Feeding loose hay

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Peterboy1

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My mate is very greedy and at the moment gets her hay in a small holed net which to be honest doesn't seem to be slowing her down and it seems as though any amount of hay doesn't last her the night. Someone suggested putting her hay loose on the floor as she may take her time if she can see that she isn't being rationed. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
 
what's her weight like? Unless one of mine has a weight issue then i always just leave ad lib hay
 
Bob the notacob has his hay loose. He loves this. He spreads it all out and browses .It is a gourmet experience for him. If I pile it back up ,he immediately bulldozers it back with obvious annoyance. He doesnt waste any . He gets such obvious pleasure from loose hay ,I could never go back to haynets.I also suspect that the stress of haynets for some horses (not all )may be a contributing factor for ulcers.
 
I would never use a small holed hay net (or indeed any conventional haynet hanging up) for any of my horses. They are all fed adlib hay at all times and none are fat or greedy. Well my WB is greedy actually - he is always eating, but he's not fat!
 
I always feed hay loose on the floor. Most of the horses seem to enjoy dragging it around their stable before eating it.
 
Mike007 said:
Bob the notacob has his hay loose. He loves this. He spreads it all out and browses .It is a gourmet experience for him. If I pile it back up ,he immediately bulldozers it back with obvious annoyance. He doesnt waste any . He gets such obvious pleasure from loose hay ,I could never go back to haynets.I also suspect that the stress of haynets for some horses (not all )may be a contributing factor for ulcers.
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This is what my mare does. I love watching her delicately choose her next mouthful.
 
Horses whose hay is not rationed usually learn that they don't need to stuff it all down themselves. If the horse is used to not having enough, though, it does take time for them to settle down and regulate their own intake.
 
You could try putting multiple small nets up in the stable so she walks a bit more?

A greedy horse is never easy to manage! I'm lucky, mine is easy - dad threw a bucket of apples from orchard into field on Monday, horse spotted and ate some, left the rest. He had more yesterday and finished the rest off today! He's actually quite odd lol.
 
I always fed hay loose on the floor, until I got a Hay Bar - best thing ever! Nothing wasted and a lot of good neck stretching done to get the bits at the bottom!! (The horse that is, not me!)
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Horses whose hay is not rationed usually learn that they don't need to stuff it all down themselves. If the horse is used to not having enough, though, it does take time for them to settle down and regulate their own intake.
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I agree with this. It may take a few months but if it's safe to do this, i.e. the horse is not a fatty, it's a good approach.

My horse gets very unhappy if he doesn't think he's got enough to eat and the haynets the yard gives (he is on livery) are perfectly adequate from a nutritional point of view, but he doesn't think it's enough, so if that's all you give him he will guzzle it furiously in about 3 hours and then sulk. I have found that if I also give him a trug of mixed grass chaff and oat straw chaff, a treat ball and one of those compressed hay block thingies at bedtime, that keeps him entertained overnight, and he has a little bit of the chaff left in the morning. I am sure an even bigger haynet would work just as well, or a couple of haynets, but this is just a more practical solution for us within our yard setup.

Friend keeps hers at home and makes sure they have access to hay at all times when stabled. They all gorged themselves for the first few months until they got used to the idea that they always have food, and now they are much more moderate in their intake. She is careful what hay she buys, and keeps their bucket feeds to a minimum so they can safely have as much hay as they want.
 
Micropony said:
I agree with this. It may take a few months but if it's safe to do this, i.e. the horse is not a fatty, it's a good approach.

My horse gets very unhappy if he doesn't think he's got enough to eat and the haynets the yard gives (he is on livery) are perfectly adequate from a nutritional point of view, but he doesn't think it's enough, so if that's all you give him he will guzzle it furiously in about 3 hours and then sulk. I have found that if I also give him a trug of mixed grass chaff and oat straw chaff, a treat ball and one of those compressed hay block thingies at bedtime, that keeps him entertained overnight, and he has a little bit of the chaff left in the morning. I am sure an even bigger haynet would work just as well, or a couple of haynets, but this is just a more practical solution for us within our yard setup.

Friend keeps hers at home and makes sure they have access to hay at all times when stabled. They all gorged themselves for the first few months until they got used to the idea that they always have food, and now they are much more moderate in their intake. She is careful what hay she buys, and keeps their bucket feeds to a minimum so they can safely have as much hay as they want.
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When my mare needed to lose weight when she arrived here, I made sure that she had enough oat straw chaff to supplement her restricted hay, so that she could eat all night if she wanted to. Now she has AdLib hay, fed from a haybar/the floor. Outs seem to like to take the hay out and inspect it carefully before casting. Apparently it is not possible to inspect it in a haybar:D
 
Pearlsasinger said:
When my mare needed to lose weight when she arrived here, I made sure that she had enough oat straw chaff to supplement her restricted hay, so that she could eat all night if she wanted to. Now she has AdLib hay, fed from a haybar/the floor. Outs seem to like to take the hay out and inspect it carefully before casting. Apparently it is not possible to inspect it in a haybar:D
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Mine seems to like to pull it all out of his net, distribute it around his stable (the better to inspect it I assume, what do they think we are trying to do, poison them?), semi trample/dig it into his bed and then spend hours pulling it out again strand by strand. He is a filthy little beast. His mother really should have taught him better table manners.
 
My Arab mare has her hay in 3 locations. The main bulk is in her Eazigrazer, then a small, small holed hay net. Her favourite thing is her hay ball...there can be hay in a small net and in her Eazigrazer....but the hay ball is the thing she heads straight for!
 
I have always given mine 2 nets and in 2 places in the stable if possible. If they finish it all one day, they get more the next. I had a easy to keep the weight on WB and a poor doer of a TB and both received the same. Both were greedy when I first got them, but once they had an understanding that they were always going to have plenty they both backed off.
 
Mine gets large holed nets, purely because she cr*ps all over it if it is on the floor. But she never runs out and it doesn't paticularly slow or restrict her intake. (We are talking old fashioned huge holed nets!)

A pet hate of mine is people who will give an armful of hay thinking its enough... when I fed loose I always filled up a net then emptied it onto the stable floor so I knew how much I was giving my horse.
 
You could give her her ration, mixed with nice clean barley or oat straw, in a conventional net. The straw will give her fibre if she runs out of hay but very little in the way of calories. And if you mix it well it will challenge her finding the hay in it all
 
only_me said:
You could try putting multiple small nets up in the stable so she walks a bit more?

A greedy horse is never easy to manage! I'm lucky, mine is easy - dad threw a bucket of apples from orchard into field on Monday, horse spotted and ate some, left the rest. He had more yesterday and finished the rest off today! He's actually quite odd lol.
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Nugz would've scoffed the lot and then laid down in the corner hiccupping and singing sea-shantys :D

Nugz normally gets both - loose hay in the corner for general distribution and flavor enhancing and then a haylage net of hay hanging from the rafter so he has to work a bit harder for it. Seems to work for him :)
 
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