How many kilo's of grass forage should I estimate?

CobSunshine

CobSunshine

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Still trying to fathom out how much is safe to feed 550kilo 14.2 cob.

Current forage conditions - how many kilo's of grass forage should I estimate from the below (multiply this field by x10 to get true size) grazed out 24/7 with just the grass to forage. I only see him once a day so want to get the amount right.

2010-12-05145608.jpg



I estimated 5 kilo per day from forage, so took down 1 kilo of mollichaff hoofkind (purple bucket) and 2 kilo of horsehage high fibre - the green bucket is the biggest flexi bucket they do so its a lot of horsehage and took him about an hour to eat everything.

Too much ? too little? :confused:


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I remember from your last post, that he is over weight I think?
If so, could you not feed him hay instead of haylage?
Is he being fed any supplements? If not, does he need the chaff?
 
A horse (that is ANY horse) in rest needs 1.5% of body weight.

So... I figure, that is about 7kgs for your horse.
 
My 14hh is getting about 9kg of horsehage at the moment along with fast fibre and hi fi lite, we are completely covered in snow though. The high fibre one that you are using is fine for overweight ponies and probably better than good hay. It's hard to tell what your grazing is like, but personally I prefer them to have plenty of forage going through when there is no/little grazing available, you can montor condition with a weigh tape and see how he's doing and make any adjustments if needed.
Eta:- I see that you already know that the high fibre horsehage is okay ;)
 
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Thanks touch, do you stay with your horse as he eats 9kilo or is that in stable?

How much hi-fi lite are you giving per day too?


Here is a pic from today, he just doesn't seem to have lost any weight at all from summer yet, and the weigh tape won't budge from 550kilo, his belly measurement hasn't changed either.


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Mine's in a paddock on her own at the mo, with neighbouring horse in the next paddock, so I just put two big nets in a day as it isn't an issue having to stay to make sure she gets it all. I'm giving about a kilo of hi fi lite and 3lb of fast fibre a day, but these amounts will all reduce when we see grass.
I tend to find that they can hang on to a bit of weight at the start of winter but do lose it as the months go on, so hang on in there! He looks to have a good area for grazing, so you might get away with just topping up his forage while it is frozen or snowy and see how he goes, sometimes they hang on to weight if they aren't getting enough going through their system too as it slows the metabolism right down so you might find feeding a bit of forage might kick start things, as daft as it sounds. It might be worth e mailing you pics to one of the feed company nutritionists and see what they advise, I've found them really helpful in the past.
ETA (again!) I contacted Silvermoor haylage and they advised feeding 2% of bodyweight as haylage as it worked out equivalent to 1.5% hay due to the higher moisture content, so for a 400kg pony it would have worked out at 8kg total for weightloss.
 
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tallyhohoho said:
Ahhh yes but you are calculating from his current bodyweight, not his ideal.
Click to expand...


thanks!

So if ideal weight was 450 for 14.2hh then around 7kilo per day :)

I'll email some food companies and see how many kilo's they'd estimate he's getting from partial snow covered forage.

I just felt so dismayed when weighing 2 kilo of high fibre and ended up using the biggest bucket I had and thinking "how much food! - he's going to put on more weight" :( then the 1 kilo of mollichaf hoofkind filled up a smaller bucket, it just seemed like too much food!



touch thanks for those figures from the haylage place, :) i'd love to have a paddock for him to control his eating, sounds perfect!



I think he seems to be holding weight around the front of his legs, his belly, and bum?

2010-11-27151404.jpg
 
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