Am I feeding too much/too little hay?

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walkandtrot

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My mare is pure ID, heavy weight type, weighs 600kg, she eats a leaf of hay in about half hour!, she's stabled at night now, and I give her about 5 leafs of hay, just worried that she's gobbled it by early evening and has to stand with an empty stomach for the rest of the night, she has likits and salt lick too, I invested in a hay bar, so dont really want to go down the line of hay net with small holes to slow her down, what do you think??
 
If you don't want her to put on extra weight, try soaking the hay for 12-24 hours and feeding it ad-lib. My overweight ID mare has been on very restricted grazing all summer, but with ad-lib well-soaked hay to keep her gut healthy. She has just broken the 600kg barrier (ideally she'd be 550kg but she has been 675kg for a year!) and is happy, healthy and still has a full stomach. She will eat about six or seven sections of hay in a night, and have just a few handfuls left over which is perfect. Be careful with lickits, they are full of sugar and a hungry horse will eat one very quickly. My horse has a sugar-free lick which she loves (and smells nice and herby too!)
 
Have you weighed her hay?

Does she have other feed? If so how much?

Does she have grass in her field?

We would need the answers to all of these to be able to help really.

Assuming a leaf ss approx 2kg you are feeding approx 10kg hay a day, it total your horse needs to be consiming between 12-15 kgs a day (2-2.5%) but this weould be made up from hay, grass, and also bucket feed.

If they come in hungry they will often eat really fast but should slow down as they get fuller.
 
It may be that as prev poster added, she sounds like she is coming in hungry. Ideal if someone who goes up later could add some more hay. If you do soak be careful re soaking too long, this can just drain a lot of the goodness as well as removing dust spores! If poss can she have access to more in the day?
 
I have a pure ID weighs 547 KG and eats for England (and Ireland too!) She is still suckling 6 month foal so I am happy to give her ad lib hay. She and foalie currently get through a bale a day between them (but only a token handful cubes night and morning).

I dont know what to suggest if you dont want to go down the small holes haynet doubled up option.

Def try and give her some hay at late night?
 
She's out at grass daytime, and has 1/2 scoop of top spec cool condition cubes twice a day, with NAF general purpose suipplement, she's had the likit for a week now and I dont think she's fussed for it! she's ridden about 4 times a week at the mo, schooling/hacking. I keep her at home so I will go out late evening and see how the hay's doing, basically can you give too much hay? she's a real gannet, and I'm not sure if she's stop at the piont of fullness.
 
The majority of horses are fine on adlib hay and tend to control their eating, but there are some who have huge appetites and could end up overweight when fed that way. If you think your horse is like that then split her hay ration in half, and give her half at the normal time and then pop out later in the evening and give her the other half, then she won't be standing for long periods of time without any fibre.

Just noticed that you are feeding her cool condition cubes - does that mean that you want more condition on her? If so, then definitely give her as much hay as she can eat - it is much cheaper to get weight on them from feeding hay than feeding bucket feeds!
 
If she really is hungry, then you may find she stuffs herself full to bursting when you first try to give her hay ad-lib. Mine certainly did, she had a bale in 12 hours for the first few days! Then she settled down to a more sensible level of about half a bale in 12 hours. You can never give too much forage IMO. If you're not worried about keeping her weight down (which I assume you aren't if you're feeding conditioning cubes) then stick as much in the haybar as possible and reduce it by a section a night until you find she only leaves a small amount by morning.
 
I have 2 horses both sec d's one of which weighs in at 550kg I was worrying the other way that he isnt even eating 2 flaps a night and the other one a youngster who i would really love to feed up a little over winter is not maing her way through 1 flap of haylage. He certainly isnt losing weight so guess they must be getting enough during the day, i would expect them to gain masses of weight if they were having 5 flaps a night. I would consider small haynet to slow her down as i dont think she needs anymore - we have 102 horses on our yard and the rule is 16lb a night for horses of which they all vary in size and shape!
 
you can never feed too much hay , in my opinion..... access to plenty of good quality hay as often as possible should stop your horse from gorging herself on it... It's the best thing for her, so if you can pop out later in the eve and put out more for her then great!

A hay net with smaller holes is an option but only if your worried about her weight...

I fed by horse nearly a bail a day.... he was in great condition, shiny coat, good all round (i did feed hard feed too once a day with suplements etc).
 
[ QUOTE ]
If you don't want her to put on extra weight, try soaking the hay for 12-24 hours and feeding it ad-lib. My overweight ID mare has been on very restricted grazing all summer, but with ad-lib well-soaked hay to keep her gut healthy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here with one of our ISH's. He balloons with unsoaked hay, but this ensures he has plenty to keep his hindgut moving etc and gives him fibre without the calories.
 
I am of the opinion that you can never feed too much hay.

What is she eating through the day? She's obviously hungry so cut out your hard feed and just put her on ad-lib good quality hay.
 
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