Strange question. Horse carrots - how much do you pay for the big orange sacks and how many would an average stable (if there is such a thing) need?

[She3PO]

TIA

:)

We usually pay about 2 pounds for an orange sack but we do live close to the fens. We only have 4 horses so a sack lasts us about 3 weeks. We only feed in Spring and Autumn though as they go off too quickly in the Summer and they have other hard feed in the Winter.

Farking £2.50 now. Been going up gradually - although that is from the Greengrocer's down the road, not the feed merchant.

Only buy for my mare and she has 5 in a feed, twice a day, plus I put them in a ball thing for her to play with if she is stuck in for any reason. No idea how long they last me, but the dogs and the children pilfer them as well - and sometime I use them for tea

Thanks :)

We're thinking about delivering them to local stables, but not sure how cost effective that would be if they'll only be ordering a few bags at a time.

We buy them off a local feed merchant. I'd imagine there can't be any profit in it for them and they probably use it as a loss leader to get us into their store (they have a big sign outside when they have a new delivery).

You may be able to strike up a deal with a local stable but if the horses are on do-it-yourself livery you'd be negotiating with individual owners and may not be worth your while.

Butkin, thanks for the advice.

We can get them for £1.50 and obviously need to add on a little bit to make it worth our while, but I can't see them selling for much more than £2.

I get mine free (but only because I make the shop owner laugh, I think) and between only 2 and a bit horses easily use an orange sack a week - unless am ringing the changes with parsnips, swede, apples etc (usually hide in hay or old wellies around field). Am always snacking on them myself though!

I think I have compulsive succulent feeding disorder?

Well this will be no use to you but I thought I would offer the other end of the scale! We stable 30ish horses and they all get one in their night feed as a treat. Therefore we get through about 2 sacks a week for thirty horses! We get those free but would pay £2 per sack.

We are lucky enough to have lots of good grass so have no real need to feed extras like this.

Question - are horse carrots just broken/grubby carrots or are they different?

Thanks again for the info. I don't think it's an area we're going to move into as there's not much profit in it.

Colditz - they're larger misshapen carrots that aren't suitable for supermarkets. From what I can gather they're perfectly ok for humans to eat.

I only wondered because my children's mainstay vegetable is carrots, and they're getting dear! If horse carrots are fine to eat, I don't mind fiddling with them to make them presentable....

They are often really exciting shapes!

(is this what it has come to? spirally carrots excite me?)

Definitely fine for humans and they are usually perfectly clean. They just aren't all a perfect shape although most of the ones we get look identical to those in Tescos!

We used to make a sport out of finding the most rudely shaped carrot of the week as teens. O,the fun we had in that yard and the amount of them we ate when we hung around longer than we should and didn't have any lunch...

My dd has a lovely pony who loves carrots but we are wondering where to buy these big sacks from.

Do they have apples/parsnips aswell as carrots?

Thankyou