How we're coping with our forage crisis ~ an update on feeding rescue pony Eggsy

We're hugely grateful to those that rallied to help pay for Eggsy's feed when the 2018 hay shortage effectively doubled our costs. This post is to update you on how we're coping.

Firstly huge thanks to all who donated to buy forage for Eggsy, you gave us the breathing space we needed to come up with a plan. Finding twice as much money to pay for forage just wasn't about to happen anytime soon, we wouldn't have a GoFundMe for Eggsy if it was that simple, and the price, or in our case size of bales, isn't going to change until the 2018 crop is ready if then, we all desperately need a good hay harvest this year. So what to do?

Well there are a number of different feeds that can be used as forage replacers, mostly they aren't economically viable and of course you have to be very careful when it comes to changing an equines feed. However there was one type of feed that we've always fed that is very economical ~ sugar beet pulp, and this can be used to replace up to a third of forage. It's often used as a forage replacer for old horses with dental issues as it has to be soaked and that makes it nice and soft to eat. 

But if we were to increase the quantities of beet as used in our usual feeding regime which includes alfalfa, oats etc we'd be increasing costs even more. So we took a look at good old fashioned bran. Now as some of you will know it was once common practice to give hard working horses a bran mash once a week but that has fallen out of favour for a number of reasons that I won't go into here. Suffice it to say that bran isn't that great when fed by itself but mix it with soaked sugar beet pulp and you have a feed that's nutritionally sound, a feed that horses love, that's economical and can be used to replace part of their forage ration.

So that's what we're doing, as well as the usual hard feeds we're giving extra feeds of beet and bran to slightly reduce the amount of forage we have to feed. This has reduced costs a little, not a huge amount as obviously we have to buy extra beet and the bran but it is a little cheaper. In addition there's some grazing, sadly not enough but Eggsy is getting some daily grass now which also means that we don't have to feed quite as much hay / haylage as we did earlier in the year.

To sum things up, we've managed to reduce our reliance on expensive forage slightly, it's still costing more than ever before but we're hoping that a good harvest will eventually see prices falling back to affordable levels. In the meantime it's still a financial struggle just not quite so scary as it was about a month ago. 

Thanks are owed to Philomena, Diane and an anonymous supporter for their recent contributions to Eggsy's hay drive. 

About Eggsy:

Eggsy is a rescue pony he was abandoned and left to starve by his owners as a foal. His care is funded by donations.

You can read the story of his abandonment here: About Eggsy Pony

Would you like to help Eggsy? 

Eggsy has a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for his care, we'd be really grateful if you'd go take a look, share it far and wide via your social media and of course if you can spare some money please donate.

Help Raise Abandoned Foal Eggsy ~ GoFundMe

Thank you, Eggsy and I really appreciate it x