Horse not eating hay!

[horses99]

I have a new mare that I'm currently building up as when I brought her she was underweight. She is putting on weight but at the moment (due to temporary fence problems) I cannot move her to another field and they have eaten the field down to little grass. I feed her twice a day and she is exercised 6 times a week and is normally out in the field 24/7. I put a haynet in her stable the other night when the weather was bad and she didn't even touch it. And now I have put hay in the field for extra food and again it's still there the 24hours later. Is she just not hungry or is there perhaps another reason? Don't want her weight to drop as I've been working to build it up and wouldn't want her going hungry. The hay is good quality bit on the dusty/ old side but not bad just not amazing. She eats her hard feed and any treats I give her and is grazing in the field fine. Just seems unusual she wouldn't want any hay especially when she was stabled with no grass to eat. No nasty comments please, tia

 

[Pinkvboots]

Have you had her teeth checked ?

 

[horses99]

Her teeth were checked around a month ago when vetted and only 4/5 months before that and he said they were fine

 

[be positive]

Have you tried different bales, if it is dusty wetting the hay may make it more palatable, plenty of horses will not eat hay if there is any grass available and may refuse to eat if you change their routine, mares in particular can be very fussy and prefer to go hungry rather than eat old hay that may appear to be ok to us but to them is not nice, she will probably prefer haylage until she can get on more grass or give her some extra chaff/ grassnuts to bulk out her diet.

 

[Auslander]

The grass is short because they're eating it as fast as it grows - I suspect she is perfectly happy grazing, and doesn't want hay. I've got two on what looks like quite a bare field at the moment, but they both have grass glands after the torrential rain the other night

 

[Pinkvboots]

If her teeth are okay I would agree with the above posters if she is getting enough grass she won't want the hay, I have one horse who doesn't eat as much hay in the summer and can get a bit fussy with it, if you really want her to eat more maybe buy a bale of haylage and mix it with the hay she may be more tempted to eat it then, I do this if the hay is getting old and probably not as tasty as the horses like it to be.

 

[Cecile]

If there is nothing wrong with the teeth my only other thought is there maybe something odd about that particular bale,
I can have a delivery of hay and mine will refuse to eat a couple of bales, it all looks and smell the same to me but they won't touch it, I just assume some animal pee'd on it or it was stored on an outer side and may of become damp or slightly musty

If I open another bale and they tuck in to it, I blame that bale
If I open another bale and they look bored with it, I blame them

 

[KAZJAZ]

to us the field may look quite bare but its surprising just how much grass they are getting, we just have to look at the length of the grass round the yard verges etc to see that it really is growing even if it doesn't look like it

my horse wont touch hay just now, she'll happily eat her hard feeds and treats, she has fresh hay in stable and trailer if we travel but she wont touch either, its normally around end Sept I notice that they will come in and eat hard feed and their nets.

if your concerned about her weight I would suggest trying a small bale of haylage to gauge her interest in that.

 

[hopscotch bandit]

Look how often you have to mow your own back garden and you will see how quickly grass grows. Mine won't eat much during this time of year as he is so stuffed overnight and he is only given a smidgeon of extra grass on his strip grazing every night.