Molasses, horses bahia

Tried spraying the hay with watered down molasses. Stuff looked about like coffee. They still wouldn't eat it. Even dipped some in the bucket and nothing doing.

Like I said in my original post, doesn't make sense, at least to me. They grazed on bahia grass for nearly 2 years, but sure don't want to eat the bahia grass hay.

Nancy maybe it is just that bale. It could be even just the outside of it. If you can maybe try some of another bale. If you can maybe set it on end and fork it off into a feeder. It is not common for a horse or cow to not eat molasses. So there must be something else going on.

As for the Bahia grass. I am totally unfamiliar with it. We have timothy, orchard grass, and brome are the common grasses around me. Rye grass is being seeded in water ways and such. These must not work in your hot dryer climate. I don't here them talked about by any of you Texans.

I have had single bales out of a field that the cattle would turn their noses up at. Many times another bale from the same field/cutting would be eat fine. I am lucky that I can just tub grind any poor hay and the steers don't seem to care what it is they will eat it.

Sounds to me like they might have access to another food source? 'Just aren't hungry? Maybe a little spoiled? Make that hay their only food source and I'm betting they will eat it.......and be happy about it......and then you won't worry so much.........about a horse.

Nancy:

I had the same problem over the Winter. All the Coastal was going to Texas, so there was a shortage.

Chose Timothy and they loved it!

Marc

These are 5x4 heavy rounds that James baled for me. Even if I could turn it, I doubt it would make a difference because the horses have access to everything but the bottom and the back side.

I do have 3 other bales. I"ll try pulling some from one of the other bales and see if they"ll eat it.

Since the horses never get anything with molasses on it, I wanted to see if they would eat the dry molasses before I sprayed the bale. I put some of the dry molasses in their feed last night (they don"t get much, less than a quart) to see if they would reject it. They ate it just fine.

Since they ate the grain with the dry molasses, I made some liquid. I put about a cup of the dry molasses in a bucket and put about 1.5 gals of hot water in it. The dry molasses dissolved quickly. Then sprayed some on the hay. They still wouldn"t eat it. Put some more in the sprayer and sprayed again. Still no takers. Finally just dumped the remaining molasses on the bale. One horse ate a few mouthfuls, but then walked away.

One of my horses sniffed around at the hay and literally curled his lip up.

Can"t blame them if they don"t like molasses. I think its awful.

No timothy in our area.

Horse hay????
Never heard of such a thing before a couple years ago. When I was a kid and later when I had kids with horses, the hay we fed was what the other animals ate. Never a problem, horses ate it, were healthy, lived long lives.

do they have access to a pasture thats green? if so theres probably something there that they like better and they are just not hungry.I put my last old horse out on a good bermuda grass pasture once,couldnt figure out why he wsnt eating it down, turned out neighbor lady had a pear tree that was just loaded with pears.she would pick them up by the buckets full and hand feed him every evening.he would stand there and eat until he couldnt hold anymore!

3 horses on maybe 2 acres. Pasture looks like its been shaved and is turning brown from heat and lack of rain. Not much there to graze on.

They normally go through a 4x4 round of coastal in about a week in addition to the grazing.

This bale was put out on July 16. They haven't eaten 5 lbs of it.

(quoted from post at 09:04:15 07/26/12) 3 horses on maybe 2 acres. Pasture looks like its been shaved and is turning brown from heat and lack of rain. Not much there to graze on.

They normally go through a 4x4 round of coastal in about a week in addition to the grazing.

This bale was put out on July 16. They haven't eaten 5 lbs of it.

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They're not nursing or carrying babies.... Just make sure they have plenty of water and let em go. If you have someone close with horses, maybe take a little and see if they eat it just to prove it's not bad. Sure you don't have someone feeding them when your not around (bread and grass over the fence)?

Very unlikely anyone is giving them handouts. "Good" neighbor gives them carrots occasionally, "bad" neighbor used to continually mooch hay off me until James put a stop to it. We haven't been on speaking terms in almost ten years, so no way would he give my horses any of HIS hay!