# Hay back in the day.



## SeverinR (Mar 6, 2012)

We have talked about moving forces over long distance.

One important part of a horses diet is good clean hay or grass.  
I just found this:
http://www.localhistories.org/middle.html
Does this mean they just piled hay and no means to bale it? I have recently read of the Amish using a device to pile hay in a large stack, but does not mention how they move it, or keep it dry. I am sure people might have tied bundles of hay with rope, but how big and how stackable?

Wet hay means:
1.mold or fungus that will kill a horse 2. a potential fire hazard as heat builds up from decomposing wet hay under pressure.

So when traveling, time would have to be spent on grazing horses, as transporting edible hay would be very difficult.

Modern hay bales weigh between 40-100 pounds, which will last a single horse 3-4 days(2flakes/feeding 2 feedings a day with 14-16 flakes a bale.). Imagine how many modern hay bales it would take to feed a dozen horses for several weeks/months, and still carry the items needed to travel with on a wagon and still be pulled by animals.


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## JCFarnham (Mar 6, 2012)

Modern grazing animals to me tend to be more likely to nibble on fresh grown grass than touch the hay left for them (though they sure do get excited by it, if its not there they'll find something similar to have instead, or just go with out...). There is usually couple of horses on one of our field next door (not our animals mind), and while their owners _do_ put out some for them, only very rarely have I seen them picking at it. 

I'm not a expert let that be known.

Here are my own thoughts on a solution to this logistics problem. While you would surely want to carry as much specialised feed as you can for your horses, you would need to cut back for speed of movement. The surplus nutrients needed then would have to come from "found" or "borrowed" edibles in a nose bag, or the natural way (grass, weeds, fruit on low branches, etc.) or perhaps you could instead wear the horse down to uselessness and exchange it for a fresh one. "Don't spare the horses" comes to mind.

Surely someone will be able to find you some quantifiable knowledge soon but in the mean time I hope my own helps some or at least drawing your attention to issues on which you can later focus your research


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## SeverinR (Mar 6, 2012)

definately fresh is always better then cut, by the animals and by humans transporting them.

Hay would only be carried if they could not get fresh along the way. drought fields, desert and Frozen winter come to mind. 
The dangers of travel in desert or winter discouraged long travel, let alone carrying fiberous edibles.
Otherwise just camping near a field of grass would satisfy the horses, but they need time to graze, and still get sleep before the next morning ride.

Horses will grab a bite here and there on the road, but doesn't add much to the diet, because of the bit in their mouth, mostly a boredom chew.  Also a horse that stops to nibble slows the group down considerably.  So eating on the road was not possible for the horse.
Theoretically, if you hung a feeding bag to the back of a wagon, with a horse that didn't have to have a bit(yes, some horses can be ridden without a bit(hackmore or by leg pressure) the horse could eat while walking, probably not great for digestion but...
Horse without reins bareback
Bareback riding WITHOUT reins performed by Stacy Westfall - YouTube

this makes me miss my horse


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