In my opinion, the alfalfa is way too rich. Switch the horses to the grass field.
The alfalfa I have seen (hay, alfalfa cubes) typically runs about 14% protein. In my opinion and from my experience, that is too high to allow grazing for more than a short time - 30 minutes to an hour. Too much food source of that range of protein can result in founder.
Founder occurs when a horse eats too much of a good thing and the body cannot handle the high proteins. Because of the high number of blood vessels in the foot, this results in "fever" in the foot. The fever can cause the laminae (the connective tissue) in the foot to deteriorate allowing the aptly named coffin bone to rotate downward. In severe cases the coffin bone can rotate to the point it protrudes through the sole of the foot.
Founder can also affect the connective tissue between the foot and the hoof. In severe cases, the entire hoof can come off because the tissue that holds it on has been destroyed.
Most grasses, unless heavily fertilized within the last 3 weeks, will run less than 9%. At that level, most horses can graze as much as they want and it won"t be a problem.
For me personally, I would be very leery of allowing horses to graze on alfalfa for a long period of time.
I would play it safe and swap with the cattle. Even though the grass field is short, its not so short they can"t graze it and you have hay available to supplement if needed.
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Today's Featured Article - Grain Threshing in the Early 40's - by Jerry D. Coleman. How many of you can sit there and say that you have plowed with a mule? Well I would say not many, but maybe a few. This story is about the day my Grandfather Brown (true name) decided along with my parents to purchase a new Ford tractor. It wasn't really new except to us. The year was about 1967 and my father found a good used Ford 601 tractor to use on the farm instead of "Bob", our old mule. Now my grandfather had had this mule since the mid 40's and he was getting some age on him. S
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