It takes a horse owner/lover/caretaker/trainer to realize what is really needed to separate a “horse hay producer” from a “hay producer”. Without that knowledge, we couldn’t have developed this formula. Abercrombie Farm's formula itself proves who we are…horse 
lovers. We demand excellence from our producers. We know you are a person that works tirelessly to provide for your beloved horses. We built this cooperative in order to help you. So, no matter how busy you are, please take a few minutes to learn what we are all about. Your horse(s) and your precious time schedule, deserve the best!
Consistency in hay is the main ingredient that benefits the horse caretaker so that he/she doesn’t have to repeatedly change the rest of the diet. It’s frustrating for a caretaker, to continually recalculate the necessities of each horse in the barn based on the continually changing level of worms. There are different types of parasites located throughout the country and they are mostly considered “worms”. When a caretaker purchases hay and doesn’t know where it came from, there is a high likelihood that the next load will come from a different farm. Often, that farm has a different type and concentration of worms and the horse can never develop immunity. On the contrary, OrganicHays.com pairs one stable with one farm (sometimes 2) and in so doing, creates consistency. That consistency works well for the horse, not to mention the consistency of price working well for the caretaker.
Representatives from OrganicHays.com watch meticulously over your hay production. In the beginning, many farms claimed to produce quality hay. Now, with Abercrombie’s system of publically posting actual quality of each farm’s hay, on our website, all of the farms get an honest comparison of how they stack up against their competition. Most importantly, the buyer is saved this time consuming and costly process, Abercrombie provides this valuable benefit, at no charge!
Parasites are not on vacation and are not attempting to get a suntan. They reside under cover, close to the ground and within the dirt. Mass producers of hay are attempting to get maximum tonnage and they typically cut their hay as close to the ground as possible (1 inch). When they rake this hay, it brings with it most of the parasites and lots of dirt. While this practice is fine for cattle, horses demand a higher cutting. We support a 4 inch high cutting which costs our farmer money, but it produces the highest quality horse hay, with less stems and fewer parasites. Our representatives are on site to make this report, the day of cutting. We also post this cutting length on our website for the buyer, and world, to see. Our system naturally weeds out, less adequate hay producers.
OrganicHays.com provides laboratory test results on the hay from each individual farm and provides those results, publically on our website, and most importantly to the purchasing stables. Those test results are used by both OrganicHays.com management as well as the purchasing stables for numerous reasons. These test results are vital to giving the caretaker a baseline from which to design a balanced diet, for each horse.
According to Jennifer Nadeau, M.S., Ph.D., Equine Specialist at the University of Connecticut, “Having your hay analyzed is a great idea. It is the only way to determine the actual nutrient content of your hay. It is important to know this so that you can be sure that your horse is consuming an adequate diet. You may or may not need to feed grain depending on the quality of your hay…this can be a significant savings.”
It’s possible that the most important reason to buy direct is that you will have the ability to custom order the blend of grasses that best suit your overall needs. Let’s say that you are a horse breeder with fifty horses and twelve of those horses are in the show string. Those twelve horses, the lactating mares, and the young horses need a higher quality, more nutritious hay. Abercrombie can deliver multiple types of hay on the same load. This system is also beneficial to the older mares and pleasure geldings , which would suffer from higher sugar hay - and hay with more protein than needed. We help stable owners hit the "sweet spot"!
Once you have become an annual buyer and have received your discount for doing so, you have more benefits. The first of those is to blend whatever type of hay you wish. You may believe in two, three, four or even five different types of grass in one bale. We believe in blends also, and support you having this choice. Once you make this decision, we will typically have a farm that suits yours needs, and we have the ability to blend in other types of grasses, that you may desire. This process takes a year to mature, but we feel that “perfection” is worth the wait!
