Changing from Stabled fed 3 x a day to 24 hour turnout

[Chavhorse]

I am moving Vardi to a new yard at the end of April in time for the Paddocks to open at the new yard.

At the moment he is stabled fed 3 times a day morning 1 scoop bix 1 muesli midday 1 scoop muesli and evening 1 scoop bix and one muesli. Hay is given twice daily and at the moment he is spending 3 hours a day outside on a paddock with short grass.

Bit of background Vardi is 4 and has for the last 7 months been working every day 1 hour mill and 1 hour either lunging/longreigning or ridden training.

When we move my idea is to very much leave the schooling to two half hour sessions a week and the rest of the time work up his hacking miles.....starting with 2o mins a day building up slowly to an hour then extending that out till we can go 2 hours (hopefully on his own!) by the end of the summer. Hacking will be slow and steady paces with maybe a short burst of (controlled ahem!) canter by the end of the summer.

So feeding......at the moment Vardi is standing 169cm in and needs to grow out a bit. He is 4 years old by the way.

Two questions;

1. Changing over to grass livery

At the moment he is standing out on grass for 3 hours a day (and it is short) the new place will have rich spring grass available so my thought proces is the following;

Day one outside 2 hours in field then in to dry paddock + feed twice a day)

Day Two (as above)

Day 3 4 hours in field and feed twice daily

Day 5 extend to 6 hours

Day 7 extend to 8 hours

Day 9 extend to 10 hours

At this stage he will effectively be outside all day and in at night will still feed twice a day but lesser amounts and will work up to him to outside 24 hours.


Question 2

Most people at the new yard just have their horses living on grass with no supplemental hard feed....my feeling is as a youngster he probably needs the extra feed especially as he will still be working (all be it not as hard as he is now) so I will just watch him and up and down the feed as per his condition.

Anyone have any ideas to throw in?

Main question is am I taking it slowly enough with the swop over to grass or do I need to slow down a bit maybe up the hours every 3 - 4 days.

 

[Tia]

Everyone is different however I think your plan is a good one and I think that is enough time for Vardi to become accustomed to living out. I personally don't feed my youngsters or mature horses (only the ancient ones get fed all year round) over the summer however they do all have two different types of mineral blocks in their fields and my youngsters really don't work very hard. You could give Vardi a token feed after riding and just gauge his weight like you say; if he drops then give him a bit more hard feed, but I really don't think he will drop weight if he is out on good grass all summer long.

I hope it all goes well.

 

[Spyda]

Tia: What mineral blocks do you have out on your paddocks? I've a large block of mineral salt in mine. Wondered what else you found useful.

 

[teddyt]

I would slow down just a bit. From 3 hours on short grass to lush grass is quite a change and preferably done over a longer period than 9 days, as you suggest up the hours every 3/4 days. Better safe than sorry, and of course review situation every day.
I personally would not turn out first thing in the morning without feeding some forage first. This is because your horse may have run out of hay several hours earlier and so if he goes straight out on lush grass he may eat it very quickly. I would feed some low energy chaff, unmollassed sugar beet or hay before turnout so the horse is full up before he goes out.

 

[Tia]

I give my lot trace elements blocks and macro mineral blocks, aswell as the white pure salt blocks. There are a number of different types of blocks over here and I alternate between the first two mentioned above, along with always giving pure salt because I know that some of the mineral blocks are lacking in salt. The ones my lot like least are the blue cobalt ones (I never buy these but sometimes new owners "donate" them on their arrival to my place).

 

[Slinkyunicorn]

I would cut out his hard feed totally - especially as he is going on to good grazing - maybe feed after he has worked, and as someone else has already suggested when he is stabled at the beginning use a chaff, so effectively you are changing him and his gut on to a high fibre diet. Even though he is a youngster he will get everything he needs from the grass throught eh spring and summer - mineral licks are a good idea as he will use them if he needs it.

On a high fibre diet he is far less likely to have any problems with ulcers etc which are common in stabled, hard feed horses and can contribute towards windsucking etc. You can always review and change his diet according to his work load when you need too. Just bear in mind that all that grass may make him a bit loopy (like they all can do on spring grass) so any hard feed may just exacerbate it!!

Good luck - I bet you can't wait to move him!!