Does my YM have ulterior motives?

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merry mischief

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I have started on winter livery this week (horses in at night straw and hay included in price) Jim has been having a hay net in his field at night when out but now he's in I like him to have ad lib hay. Yard rules are max 5 flaps of hay a night (they are decent sized flaps and won a local farming competition for quality) so sat I gave him 5, lots left am, sun gave him 4, still some left yesterday, so last night gave 3.5. Yard owner came over to say I should only give him 2 flaps a night so I don't give him colic or laminitis. I think this is far too small a portion for a 15:1 heavy cob! Plus I was always taught that ad lib hay will not cause a horse to colic or go instantly laminitic (he's a good weight going into winter can feel ribs but not see them, well muscled without too many wobbly bits considering only been in work 10 weeks) so my question is, is she right is ad lib hay wrong or is she trying to save on hay?
Sorry for the rambling post, lol!
 
I think it's particularly difficult to manage some horses weight, and whilst most people's preference is that horses have hay in front of them all the time when stabled, it won't harm them to go for a couple of hours without.

I've been the owner of a little cob mare who was a very good doer, and if she had been allowed to have as much hay as she wanted then we would have had problems. So I do see where your YO is comming from.

And of course, if your horse is on a good straw bed he will eat that if hungry (if the hay has run out).

The ideal is to see a small amount of hay left on the floor in the mornings - and in your shoes I would be cutting back until that is indeed what you see. Then I would cut back again by half a section.

All this supposes of course that your horse is an ideal weight that you are seeking to maintain.
 
the foreign bodies in the hay can swell up when the hit water or salivation. Not just colic but unsoaked hay can cause choke which i have personally experienced. I advise puting your hay in a haynet and soaking to get rid of the foreign bodies and as you soak your hay it well swell up, so when your horse eats it the hay wont swell anymore in there asophogus due to already being soaked! :)

But hay is a dry forage and its mostly lush grass which causes laminitis, rarely hay.
 
Ad lib hay will not cause colic, not enough might.
It will not give him laminitis either, if he is a good weight and not too greedy you are doing the right thing and by reducing it you are not wasting any. Keep him on ad lib and cut back a little if he starts to get too fat. Work should keep his weight right.
 
If she was suggesting you reduce his hay intake, thats different to saying you must, or you can only have 2 flaps.
She may have good intentions, but I'd disagree with her anyway. Better to soak the hay,or double net, rather than leave him without forage, if he really does need less.
 
Thanks, that was my plan before she came over, reduce the hay nightly until I find the right amount for him, vet says he is just right going into winter so we will be trying to maintain that! X
 
I don't think your YO is trying to be difficult if their rules clearly state no more than 5 flaps of hay per night, more that he or she is trying to help you get the balance right for your horse? One year I made the mistake of feeding one of our horses ad lib hay. And ended up with a hugely overweight horse going into spring, all because I (mistakenly in this case) believed that ad lib was the correct way to go with horses stabled overnight in winter.

As a rule if you want your horse to maintain their current weight then they need 2% of their bodyweight in forage a day. Including grass, hay, hard feed etc. If they need to lose weight 1.5%.

If you really are worried that your horse might stand for hours with nothing to eat which isn't ideal either of course then you could soak the hay. Then you can feed lots more as it doesn't have the same calorie content as unsoaked hay.
 
If you are allowed to have up to 5 flaps of hay then you can feed as much as you want. My pony has a very small amount of hay as he has had laminitus this year, however, my horse gets as much as he'll eat, and it won't cause colic, if anything, it reduces the chance.

If you're trying to get him to lose weight then maybe you could cut it down more but it sounds like you are working to find out the right amount anyway so i'd go with your instincts. Cut it down if he starts to get fat, add more if he starts to lose too much weight.
 
Weigh it & see what he's actually getting! General rule is between 1.5-2.5% (I think - may be 2% so check before using as an argument!) of ideal bodyweight, though that includes grazing too. However "too much" hay won't cause him to colic or give instant laminitis (& even then would only be a problem if he was eating it, leaving it certainly won't cause problems!).

As a compromise why not net it? That way anything he leaves can be used the next night? No waste but he can have what you feel is enough. Ultimately if the yard rule is 5 slices then she shouldn't be restricting you to 2, but I can see that she'd be annoyed if it's being thrown away. However she should say that, not make up some cock & bull story!
 
Last edited:
gypsyjim said:
Thanks, that was my plan before she came over, reduce the hay nightly until I find the right amount for him, vet says he is just right going into winter so we will be trying to maintain that! X
Click to expand...

And that's all you need to know.

The other thing you need to consider is that if hay is in the price, the last thing your YO will want is waste, hence the comments (however clumsily made :))
 
5 slices of hay is quite a lot - do you fluff your hay up before you feed it or just put the slices in a net ?

I think you would find if you fluffed it up as if you had taken it off a large bale then you would end up with 2 large ish nets full - I'm not sure at this point of the year a 15.1 cob type would need quite that much
 
Sorry but anyone That thinks ad lib hay causes colic is bonkers! Horses are designed To be continuous grazers of forage (fibre in other words, grass or hay) . Therefore to keep the digestive system working they should be given as much as they can eat. The only time you might see a problem is if the horse is on box rest and not moving and drinking the usual amount, in this instance soaking the hay helps.
The reason race horses get ulcers is due to the fact They are given so little fibre.
 
Thanks guys you've backed up what I thought, I'll keep reducing until I find the right amount :-) it was just that her comment about colic and lami played on my mind all night x
 
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