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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BrokenBackJack" data-source="post: 146199" data-attributes="member: 642">They will really appreciate alfalfa.  Hay doesn't seem to do much and most will lay on it over eating it.  At least that is how it was when we had them in our farmstead over the winter.  We gave them all the corn and barley they wanted and had to also buy alfalfa big round bales when the winters were bad several years ago.  They wouldn't eat the hay we gave them, so ended up buying alfalfa bales.  Had 200-400 head in the yard and they ate our small evergreen trees too.  Really bad winters and they herded up fast.If you are going to start be prepared to do it every day or few days or every week.  The herd in our yard went through a 1200-1500 lb alfalfa bale every 1-2 days.  Pretty expensive at $50.00 a bale is what we had to pay at the time.  Either had to feed them or they would have all died.  G&F came out and wouldn't do a thing or contribute anything.  Said it was natures way.  Told them easy to say when you don't have to watch them starve to death out your back window.  Did get some pellets from a company that they donated to us.  They really liked them too.We also took our bobcat and snowblower and backhoe out in the fields to move snow so they could try and get down to eat what the combines missed but that was a joke as wind would blow it shut everyday or every other day.  Deep snow and cold temps are really hard on them.  We even opened the doors on our old quonset building to let them go inside to try and get some protection.  Bad deal for them on hard winters and darn expensive for you if you are going to do it.  Don't start it unless you are prepared to go all the way otherwise you are doing more harm than good.  Hated to spend that kind of money but if we didn't the whole herd would have died.  When you have to buy corn, barley, and alfalfa bales it gets expensive fast.  Plus we had to replant our evergreens 3 years in a row because of the deer but that was small potatoes compared to the price of the other feed.We even had garbage cans full of apples in one of our building that we would throw some out everyday.  They really liked them and ate them fast even though they were frozen.  Wife had some fake fruit out by some buildings and by the mail box and was funny watching them pick them up and try to eat them but also was very sad knowing they were that hungry and would eat or try to eat almost anything!  We collected the apples from people that had the trees and didn't want the apples.  You could get a lot of free apples in Bis/Man in the fall as quite a few give them away.  Just a thought for the future if anyone is interested.</blockquote>

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