, round bales or large squares (I'll just use "round bales" as shorthand for the rest of this post) present some logistical problems for the small farm. They're big (duh!) and hard to move. I typically buy one at a time, bring it home in the bed of the pickup truck, and roll it off the truck to wherever I want it. I can even get a whole-bale hay net on there by myself in the process. But, I can't flip the bale onto its end or move it onto the pallet I put underneath to try to keep it dry, so hubby has to help with that part. I also bought a secondhand bale spear for my 23-horsepower Kubota, which works well if I need to store one in the garage for a little while before feeding it. Obviously without a large tractor and specialized machinery, I can't stack them, so if I bought more than one at a time they'd take up a lot of floor space.

The major pros of round bales are the daily labor savings and the cost. It's so much easier to put out a round bale every few weeks than it is to dole out square bales daily, whether I'm putting them in hanging hay nets or hay boxes or just throwing them into the Hay Hut (the easiest option for square bales by far, though the horses do pull some of it out onto the ground).

My first winter, hubby and I built this 4x4 Slow Grazer box. I used to fill this with about 1.5 bales every evening for the two horses and mini-donkey. It's a nice design but honestly a pain to fill. You can't just throw two bales in there because the horses can't eat it well through the grate unless the flakes are separated and fluffed a bit. P.S. Most donkeys, especially minis, should not have unrestricted access to hay for health/weight reasons.

I also used to hang hay in nets on the fence in the dry lot. Here Dominick the Donkey demonstrates that a little no-climb wire can't keep him from food!

If the weather is cold/wet enough, I hang a few nets in the run-in shed. Here are Z and Mr. F sharing nicely (not for long, I'm sure). I always hang one more net than there are horses, and spread them out so no one has to fight for hay.

With a round bale, I also get some peace of mind knowing that the horses always have plenty to eat, even if I'm working late. In the rare event that I go out of town, someone else can care for them with minimal labor.

I have also definitely saved some money feeding round bales. Here were my average hay costs per horse per month from December to February by year (the horse count doesn't include the mini-donkey because he eats relatively little and has been a constant--sorry Dominick!):

2014-2015: $101/horse/month (small squares...I don't think I fed the best hay this first year, out of ignorance, which is part of why costs were so low)
2015-2016: $156/horse/month (small squares)
2016-2017: $157/horse/month (small squares)
2017-2018: $152/horse/month (small squares)
2018-2019: $94/horse/mo (round bales supplemented with 4-12 small squares per month)
Dec 2019: $59/horse/mo (round bales supplemented with 6 small squares)

The cost savings look great, but unfortunately some of my horses haven't maintained weight well on round bales and a lot of each bale goes to waste. They're just not that enthusiastic about them and they seem willing to starve themselves to some extent. Some people say, "If they get hungry enough they'll eat them," but I'm not willing to let my horses lose weight and condition just to save myself some work and money.

One of my Thoroughbreds four days before I put out the first roundbale of the season.

The same horse, noticeably thinner after being on a roundbale for a month. Interestingly, this weight loss was despite dramatically increasing his grain from ration balancer plus 2 lbs/day of rice bran to 7 lbs/day of Triple Crown Senior. It wasn't a very cold month either. And he was out of work for a couple weeks so he should have needed fewer calories!

Update 1/24: After less than 2 weeks back on square bales, the Thoroughbred's ribs are already less visible. His workload and grain ration stayed the same.

In my case, none of this lack of enthusiasm is due to the horses wasting the round bale or it being exposed to the weather. I use a Hay Chix round bale net to keep horses from pulling the hay out to use as a bed or toilet, and a Hay Hut to protect it from the elements. (Side note: if you just have to pick one, I think the Hay Hut does more than the net. Also, although it's quite expensive it's much more durable than a net. Mine had some quality control issues like holes not lining up, so I think it was a bit overpriced, but it has done its job. If you're lucky you might be able to find one used at a significant discount. Also, if you have horses with shoes it's not safe to put a round bale in a net without something to keep them from stepping in/on it. I did this for literally 24 hours once when I was in a bind, and I witnessed one of my horses getting tangled and panicking.)

I think the waste and weight loss are caused by a combination of two factors:

1) Horses seem to believe that hay has an "expiration date" once set out, even if it's protected from the weather. If you have more horses they will eat the round bale fast enough that it doesn't reach the expiration date (and hopefully some are on the less picky end of the spectrum and willing to clean up what the princes and princesses won't touch). With only two to three horses, I've found that a lot of each bale gets left behind and goes to waste.

2) Round bale palatability, in my experience, is lower than square bales. They seem to eat 80-100% of most square bales but only about 60% of round bales. (Some of the ~40% they don't eat has probably reached its "expiration date" but I also think some of it was unpalatable to begin with. Even from the beginning of a new bale there are mouthfuls that they will taste then let fall out of their mouths, or move out of the way to get to the choicer parts.)

Usually after two weeks it's hard to tell if the hay level is going down at all. I untie the hay net so they can pick through it more easily, but that hasn't done the trick. The longest I've left one out was a month, and at that point they weren't eating it at all. After two weeks or so I'm typically wondering if they're eating enough and worrying about them losing weight. My horses will eat about 30 lbs/day each of square bales, so a 600-lb round bale should only last about 10 days with 2 horses if they're eating at the same rate. The fact that a round bale lasts me weeks and weeks means that a) they're just not that into it and b) they're not getting the nutrition they need.

After 3 weeks, there is still a LOT of this second cutting orchard grass round bale left! I untied the net to let them pick through it more easily in the hopes that they'd eat more, but they still never finished it.

Part of the problem might also be that it's harder to evaluate quality before you buy. Unlike with small square bales, you can't grab one to try or break it open to see how it looks inside. I recently ended up with a round bale that my horses would barely pick at, and there was no good way to get rid of it. If you place your round bales out in pastures it's not a big deal to just leave it out there to rot and move on to the next one, but I put mine in the dry lot so leaving it there would ruin the expensive stonedust footing. Having to deal with a massive pile of uneaten hay every few weeks partially offsets the time/labor savings that make round bales attractive in the first place.

Giant pile of uneaten hay that needs to be moved before I can place the new bale (which, by the way, is easier to unload if it's turned 90 degrees so you can roll it off the tailgate). 

I ended up dragging the pile of hay out to the field to decompose, which is probably more stress than I should put on my round bale net regularly.

I'm perfectly willing to consider that I'm buying sub-par round bales, but I've gotten them from a very reputable supplier that I've bought square bales from for a couple of years. I've tried to find other sources but so far the strongest endorsements I've gotten from any friends are "okay but we've gotten some bad ones" and "my horses ate one but not the other"--not exactly confidence-inspiring. I also wanted to try putting out only half of a 3'x3'x8' at a time, but I haven't been able to find any of those this year (and the one I tried last year was not well-liked by my horses anyway). For at least the rest of this winter I'll be going back to small square bales thrown into the Hay Hut daily, for my peace of mind and the horses' health.