Greedy horse...

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wills_91

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Is there such a thing?! I'm worried that my mare is not getting enough overnight, but no matter how much hay I leave for her she never has any left - I've owned her for 6 years now and at first put it down to he r possibly not having enough so I just left her to it but she's never grown out of it. She has breakfast then out from 7.30am till 3.30, they have loads of grazing, dinner at 5 and she's still clearing a bale of hay a night! She's not fat nor skinny she maintains a good weight all year. Don't like the thought of her standing for hours with nothing but equally don't really want to be throwing all my wages into hay!
 
Give her plain oat straw chaff. If she's truly hungry she will eat it and it will stop you worrying that she's left with nothing xx
 
One of mine has no off button with food. Ad lib is a disaster and if they gave out Olympic medals for speed haynet eating she'd be taking gold.

I double net if she's in overnight, which probably slows her down by a few milliseconds. Currently bedded on straw so I'm thinking she can nibble on that if she's really hungry. She's got more blubber on her than a hippo so I'm hoping for a cold winter!
 
I feel your pain! I've got one who is on a strict diet, as she had an acute laminitic episode earlier this year. She's an absolute gannet - the only horse I've met who can empty a large trickle net in 30 minutes!

Oat straw was our saviour - mixed very well with soaked hay. She spent ages picking every strand of hay out, and then grudgingly ate the oat straw!
 
I also have one that will eat non stop his on shavings as he will eat an entire straw bed every night, my muck heap is in one of my fields and he even eats the straw from that, my other horse who is almost a hand bigger eats much less and always has hay left in the morning, I have had the greedy one 10 years and his always been the same I think some just enjoy eating all the time.
 
Are you on a yard with others? Hate to be cynical, but are you sure somebody isn't helping themselves to your mare's hay? There are plenty of posts on here about it happening. Having said that, I have a hippo who will happily eat her own bodyweight if I let her, so I give her a couple of slices overnight and make sure she has plenty of straw to pick at if she's hungry. There's always that last bit left in the net that she turns her nose up at, but which shows she isn't that hungry!
 
After mentioning the same problem to someone a couple of months ago we are now feeding cinnamon daily. It really does seem to help, the frenzy for food has gone and there is often a bit of hay left in the nets. If you do a bit of google research you will find there are many benefits plus scientific explanations. It is possible to get very large jars from cash and carry, so if you know a small grocer then ask if they will pick you one up now and then (we have a card and it's around £5 for a massive jar against 80p for those silly little supermarket spice jars)
 
Horses with insulin resistance will often speed eat until there is nothing left to eat. I think this also fits with the cinnamon treatment above, with the cinnamon having an effect on insulin use, maybe? The other way to solve it is to trickle feed for several days, but it does mean feeding several times through the night or a very strong small holed net as they are usually very determined. They genuinely feel hungry, they aren't just being greedy.
 
My gelding is similar. Good doer so I need to watch his weight but at the same time make sure he's got enough to nibble on as I don't like them going without some sort of forage. He's on a straw bed at the moment which I like as it means he's got something to eat if the hay runs out, but the yard is moving to non straw options soon. I'm going to try a small holed hay net overnight. If that fails, I'll try the oat straw mix too.
 
Mine is exactly the same and I asked a similar question the other day.

I think I'm going to go down the double net route and see how I get on before buying a greedy feeder net (as they aren't cheap!)
 
Cowpony said:
Are you on a yard with others? Hate to be cynical, but are you sure somebody isn't helping themselves to your mare's hay? There are plenty of posts on here about it happening. Having said that, I have a hippo who will happily eat her own bodyweight if I let her, so I give her a couple of slices overnight and make sure she has plenty of straw to pick at if she's hungry. There's always that last bit left in the net that she turns her nose up at, but which shows she isn't that hungry!
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Someone else taking your hay was my first thought
 
other than the things mentioned above. I dont know how old she is or what her start in life was but I knew of another that was a hoover with hay and she was to put it nicely very poor when she was purchased by someone who felt sorry for her. we put it down to the fact that she had been well underfed and it was some sort of protection that was ingrained after that.
 
Thanks, I'm glad I'm not the only one with a horse like this!

She was 3 when I got her and in good condition. She has been kept at home previously for 2 years and the rest of the time on the yard and was the same in both places so I don't think it's someone taking her hay, she had a spell in hospital and they even commented on how much she ate!

I will look into the above suggestions, thanks.
 
Some horses like some people have no off button were eatings concerned .
Fatty is one of these if I did not take control of what he eats he would eat himself to death.
One thing I have learnt from Fatty is the harder you work him the less he eats so getting him fit and getting him slim over winter is key to keeping him healthy .
I think weighting how much your horse is eating is a good idea it will give you an idea of how excessive the amount the horse is eating is .
Chopped straw is a good idea as is good baled oat straw if you can get it .
 
Supertrooper said:
Give her plain oat straw chaff. If she's truly hungry she will eat it and it will stop you worrying that she's left with nothing xx
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This! Mine gets big trugs of it. He only eats it if hes genuinely hungry so I use it as a marker for feeding him.

