protien in hay

[Deleted]

Just wondering what everyone thinks Dales should get for protein? all of ours are in moderate work, and our hay is about 6% protein, wich I definetly think is to low, the hay was cut to late, last week of July or first week of August.

[harveydales]

Over here 6% would be considered to be on the low side but still within the normal range and not a problem at all. Certainly preferable to high protein hay for our Dales Ponies. Our hay came out at 6.9% protein last time we had it analysed which I felt was fine. I am more concerned about the sugar levels which tend to be on the high side in our meadow grass unfortunately.

Harvey (who is 16 and in fairly hard work) gets a low sugar feed supplemented with vitamins/balancer though.