Aaargh greedy monsters!

Casey76

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Because I was away for a week over Christmas, I asked my YO to put a bale of hay in the hay feeder for my two horses (they normally get 2 large slow feeder nets during they day).

About 3/4 of a large round (500kg or so) was put in on 19 Dec. Yesterday I swept the remains out and went back to nets. Yes, they’ve eaten 500kg of hay in 2 weeks in daytime turnout (approx 8 hours a day)

I absolutely detest doing nets, but they pair of them will be the size of a house if they keep eating at that rate!
 

DD

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same here. mine have eaten 44 bales of hay during Dec. small conventional bales that is. I normally use no more than 1 a day. its the weather, its been awful. I have 2 horses.
 

Leo Walker

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It does seem a lot! Mines going through 3.5 small bales a week and that includes hay in the field if its frosty or particularly wet. That's total ad lib as well. He is very sensible though and seems to regulate himself which is something I haven't experienced before!
 

cobgoblin

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My two have gone through 1000kg of haylage from the beginning of December and haven't put any weight on at all... It's either been freezing or cold, wet and windy all that time.
 

Mike007

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I must say that I have never seen a round bale of hay that weighed 500kg. The 4 ft ones generaly turn out at about 200 /240 kg . Even the antiquated 5 ft balers only produced 320 kg bales.
 

Annagain

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My two have ad lib haylage overnight and are out on grass that is obviously still pretty decent in the day. They normally have a few weeks on the winter grazing before they start coming in overnight but this winter they stayed on the summer grazing longer and came in as soon as they came up to the winter field.

They are barely touching their haylage. I don't weigh it but I doubt they're eating more than 3kg a night. They were being given a lot more and only eating a quarter of it so we cut it by half and they're still only eating half of that! They're still looking great though so I'm sure they'll start eating once the grass has gone.

The two ponies I help look after however (same field, same haylage) are eating all their 5kg ration - about twice as much as the big boys are nibbling at!
 

AppyLover

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I am going through a 6ft bale of hay a month at the moment between 2 they are out from 7.30am till 6pm most days but we are about to add a 3rd so probably be 2 6ft bales a month / 6 weeks I think. Only 3 more months and 24/7 turnout starts 😁
 
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