Auslander said:
Oat straw was our saviour - mixed very well with soaked hay. She spent ages picking every strand of hay out, and then grudgingly ate the oat straw!
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Mine used to get the same but with normal straw as I couldnt source oat straw. He didnt really eat the straw but spent so long picking the hay out it slowed him right down, whereas even a trickle net didnt, he just adapted his technique and made himself sore fighting with it.

ycbm said:
Horses with insulin resistance will often speed eat until there is nothing left to eat. I think this also fits with the cinnamon treatment above, with the cinnamon having an effect on insulin use, maybe? The other way to solve it is to trickle feed for several days, but it does mean feeding several times through the night or a very strong small holed net as they are usually very determined. They genuinely feel hungry, they aren't just being greedy.
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Mine is the biggest pig that has ever walked the earth! He had nearly all the metabolic tests which have all come back as more than normal, which was a massive shock to me as I have always managed him as metabolic. There are still the dynamic tests which can be done, but hes currently suffering an acute laminitic episode so not an option at the minute. Hes been on Metformin for a week now on the basis that it cant hurt and might help him. So far there is no difference in his piggyness sadly. Hes also been having cinnamon for over a month, and again, no difference. He was also fed adlib until he was 4yr old when he stopped growing and starting gaining weight.

He is so food orientated that when he was being trimmed, with vet and farrier in attendance, about 15 mins in he was so sore he went down on his knees, and before anyone starts, hes in a last chance saloon situation, it was very sudden, he looked fine and then went down, and he was then given more super strength IV painkillers and more IV sedation as he HAD to be trimmed to correct the rotation. But while this was happening he then tried to drag us across the yard to a haynet. He wasnt starving, he'd just left his box where he had soaked hay and chopped straw. He should have been totally disabled by it, but the desire to eat MORE was stronger than pain and sedation!

I think the main problem with this sort of horse is that they are designed to live on virtually nothing spending all their time moving about looking for the odd shoot of grass and this just cant really be replicated unless you have access to a bare paddock or bare track for them
 
The other thing to consider is how much work say a Welsh cob or a Irish draught is designed to do .
They were never the pampered hacks of the rich they were the tractors and transits of their day if a mare did not do 'well' they would not have bred from her .No one would have wanted horses that needed loads of food.
The more and longer you get them moving the better .
 
Mine gained weight fed like a "normal" horse even when being exercised with hunt horses and worked hard. The plan for him was/hopefully is still, is to drive him a lot. There is no way I can physically manage to ride him to the level he needs, but I could manage to drive him 20 miles a few times a week as well as have him ridden hard the other days.
 
I too have an excessively greedy horse. Honestly it's a pain!! If I bare graze him he just escapes to pastures new. In winter I bed him on straw, and he eats virtually the whole bed - only the wet remains. I also triple hole his haynets but that barely stops him. A complete fat nightmare!!
 
FrankieCob said:
Mine gained weight fed like a "normal" horse even when being exercised with hunt horses and worked hard. The plan for him was/hopefully is still, is to drive him a lot. There is no way I can physically manage to ride him to the level he needs, but I could manage to drive him 20 miles a few times a week as well as have him ridden hard the other days.
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Driving should be great when you get him back on track .
FAtty has to hunt over the winter to stay healthly the summer is a nightmare he's lazy when worked has to stay on a bare and I mean bare track it a struggle to give him quality of life .
We are about to trial a machine that will dispense haylege overnight on a timer I am hoping this will enable me to give him much much less .
So I think it dispenses a set amount three times per cycle so say at 2 4 and six am he will get a small amount of haylege
The company who make the machine will find out how robust it is once Fatty works out what's in it I may find it in pieces .
 
There are two horses that would eat like yours, OP on my yard. Both are very overweight though and now on a diet. It doesn't sound like that is the case with your mare (unless like many owners, you are blind to it). Not trying to be horrible, I used to keep horses that were 'a little too well' and that seemed normal to me because everyone else's horses were the same. So firstly, make sure she actually isn't very slightly overweight. In my experience, unless a horse is very big, or young and growing, horses that eat the amount your mare seems to are normally overweight to a greater or lesser degree.
 
I have three native ponies the dartmoor is a pig but he has had a couple of bouts of laminitis and has to have his grazing restricted the old girl can eat what she wants and does graze a lot. Her daughter is difficult to feed will eat for a while then stand and sleep is fat enough but has ulcers as she doesnt eat enough I always feed her before she is ridden she lives out 24/7 on goodish grazing but just isnt interested in eating. She eats her feeds and a bit of hay but is almost as if it is too much like hard work to eat it.
One thing I have found is that the more you starve a horse the greedier it gets is seems that if food is restricted their metabolism slows down so they get fatter and fatter on less and less food. I bucket feed oat straw chaff with a few soaked grass nuts and some micronised linseed to make it palatable year round.
I do worry a lot about the baby but she is fat and although she stands about a lot with her head hanging and looks fed up she is a pocket rocket to ride
 
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