Author Nick: HeatherToms
Name: Heather Toms
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Texas A&M College invented a method to score a horse’s body condition in 1983, the Henneke System, which calibrates how much fat is spread over the animal’s body. The System concentrates usually on the neck, withers, shoulder, ribs, loins and the tailhead.
Winter is on hand and the hay makers are making hay while the sun shines. I should stock up on hay for my horses for the winter, and am discovering the hard way, like a lot of people with horses, that hay has shot up in price and shot down in quality. Horse owners have to use supplements with even prime quality hay. When we were getting hay at 2 or 3 dollars a bale, we did not feel it was any kind of strain to pay for the supplements too. Now, when hay has hit exorbitant prices per bale and appears to have hit the very bottom in quality, we feel the pinch. We are indignant that at a price this high the hay quality is so poor; we’d have anticipated the best hay for the way that we are being scalped.