Hay/Haylage how much??

C

Caritas

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Now were heading into winter and I have managed to keep my horses weight well all summer. The problem is that he gets overweight very easily and iv always had to watch what he eats. Now Iv been feeding him 7 kilos of hay a day split into 2 lots and then another 7 kilos at night. Now a girl at my yard has told me he has eaten it all half an hour after I have given him it. Now I feel really guilty him standing in all day but dont want him getting overweight. Do I give him a bit more and see how he goes or does he just have to go without. The horse next door has ad lib and we only have bars separating our stables so he can see his mate eating all day. He is a 16.2 hand warmblood.
 
can you not split the 7kg he has in the day into 2 or 3 portions and get someone to put that in for him at say early morning, lunch and afternoon? Can he not go out in the day? My 16.2 tb has 20lbs (10kg)of hay at night and goes out in the day onto fairly poor grazing for about 4-5 hours, she will have 3-5lb hay during the day. She too is a good doer, so the longer she goes out in the field the better as she can mooch around and find something to eat, but not enough to put any weight on so that when she comes in for the night she can have the majority of her hay ration to keep her happy for most of the night!
 
Oh!
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Well if his weight is what you want, then you can't give him more. Putting hay inside a double of hayledge nets would slow him down, the most recent research shows that soaking hay doesn't reduce the calories unfortunately. My horse only gets about 12lbs of hay overnight in the summer and I know she will have eaten by 10pm at the latest, and she then has to wait til the morning before she has anything else to eat
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. Could you tie some swedes up on rope so he can nibble on that??!
 
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