I was horrified the first time that I saw round bales of hay in horse pastures. I could not imagine anyway they could be kept free of mold. Eventually I came to understand that properly cured round bales were safe for horses. In fact, my horses consume 10-12 round bales each week. However there is one problem with round bales that I did not originally recognize. Horses that eat round bales are nearly as stationary as horses that are kept in stables. This problem is lessened when round bales are kept in a large enough pasture so that horses are given the opportunity to move. When given the opportunity a horse will take advantage of every chance to walk, trot, and even kicked up his heels and buck.
The problem with round bales that is even more insidious than the fact that it does not encourage exercise as much as does life one a pasture. Lower status horses position themselves around so they can quickly escape if challenged by horses of higher status. Such horses spend several hours a day with their backs hollowed it out and their bellies sagging. This posture makes for a weaker top line than would be found among horses that walk freely while grazing.
All of the conventional exercises that are used to help horses straighten their backs and develop solid muscling help alleviate the problem. In a previous post I mentioned the extraordinary effectiveness of what Parelli calls "hill therapy." (That work out is great even if the horse has solid muscling.)
It's good to take a close look at all horses as they eat round bales in order to make sure that the muscles are developing as they should.
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