Hay...how much is to much?

[SamanthaToby]

Hi all. This is my 1st winter with my chunky 15hh cob.
He is in at night at the moment as the ground is so wet and out eveyday

I anticipate it will not be long before we go onto every other day turn out.

I wonder what you guys are feeding weight wise. I cant ablib him as he will eat it untill there is nothing left.

My bails are farm bails an a slice weights 5 pound and ther are 14 slices in a bail.
If he is out all day I bring him in at 6pm having gone out at 8am an he has 1 slice in a net. My mother in law has the same routeen only she brings in about 7/8pm an has hard feed an no net. Am I under feeding?

Also if he is in all day I will be giving him 2 slices in the day and 2 at night, again is this to little.

He is a chuck an can afford to drop a bit of body "warmth" but dont realy want to loose condition. He also is a good doer an only on hay..

Thanks in advance

 

[meleeka]

Yes I think you are probably under feeding hay. You risk ulcers by letting him go for prolonged periods without anything to eat. If he’s a pig try a small holed net or soak the hay to reduce calories. My 14hh cob gets one net of 6kg and then another 25mm holed net of about the same, which he rarely finishes. He has no full sensor either so I’m pretty sure he has enough fibre for all night.

 

[Roasted Chestnuts]

Personally I don’t like them standing for ages without. For a good doer who lived on air she got three quite large doublenetted haynets a day If she was in. I soaked the hay and her middle net was half straw if she was in. I rode her 5/6 times a week in summer and 3/5 times a week long hacks in winter.

 

[SamanthaToby]

Yes I think you are probably under feeding hay. You risk ulcers by letting him go for prolonged periods without anything to eat. If he’s a pig try a small holed net or soak the hay to reduce calories. My 14hh cob gets one net of 6kg and then another 25mm holed net of about the same, which he rarely finishes. He has no full sensor either so I’m pretty sure he has enough fibre for all night.

So your feeding 8kg a day even on full grazing or is that if he is in all day?

 

[Roasted Chestnuts]

I feed my youngster a 10kg haynet at night. He doesn’t finish it but it’s less than 1/4 full. He’s 17months and 14.3hh. He gets about that daily in the hard stand to eat in winter as well.

 

[meleeka]

So your feeding 8kg a day even on full grazing or is that if he is in all day?

He’s out on poor grazing during the day. He has about 4kg in the field but hard to say exactly as he’s sharing with my others.

 

[be positive]

He needs about 2% of his body weight to maintain his weight, if he is going out every other day that is going to be around 22lbs/ 10kg of hay so you are not far off but you do need to consider the need for having something in his tummy to prevent ulcers, the boredom factor of being shut in for 36 hours at a time and the fact that most horses that are really restricted will gorge themselves rather than make it last, I have found most will slow down once they know they will not run out but it takes time, may require a slow feeder net and a bit of straw chop can be used to keep them happy.

 

[SamanthaToby]

He needs about 2% of his body weight to maintain his weight, if he is going out every other day that is going to be around 22lbs/ 10kg of hay so you are not far off but you do need to consider the need for having something in his tummy to prevent ulcers, the boredom factor of being shut in for 36 hours at a time and the fact that most horses that are really restricted will gorge themselves rather than make it last, I have found most will slow down once they know they will not run out but it takes time, may require a slow feeder net and a bit of straw chop can be used to keep them happy.

I have just weighed his nets now an a day net is 3kg and his night in 4kg so 7kg atm but he is out untill about 2pm today. I'm just short then.

If I bring him in at 6pm he will just have a 4kg net. So I may be slightly under he just eats the lot. I have been using the greedy feeder nets and the old fashioned double netting the tradional nets.

I get worried when I open the stable door an my nets are empty.

 

[JillA]

As long as he isn't prone to coughing, dilute his hay with nice clean straw (ideally oat, otherwise barley - NOT wheat). It is calorie negative (takes more to chew and digest that they get out of it) and will keep his GIT filled with fibre.

 

[JFTDWS]

I use straw (and I do use wheat straw - it's fine for many horses) to cut my hay too. It enables me to feed more volume without more calories. The ponies love it. They're weird little freaks.

 

[scats]

My two 15hh, sports horse and sports horse x welsh, currently both graze from 7.30-5pm on good grass, muzzled. They then come in to 1kg of hay while I’m grooming, working them etc, then they have 3kg added in overnight (7pm) in greedy feeder nets and a cup of fibre cubes in a snack ball.

I would love to feed ad lib but they are both prone to weight gain and Polly in particular has no stop button when it comes to hay.

 

[SamanthaToby]

My two 15hh, sports horse and sports horse x welsh, currently both graze from 7.30-5pm on good grass, muzzled. They then come in to 1kg of hay while I’m grooming, working them etc, then they have 3kg added in overnight (7pm) in greedy feeder nets and a cup of fibre cubes in a snack ball.

I would love to feed ad lib but they are both prone to weight gain and Polly in particular has no stop button when it comes to hay.

Sounds like you have the same routeen as me. With a horse like mine. I feed same as you overnight 4kg.

What do you feed when in all day?

I cant be going to wrong he looks fit an well.

