A farmer round here sells 'pony' hay at 1.75 a bale. In essence all he's doing is selling his left over hay from 2yrs ago, but you'd be suprised how many people want it as it's much cheaper than Hi Fi or Happy Hoof.
Hi,
I have 3 kids ponies which are predictably fat on a single blade of grass!! I hate it when people say to me "aren't your ponies fat" as it's not like I don't battle with the whole situation. Also in similar situation with farmer and if the paddock looks even remotely trashed get asked to move them which then means they're on more grass again and it drives me demented!! Now have sussed it!! Can't do grazing muzzles - just hopeless with diddy ponies. Now I fence off 3 several little tiny paddocks. Just prior to trashing point I shift them to the next one. This gives the previous ones a bit of time to recover and then I do the same again. I always time it perfectly so the farmer doesn't have to tell me off and I feel that they are on a minimal amount of grass. I also put a nice load of soaked hay out just to keep the edge of their hunger and so they are rideable. We ride as much as possible but when you have little kids you will never be able to do enough riding to keep them fit even with a bit of lungeing (one of mine is terrible at lungeing too). You do the best you can with what you've got I suppose but mine seem fairly good on this regimen even the laminitic prone one. Good luck with it all - rest assured you are in good company!!!
