Horse bolting Hay replacer

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dressagecrazy

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Just wondering if anyone has a good idea of how to slow the eating of a Hay replacer, the horse in question can only have soaked grass nuts & Ready mash fibre, no hay or haylage at all for the time being.

This is fine but the horse is a 7yo PRE & is a greedy swine at the best of times, he is out at grass during the day & fed little & often with the hay replacers until I go to bed. Overnight I do him a larger trug but this only lasts a short while.

I'm currently trying an empty small feed tub in the trug to try to slow him down, footballs don't work as he gets his nose under it & chucks it out the bucket lol.

Thanks in advance for any idea's, no chaffs can be used either so I have to stick to what im currently using.
 
Could you leave him out at night to pick at the grass? I can't think of any solution which doesn't involve chaff. Mine would quite simply take the empty tub out of the trug, or tip the trug up within the first half hour.
 
I tried all sorts for this :-(

In the end I got a smaller tub trig and drilled 3 two in holes into it, and put it over the top of the feed, that helped a little, but I share your pain.

I was told that as horses are trickle feeders, this would stop eventually, it never did :-(
 
Dry Rot said:
Can I ask why the special diet? It just seems strange to me that the horse can eat grass and grass substitutes but not hay or haylage.
Click to expand...

I was also wondering this.. I can see why he might not be able to have hay or haylage (my mare can't either) but if he can manage grass, is there no way at all he can manage a grass chop? My mare has a lot of hay replacers in winter, and the only way I can slow her down is by mixing her grass nuts etc with a chop or putting nuts in a treat ball. Sorry this isn't much help, but I sympathise with you, its so hard when they can't have a normal diet!
 
Leave him out, or swap to being in during the day and out at night?

Otherwise big stones in the feed bucket as palindrome says - small enough that the horse can just about move them with a lot of effort, but big enough that they can't just be nudged / chucked around. Better mentally to keep working for feed rather than standing with nothing, as well as helping with trickle feeding.
 
Make them really watery like treble the amount of water you're meant to use , so ts like a soup , they still get all the fibre etc but it lasts longer and they aren't going to get bloated with t ??
 
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