How much hay do u feed ur ponies?

Ginger Bear

Ginger Bear

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I have only ever had tb's & now have a 14'1 trotter pony, & unsure how much hay i should be feeding at night.. He's quite fine built but with good strong legs & a very good doer. He was out of work when we bought him so had very little muscle & a massive belly. He's now looking much much better just needs a little more muscle still. He is currently turned out from 8.30 am - 3.30 in a massive field with enough grass to last the herd all winter.. Stabled at night with hay, very small dinner & breakfast of a small handful off chaff, about 10 pony cubes & celery (lol, proper diet) this week he's looking like a nice in proportion pony for the first time. He's being worked, lunged in a pessoa, hacked etc with one day off per week. It's the night hay I'm concerned about, he's currently having a section & a half which is about 6lbs, double netted to slow him down. It's helped keep the weight off but just doesn't seem very much? What do u think. Thanks & apologies for the essay! X
 
I feed ad-lib which basically ends up being 3 massive nets a day, 2 in her stable and one in the field. I don't like to see that she's eaten out. :)
 
I've always fed ad lib with my horses, but am now confused with the annount of ppl on the yard with good doer ponies that feed a set amount & that's it, basically because they have little piggies that eat & eat!
 
I always feed ad-lib at night and he's out all day in the summer and from yesterday he'll be in from about 2pm. If he doesn't have enough hay / haylage he'll pull on his nets and windsuck. Only way to combat it is to completely fill his nets to the brim, putting 2 maybe 3 if he's in for a long period in to his stable.

SS x
 
ab-lib is not always possible in my opinion. Some horses would eat a bale and night if it was given to them, i know mine would. You have to consider your horses overall health. My 14.2 welsh D has 10lbs of soaked hay a night. She is an extremely good doer and I would rather she went a couple of hours without hay than be over weight and suffer joint/organ/circulation issues. Trial and error is the way forward, some horses will never leave anything
 
I would rather the pony had hay or haylage all night and didn't stand without. If the pony needs to have its weight watched I would double net to slow it down and if necessary soak it to reduce the sugar or mix it with oat straw.
 
DoesDressage said:
ab-lib is not always possible in my opinion. Some horses would eat a bale and night if it was given to them, i know mine would.
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Agree with this.

Given the chance my little 14hh mare would have polished off bale after bale! She got 7lb a night in a double net to slow her down. Never had a day where she looked skinny!
Depends on the horse though, whether they are good doers or not.
 
muckypony said:
Agree with this.

Given the chance my little 14hh mare would have polished off bale after bale! She got 7lb a night in a double net to slow her down. Never had a day where she looked skinny!
Depends on the horse though, whether they are good doers or not.
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Agree with this - feeding the ad lib mantra led to my pony being overweight and ending up with (thankfully one off, mild) lami.

Ad lib is the ideal but not if the horse puts on weight it shouldnt be carrying as a result.
 
Always ad lib, if the horse eats his hay fast then it just needs to be harder to eat, never restricted as this will cause digestion problems. Horses are evolved to sleep for short periods but generally be eating small amounts all the time. They would never naturally go for hours without eating.
 
It does depend on the horse, I have two welsh cobs one has ad lib hay and will eat about 12lbs a night the other gets the same but would eat and eat if given the chance! Best to work out what horse should be getting in roughage according to its weight (at least 1.5 percent of body weight).
 
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