Advise needed re hay

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teasle

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MY horse left 5 sections of hay last night from his net, I put it out in the field but none of the horsses wanted it,even those that had been left out last night. The hay looks ok and smells ok ,and has been eaten every other night. I cannot get any more hay I have no transport and cant order a delivery untill the snow and ice on the farm track has cleared. I am not the only one other horses with hay bought from other sources have been leaving it .Does anyone know what could cause this another livery says they are just tired of hay.
 
Have you checked to see if they are dehydrated? Jerry went suddenly dehydrated when we had the last bought of snow, only outward sign was that he stopped eating his hay. Have put him onto Speedibeet as an extra to his feed until the snow clears and its working a treat.
 
He did not drind water in buckets either, but yesterday the field trough had defrosted and I assumed that he had preffered that water. He has constant access to water, we bucketed it to trough when needed but it may be too cold to drink
 
I'm encouraging mine to drink by putting warm water into their stable buckets when they come in.
I know the water troughs in the fields are not being touched, even though we are breaking the ice for them. (The feeder pipes are frozen, so if the water got drunk it wouldnt fill up).
I have noticed some horses on the yard are not drinking much of their stable water and the buckets are freezing over with them still quite full.
 
As others have said about the dehyration thing... I know it's not ideal but have you tried soaking the hay for 5 mins aswell? They are such a nightmare arn't they... but to be fair i'm not sure I would want to be drinking freezing cold water :p
 
Yes have soaked hay for tonight but when my friend put her share of field hay out from a different source all the horses went to eat it so I think it is the hay,but I dont know what to do as that hay is all I have available
 
teasle said:
Yes have soaked hay for tonight but when my friend put her share of field hay out from a different source all the horses went to eat it so I think it is the hay,but I dont know what to do as that hay is all I have available
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Can't you have some ofs of your pal and mix it with what you have got then replace it when the weather sorts itself out?
 
My old boy left almost his entire haynet the other night. We have two sorts of hay which has been stacked together, one sort is very fine soft and lovely, the other is coarser, but not bad in anyway. The stuff he left was the coarser stuff, but they both ate it the next day so I just guessed he wasn;t that fussed about it - he has eaten all the leftover fine stuff off the shelter floor so think he filled up on that.

I don't know if I'm ebing mean but surely they will eat it if they are hungry? I thnk mine was just thinking, 'well this isn't the top class stuff I has yesterday!' Although again there is nothing wrong with it.
 
Mine are being fussy about their hay too....I can't see anything wrong with the hay but some bales they like and some they dont!! However, they appear to eat what they have left overnight when it is put out in the field for them during the day......!!!

Mine are having plenty of fast fibre and sugar beet, and none seem to be losing weight, so I think they must be eating enough!
 
As "wellsat" said, are they drinking well? It has been observed that dehydrated horses will not eat due to their instinct that water is required for their digestion.

Even if good-quality feed is offered, horses will cut back on consumption if they are not drinking sufficient water. One reason for this is the lack of saliva to mix with the feed as it is being chewed. A normal adult horse in a state of good hydration will secrete up to 10 gallons of saliva per day to help soften its food as it is chewed and swallowed.

Many horses back off drinking in a cold snap because, just like us, they don't like drinking cold water and this can cause malnutrition and impaction colic. I have a vested interest in this subject as I sell one of the available products that gets horses drinking immediately,taking away all the worries about horses not drinking for whatever reason: frozen water troughs, frozen stable buckets; with my product, horses drink when you want them to, right in front of you! It is a god-send in this weather.
 
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I wouldn't be overly worried- as long as they are not losing weight, and look well in themselves i.e not colicy or dehydrated. If the hay is also good quality it should be fine also.

Some horses are sensible, and will eat what they can manage and come back to it later.

Also of they are exercising less due to the weather they may not be quite as hungry!

Damping hay (which is hard work in this weather and making feeds a bit sloppier than normal is a good way of getting extra water in to them, and a small amount of salt in the feed will encourage them to keep up their water intake (as long as you know they can get access to water easily)
 
We are struggling to soak hay and the waters in the stable are freezing solid so I have been giving them a bucket of speedibeet and hi-fi and some hay which I steam so it is at least damp. This way I ensure they are getting plenty of fibre and moisture, they are pooing well and well hydrated.
 
i used to get in a terrible state if my ponies did not eat their hay although now winter they get round bale haylage and eat every bit. i only use hay in the summer since haylage doesnt keep with reduced summer useage. however i did find if they didnt like it then soaking or mixing it didnt help~~bright bunch of ponies. being summer with the "fatties" i never worried too much but one old boy and another little mini racehorse in hard work (games) i used to leg it down to our feed shop and buy a couple of bales of small bale haylage or horsehage to make sure they ate. if you only have the one to worry about this could well work until at least the challenging weather is over or you get an acceptable hay supply. like you i have checked out hay thinking it is fine but ponies sometimes disagree!

one other thing~~~~dont assume horse is using field trough in day as may not be. they often do not relish freezing water even if ice is broken and you probably need to monitor how much is actually drunk this weather. ours like warmed water and hh poster last week suggested peppermint cordiall (tesco 99pence!) which i thought was a great idea and promptly bought. in fact am going to take pepermint c when we travel in summer as have similar worry that they must drink when travelling and away from home for 2 or 3 days at a time.
 
Perissa said:
You could try offering good quality barley straw, or oat straw.

My ponies are scoffing the barley straw I put out for them.
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be careful with risk of impaction scoffing straw and poss not drinking sufficiently. having said that last year while we were snowed in for 6 weeks i took in 3 big old horses left out on a hill and they ate ad lib hay and most of their straw (were in a huge straw floored barn) and were as happy and healthy as could be!!!!! They just hoovered up the straw!!!!!!!!!! however did have 2 tall (thankyou council) dustbins full of water and also drank vast quantities.
 
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