Encouraging forage intake... help!

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Albus15

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I have a rather large young horse that we have always struggled to get enough hay into, resulting in huge struggles to get condition on.

The hay is provided by the yard, and the remaining 80 horses on there eat it like it's going out of fashion. I've tried haynets with the biggest holes possible, hung up around the stable, as well as a full haybar. We've also tried the small bagged haylage bales,which were better but still not a good enough consumption.

The horse is fed on a high calorie, high fibre and high oil feed, which is holding him up and providing plenty of energy, but struggling to get past a certain point in his condition that he needs to.
At the moment he is turned out 24/7 on 30 acres with 20 other horses, and whilst the grass is coming through, I don't think he is getting enough volume to fill him up.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
I've tried sprinkling mint on the hay, don't think it made much difference. I've been looking to see if fenugreek sprinkled over would help anything?
Someone suggested feeding straw
 
Would he eat a tub of soaked grass nuts left in his stable?

I have one that has never been a big hay eater. He will eat it but he is so SLOW, he picks through a net like he is seeking out each individual strand of hay that is to his liking, he used to rarely finish a net overnight. I've had him over 20 years and he's been the same his whole life and is the same now. My other one is the polar opposite and shoves as much in his mouth at once as possible and i'm always trying to slow him down 😂

With the picky one I give soaked grass nuts and Fibrebeet to top-up the amount of fibre he's eating which thankfully he eats with more gusto. He has diastemas now so can't have chaff anymore but I used to mix readigrass in with the mash also.
 
It doesn't agree with all horses, but I've found alfalfa haylage is incredibly palatable to most horses and high calorie.
It is expensive though, so if you did go down that route it would be more cost effective to mix it with the hay.
 
I've got a cob who isn't a big hay eater - never thought I'd say that about a cob.

It has to come from high protein hard feed when there isn't enough grass. Until this winter I used Allen & Page muscle focus. Deviated this winter but I'll go back to it i think. Higher energy pony nuts seem popular with him too as does sainfoin.

He has the attention span of a toddler so lots of different nibbles seems to be the answer.
 
With a fussy one I've provided both hay and haylage as then he didn't get bored and eat more. It's annoying if the yard is already providing forage but no more expensive than using short feed.
 
Readigrass smells lovely. I'd eat it if I were a horse 😂. You could mix it with sloppy unmollassed sugar beet and leave him a trug to pick at. I fed Haycare to an old pony that didn't eat hay and that's apparently tasty too.
 
KikiDee said:
Would he eat a tub of soaked grass nuts left in his stable?

I have one that has never been a big hay eater. He will eat it but he is so SLOW, he picks through a net like he is seeking out each individual strand of hay that is to his liking, he used to rarely finish a net overnight. I've had him over 20 years and he's been the same his whole life and is the same now. My other one is the polar opposite and shoves as much in his mouth at once as possible and i'm always trying to slow him down 😂

With the picky one I give soaked grass nuts and Fibrebeet to top-up the amount of fibre he's eating which thankfully he eats with more gusto. He has diastemas now so can't have chaff anymore but I used to mix readigrass in with the mash also.
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Feel like you're describing my horse here!
 
SEL said:
I've got a cob who isn't a big hay eater - never thought I'd say that about a cob.

It has to come from high protein hard feed when there isn't enough grass. Until this winter I used Allen & Page muscle focus. Deviated this winter but I'll go back to it i think. Higher energy pony nuts seem popular with him too as does sainfoin.

He has the attention span of a toddler so lots of different nibbles seems to be the answer.
Click to expand...
Mine also has a very limited attention span! We did a stay away show last year and he was in one of those stables without a window, seemed to eat better there as he couldn't look out but I think I'd feel cruel putting him in his stable and blocking all the sides off. I use a youngstock bodybuilder cube that has been a gem of a find, but no amount of hard feed gives him that filling out around the flanks that they get from forage (or so I've been told by a nutritionist)
 
criso said:
With a fussy one I've provided both hay and haylage as then he didn't get bored and eat more. It's annoying if the yard is already providing forage but no more expensive than using short feed.
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Yes this is what I've been trying to do, they only provide the hay but still have to pay for what we use. Can't store the haylage there for that reason so bringing the bales in in the car. With the amount of hard feed he needs, getting him to eat forage would seriously reduce my feed bill!
 
dorsetladette said:
I used readigrass for an older pony who I felt wasn't doing well his haylege. He just had a trug in the corner full of it and picked at it now and then.

I wouldn't use straw unless you are trying to reduce calorie intake. Straw is all volume but fewer calories.
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Did you/is it safe to give an ad-lib amount of the readigrass?
 
Mine likes the horsehage alfalfa. I don't need it now he's older but he's a big horse and at 4/5 wasn't getting enough from hay. He also gets soaked grass nuts, this works out cheaper than readigrass.
 
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