I wrote earlier this month about some taste tests I have been doing with Chewie with different types of horse feed and hay pellets. (You can find that post here.)
This week, we’ve been doing some taste tests with two types of hay.
Chewie has been eating coastal Bermuda hay for most of the time I have owned her. However, for the past month, Chewie and Liberty have also been getting some Teff hay as part of their diet.
Teff is not a type of hay that I have ever fed before, as it is not very common in our part of Texas. However, there is a newer feed store near Chewie’s barn that sells Teff. Teff hay tends to be higher in fiber and lower in sugar and carbs than costal.
When I first starting giving Chewie and Liberty some Teff as part of their diet, they really seemed to like it! I assumed that part of the effect might be due to novelty. However, over the past few weeks, I’ve begun to suspect that they might like the Teff better than the costal.
For the past few days, I have given them more hay than usual, so that there would be a decent amount of hay leftover the next day.
I’ve divided the hay into two bags, and placed both bags close together in the same part of the pasture. I’ve also used the same type of hay bag for both bags.
In contrast, Chewie and Liberty usually get their hay divided into several bags, spread around the pasture, with some available in the morning and more available in the evening. But, all of these variables make it harder to separate out type of hay from other potential variables that may be influencing what they eat.
In the photo above, I had just put out their hay for the day. They are both eating the Teff hay, in the hay bag on the left. The hay bag on the right contains costal hay.
The photo below shows the outcome I found the next morning!
The hay bag on the left, which had the Teff hay, is empty. The did eat a lot of the coastal hay (on the right), but they left some of it behind.
I repeated this test for three more days, with the same results!
The Teff hay was a clear winner.
In the future, I may try videoing their hay consumption for a day. It would be interesting to see if they both eat all the Teff, then switch to the costal or if they exhibit a different pattern of eating.
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