 

[SpringArising]

I feed pretty much ad-lib, I really don't like seeing horses standing in with nothing - it's bad for them physically and mentally. There have been studies to show that horses who aren't able to chew consistently have higher levels of cortisol than those who can.

Mine is out for about 7 hours on OK grazing during the day - when he comes in he gets a 6.5kg net which is gone by 7pm. At about 8pm, he gets two more nets (6.5 each), which are empty by the morning.

 

[Leo Walker]

I'm another who cuts my hay with wheat straw. She doesnt eat much of the straw but it does slow her down sifting it all out. I wouldnt be happy feeding as little as you are and coming up to empty nets

 

[splashgirl45]

i would give him a little more and maybe add a bit of straw to slow him down, i am more concerned that your mil doesnt feed any hay and only a feed.. that sounds very wrong to me unless the horse cant eat hay and she is feeding a big bowl of chaff instead...

 

[SamanthaToby]

i would give him a little more and maybe add a bit of straw to slow him down, i am more concerned that your mil doesnt feed any hay and only a feed.. that sounds very wrong to me unless the horse cant eat hay and she is feeding a big bowl of chaff instead...

Sorry.. She is feeding chaff a good helping

 

[L&M]

I give my good doer 15hh cob 5 slices overnight, from a small bale, which is approx 6 kg - he is on good grazing and receives no hard feed. It is fed off the floor.

Occasionally he will leave some, but never much, and integrate into his bed so no wastage.

 

[Leo Walker]

Sorry.. She is feeding chaff a good helping

A full big tub trug of chaff only lasts a couple of hours at most, and thats if the horse is picking at it.

 

[JFTDWS]

I don't think it's really acceptable to not feed hay unless the horse actually can't eat it, and is getting sufficient chaff as hay replacement - which is multiple kilos of the stuff.

 

[Barton Bounty]

I feed my boy unlimited hay as he is prone to ulcers! So always has 4 mahoosive haynets everyday

 

[scats]

Sounds like you have the same routeen as me. With a horse like mine. I feed same as you overnight 4kg.

What do you feed when in all day?

I cant be going to wrong he looks fit an well.

To be honest, mine are rarely in during the day, even in winter. I think they’ve had 2 days in due to the weather in the last 12 months. If they are in, they get 3.5kg during the day.

 

[jnb]

My 15hh HW cob is out 24/7 on strip grazed but not restricted grass, if weather is poor I put around 2 sections (approx 3 kg) hay in his shelter for daytime, if that’s gone at teatime and the weathers still bad he will get the same again or another section too. I’d be concerned about a horse left in with no hay at all unless several kg of chop /chaff was given in replacement for hay.
In winter my cob will have up to a bale of hay per 24 hours, especially if there is ice or snow. Horses need forage!

 

[BMWKIPP]

Sorry.. She is feeding chaff a good helping

That's not enough, chaff will be eaten far faster than hay and it's simply not enough. Not feeding hay overnight is not okay on any level

 

[Queenbee]

For the first time in his life I am cutting the Beast's hay with straw, don't get me wrong he would always have a straw bed in the winter and pick at the bed after finishing his hay but this year I am on a slightly different management regime and so I am changing things up.

He is on excellent grass so is out for 6 - 7 hrs a day with an hour of work. When in he has the equivalent to 1/2 a big bale flake of hay, along with this he has a decent lump of fresh straw which I physically mix into the hay to slow his eating and allow him to eat more with less calories, he has a quarter of a stubbs scoop of dengie healthy hooves or whatever it is called when he comes in. Generally by the morning he still has a bit of forage left - it seems to be working very well so far and he is holding his weight without it increasing!

 

[Surbie]

It sounds like way too little OP. I have a solid 15.1hh cob - I give him 2 small hole nets with 8-9kg dampened hay split between them to last him overnight in winter, plus a 1-2kg net when he comes in. He is out on good stripgrazed grass in the day. I can't put straw in too as last time he had that he colicked.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

I would never knowingly leave a horse with nothing to eat for long periods and I can't bear haynets - nasty dangerous things!

Winter grass has very little food value in it, it simply gives them something to nibble on during the time they are out in the field.

I feed forage ad-lib but if necessary, some of it will be plain oat straw chaff, so that the horse has something to nibble on when the hay is finished. I also split the hay ration up, so that the horse will eat chaff at various times during the time spent in the stable but our horses are at home, so I accept that it is easier to split the hay ration than on a livery yard. I often wonder when people say 'my horse doesn't know when he's full'/would never stop eating if I fed ad-lib', if they have actually tried feeding ad-lib. Horses do normally get used to haveing enough hay to last the night, so don't gorge after a while.

I had a 4 yr old TBx who had been kept very short of feed in a previous home (I know this because the person I bought her from had removed her from the people she originally sold her to) and was *extremely* proud of her food, including hay. You could not go into a stable with her at bringing in time, because she was dangerous. We eventually had her pts aged 24. Over time she learned that she would always have enough food with us and stopped trying to eat every morsel, in case it was the last she saw for a while. There are very few horses that will have been kept as short of food as that horse was, to the point of having to fight for it, if she can learn that there is plenty available, most others will be able to do so as well.