Did you feed extra hay/haylage this month?

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mystiandsunny

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I didn't, and ponies are all fine, no-one's lost weight or anything. They're getting what they have been given all winter, and on occasion weren't even hungry enough to finish dinners in a hurry - and I'm only feeding 2/3 of a small bale a day to 3 ponies. They live out, and there is grass in their field, they dug through the snow when they wanted it.

Seeing all these posts about people's bills going up due to extra hay/haylage made me wonder!
 
I stable where I work and live, i get Adlib haylage/hay. My horse is fully clipped and a bad doer, so have been feeding her a big net, jammed packed full and most of it will be gone by the morning, when normally i'd find more in her net. She's definately eating more throughout the day as well.
 
Yep, 24/7 access to haylage. He looks about to foal. Going to need muzzling in spring. There wasn't much grass even before the snow, but the few hours between big round bales being put in the field they did go off and dig for grass. Doubt they found much though.
 
I'm feeding 6lbs more hay than usual :) All her hay is weighed and soaked, so when she has to stay in she gets an extra net.
 
Our horses were stuck in on and off with limited turnout from Monday 20th until the 27th so mine was on extra haylage ration as when they did go out they couldn't really get much grass up through the frozen snow. I also gave him the option of extra hay in another net if he wanted it overnight as was going so low below zero. He didn't seem to want it though so he's not as greedy as I think he is! Back on normal ration now and exercise!
 
I have noticed a huge difference in my horses being able to feed much more hay / haylage this year. In the past we were at livery yards and were restricted to how much we put out and how much ours actually ate. We were lucky this year to get a good cut off our fields and we have rolled a big round bale of hay into the field - 4 horses going through one every 10 days or so. They are much more content - they are not coming in hungry or standing by the gate at earlier hours. The old horse and my fussy TB look really well and the 2 good doers are fine - they spend more time sleeping out there next to the other two who are munching away.
 
oh yes! We had 4 ponies on hay before the freeze, a large bale was lasting over 2 weeks as we were weighing what was going out for them. When the freeze came they all went onto either big bale hay or haylage in the fields with them, we have several laminitics and wanted to keep them off the frozen grass. Because I have been so ill we couldn't bring in so had to leave them all out with the bales. Until it got really cold the haylage was lasting 3 horses in each field 1 week, when the temperatures really dropped it was lasting 3 days tops! Thank God our supplier has plenty and our YO took off another cut to make sure we would have enough to last us through the full winter. Have noticed today how much warmer it is and they are picking at what grass there is rather than eating their bales though.
 
I fed less - he is usually out in a feild with literally nothing to eat during the day (as he is so fat) and usually gets one med/large net at night. The past month hes had a smaller net over night and one slightly smaller again during the day, which is double netted so its harder to get out. (hes been in pretty much 24/7)

So we baisically took it as an opportunity to get some weight off before he came back into work :p

(Hes not left with nothing for any considerable amout of time btw-we just put loads of nets round it so its really hard form him to get out) :)
 
We fed slightly less.

This is because they were out everyday, if it was a wet month they would have been in. Same amount of hay overnight but slightly less hay in field when they were out compared to if they had been in.
Still had lots of hay in the field to warm them up, keep digestion going etc :)
 
I fed more hay this month. We had only short grass before the cold weather anyway, and then quite heavy snow covered it for quite a while, so no way the horses were going to dig through it!
 
Yes, but only 4kg hay in the field when frozen or covered in snow per horse. Everything else has stayed normal and my friend's gelding is holding his weight really well (normally drops off at the slightest change) and my boy is down to a condition score of 2.5-3 which is what I am looking for in a native :)
 
I don't feed any hay anyway so nothing changed here :) I have around 4 acres that is left to grow and flop over, very fortunate we didn't have a huge amount of snow so they had lots of grass to eat.

They have actually lost weight too as they are out 24/7 and only my 20 year old has a rainsheet on they other is naked
 
Mine have been having extra hay but with the amazing quality ive got I have cut hard feed right down. Last brought chaff and fast fibre mid november and still got loads left. I found im spending less this year on feeding them than last year as savings on feed are more than extra cost of hay.
 
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