Orchard grass or alfalfa. As goes the price of feed, so goes the price of beef and lamb and the cost to keep of course, a horse.
According to Rick Byrd, of La Pine Feed, orchard grass is going for $10 an 85-pound bale these days. Alfalfa is running $18 for a 160-pound bale. Each year, the cost varies according to the supply and the demand.
If the mule deer out in the fields near Silver Lake were any indication, demand is high. They streamed down out of the junipers to spread out across the fields in bunches of 20 to 40 animals between the irrigation wheel lines, nibbling at the green showing between last year’s dried-out stalks.