I recently purchased a bag of chopped hay from tsc in an effort to reduce hay waste. I am beginning to mix it with alfalfa pellets. Is anyone else using chopped hay? Do they seem to waste less? Does anyone chop their own hay like with a leaf shredder?
I used to chop Alfalfa with an old silage chopper. They did have much less waste and I really regret the loss of that machine.
Is this the same as chaff? I was thinking of doing this toom and was wondering if there was still sufficient roughage in it. I was thinking of setting up a container on the wall, where they can reach with there heads, but not with there rear ends, to deposit little pebbles in! If goats have free access to hay, or chaff, do they just sit there all day eating that rather than going out and eating in the paddock?
I feed Chaffhaye but I also hand chop dry alfalfa hay and mix it into the Chaffhaye. I find much less waste in the dry hay. It is crazy to hand chop the hay but it works. The dry hay last much longer. My new problem now is not having the wasted hay as bedding. As for feeding only Chaffhaye, it has sufficient roughage. I only mix the chopped dry hay during winter in our really really cold period. I just thought it would give the a little more roughage for more heat.
The chopped hay I purchased is timothy, brome, oat hay mixture. I mounted 2 long planters on the wall to feed from. My goats have free choice brome hay with lots of leaves mixed in, free choice alfalfa pellets with chopped hay mixed in. (We have slowly progressed from goat feed/grain to goat feed/grain/alfalfa pellet to alfalfa pellets w/ chopped hay.) My goats don't have access to pasture so I honestly have no idea if it would hinder them from going out to look for browse, I would probably say not entirely, as my big goat cries to go out to eat leaves in the front yard in the summer and fall.
