When you tear open a bag of Montana Premium Forage pellets, the first thing you notice is the smell: fresh-cut hay, bright and grassy, the way a Montana field smells on a summer morning. The second thing you notice is the color. These pellets are green, not the dusty brown of forage that sat too long or traveled too far. That color is the whole point. "Green hay makes green pellets," as the company puts it, and everything they do is built around protecting it.
Montana Premium Forage is built on a simple idea: the hay you feed should be as good as the hay you would bale yourself if you had the right field, the right weather, and the patience to do it correctly. They grow their forage on select farms in Southwest Montana, irrigate it, and use little to no herbicides or pesticides. Crops are cut at the perfect maturity stage, during the best weather windows, so the nutrition is locked in at its peak rather than lost to rain or over-ripening.
The honest answer is what is not in them. Montana Premium Forage pellets are single-ingredient: just hay, with no binders, no bentonite, no preservatives, and no fillers. Many pelleted forages on the market rely on a binding agent to hold the pellet together. These do not. What holds the pellet together is the quality and moisture of the hay itself, which means what your horse eats is forage and nothing else.
That purity has practical benefits at the feed pan. The pellets are dust-free, which matters for horses with respiratory sensitivity and for anyone tired of a cloud rising off the scoop. They soak quickly and absorb water well, making them easy to turn into a mash for senior horses, hard keepers, or any animal that needs its forage softened. And because they are so digestible, they work as a clean, consistent substitute or supplement when pasture and long-stem hay quality is unreliable.
The process reads less like a factory line and more like a careful harvest. After cutting, the hay is naturally sun-cured over several days in Montana's high-desert, low-humidity climate, which preserves both its color and its nutritional value. It is then baled at exactly the right moisture level to prevent spoilage, stacked, and tarped immediately to keep the weather out. Pellet production happens weekly, so the forage spends as little time as possible between the field and the bag, and finished pellets ship daily across the country.
Montana Premium Forage offers a focused lineup of 40 lb bags, all in a 1/4-inch pellet. The Alfalfa Pellets run a minimum 16% protein and are geared toward performance and breeding animals, or as a rich supplement to poor-quality forage. The Alfalfa Orchard Grass Pellets blend high fiber with a moderate 15% protein for a balanced, all-purpose feed suitable for animals at every growth stage. For an easy keeper or a horse that needs lower protein, the Timothy Pellets deliver highly digestible fiber at a minimum 8% protein. Beyond pellets, the same hay is available as cubes and compressed bales.
The lineup centers on three 1/4-inch hay pellets in 40 lb bags: Alfalfa Pellets, Alfalfa Orchard Grass Pellets, and Timothy Pellets. The same Montana-grown hay is also offered as Alfalfa Cubes, Alfalfa Orchard Cubes, Timothy Mini-Cubes, and compressed bales in alfalfa, alfalfa orchard grass, and timothy.
All of the forage is grown on select farms in Southwest Montana, near the company's Silver Star location. The hay is irrigated, raised with little to no herbicides or pesticides, and watched as it grows so it can be cut at the ideal maturity stage.
No. The pellets are single-ingredient and made with no binders, no bentonite, no preservatives, and no fillers. The quality and moisture of the hay itself is what holds each pellet together, so your horse is eating pure forage.
The green color reflects preserved chlorophyll and nutrition. Hay is sun-cured in Montana's low-humidity climate, baled at the right moisture, tarped immediately, and pelleted weekly so it never loses its color or quality to time or weather. As the company says, green hay makes green pellets.
Yes. The pellets absorb water quickly and soak down well, which makes them easy to serve as a softened mash for senior horses, hard keepers, or any animal that needs its forage easier to chew and swallow.
Alfalfa Pellets are higher in protein (minimum 16%) and suited to performance and breeding animals or as a supplement to poor forage. Timothy Pellets are lower in protein (minimum 8%) with highly digestible fiber, making them a better fit for growing, mature, or overweight horses. The Alfalfa Orchard Grass blend sits in between at roughly 15% protein for all-around feeding.
Yes. Because they are clean single-ingredient hay with no fillers, the pellets produce no dust, which is helpful for horses with respiratory sensitivity and for keeping the feed room and barn cleaner.
Montana Premium Forage is sold online and through retail partners including Chewy, Murdoch's, North 40, Shipton's Big R, and Western Ranch Supply. Pellets are produced weekly and shipped daily across the country to keep the product as fresh as possible.
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