How much hay do you feed per night

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cellie

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Ive moved yards and had to switch from large round bales to traditional bales.I knew how to gauge what to feed from large round bales but the small bales have thrown me as they are more compact.I like to feed half from the floor(or haybar when oh brings his tool kit to new yard) and a hay net.My horses will eat as much hay as I put in greedy horses.What do you feed per bale per night I seem to be getting through huge amounts of hay .
Both horses are tb and tbx 16 hs one is in good condition 550 and the other (new) we are still building up she need to put on weight work in progress on that one.
 
I have a 16.2hh NH-type TB and he gets half a small bale per night (in from 3.30pm ish to 7am). He is just right condition-wise, looking quite well for winter really.

I am the other way around though, and am about to go onto large bales (mini Hestons) and would guess that I would need about 1 and 1/2 sections of hay from this per night.
 
I have a 14.3 youngster who's a very good do-er and she's on about 3 slices of (steamed) hay a night, plus 1 slice for breakfast and 2 slices during the day if she's in - which she is at the mo 'cos the fields are frozen solid.
 
My 15.2hh IDxTB four year old mare, a good doer, used to get half a bale a night. I prefer to feed from the floor, but she'd paw it round and wee on it
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so had to have it in two haylage nets.

New mare, 16.3 Dutch Warmblood four year old, has about the same.
 
as much as i can stuff into the haynet!!!! there is always some left in the morning so i no they are getting enough, also my mare steals her neighbours haynet so she gets pleanty
 
I've always had my horses on ad-lib hay or haylege they can have as much as they want. I go out at 10p.m. (I know we can't all do that) and refill nets. When I was on livery I used to put up two nets full.
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My boys are on small hay bales, they get between them 1 1/2 bales a day. They live out so are fed together. One is a big 17hh+, still growing 3 yr old, the other is a fat gypsy cob.

My mare gets 1 1/2 slices a day of big rectangle bale haylage, at a guess I would say that is about 3/4 to 1 small bale. She is a very fit cob that needs to keep her weight on.
 
My 16.3 ISH gets half a small bale at night.

She eats most of it and anything trodden in goes to the bottom of the straw bed next day
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She is in from roughly 5pm to 9am. I don't like her to run out of food!

Jo x
 
when she was a good doer 2-3slices in two nets, now she gets whatever,and its on the floor, when i say whatever, specifically i mean 5slices/half a bale, my horse is a 14.2hh irish cob mare, 18yrs old
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Oh that sounds about the same as me .Mine are in from 4.30 til 8 ish so similiar.Theres nothing left in the fields just seems like I am pumping food into them all the time at the moment. All the other horses on our yard are good doers so they dont seem to be getting through as much hay as us.I have just found someone who does haylage in large rectangle bales that should help .Im paying £3 per bale for hay but its good quality .
 
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2kg for a 15.2 mwcob

I weigh it so thats definitely what she is getting

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2kg?????? How much hay does this horse have during the day? - My horse would munch through 2kg in about an hour!!!!

My 15h cob has pretty much as much as I can get in a haynet, but I would guess between 8-10kg. She doesnt get a large amount during the day as they dont really eat it in the field unless it is frosty.
 
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Oh that sounds about the same as me .Mine are in from 4.30 til 8 ish so similiar.Theres nothing left in the fields just seems like I am pumping food into them all the time at the moment. All the other horses on our yard are good doers so they dont seem to be getting through as much hay as us.I have just found someone who does haylage in large rectangle bales that should help .Im paying £3 per bale for hay but its good quality .

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Oh yes, that does sound like me!

He also gets 2 scoops of Graze On, 3 litres of soaked unmolassed sugar beet and 450g Top Spec balancer, split into two feeds but the hay is what is keeping weight on him IMO.

I am paying £3.50 a bale
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My 16.2hh has ad lib hay. She gets through about 2/3 of a bale a night, sometimes more, sometimes less. She has had her food restricted in the past, so when I first started feeding ad lib she'd stuff it down and eat a bale a night or more. She eats less now that she's realised its readily available.
 
My 14.2 TBxConnemara gets 10-12lb hay over night (roughly 3 slices). He normally has a little left in the morning. He still has some grass so does not get any in the field unless it is frosty in which case he gets a slice. He does work quite hard and gets 2 decent hard feeds a day as well. He is looking well and holding his weight which is good as he is not the best doer in the world. We always weigh nets as our bales do very a lot.
 
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Oh that sounds about the same as me .Mine are in from 4.30 til 8 ish so similiar.Theres nothing left in the fields just seems like I am pumping food into them all the time at the moment. All the other horses on our yard are good doers so they dont seem to be getting through as much hay as us.I have just found someone who does haylage in large rectangle bales that should help .Im paying £3 per bale for hay but its good quality .

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Oh yes, that does sound like me!

He also gets 2 scoops of Graze On, 3 litres of soaked unmolassed sugar beet and 450g Top Spec balancer, split into two feeds but the hay is what is keeping weight on him IMO.

I am paying £3.50 a bale
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I thought my hay was expensive
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mine are on alpa a with oil large scoop, sugar beet small scoop ,cool and condition top spec small scoop ,plus powder supplement balancer etc twice a day.I love top spec balancer but as he is out of work and costing me a fortune on vets bills Ive had to reduce feed bills .Once the vets bills go away then they can both go back on it fab stuff.
 
George is 16.3 and a good doer and he gets 6 large sections of hay to last from 4pm - 5.30am, sometimes in the evening I have to give him 1 or 2 sections more if he's running low but not very often.
 
My 16.2 ID gets 7 slices a night & usually eats most of it, 14.1 sec D gets 2-3 slices plus any of the ID's left overs. I also put 2-3 slices in the field for them each day as there's not a much grass. In total I use about a bale & a half each day, sometimes more if it's very cold.
 
For anything over 14.2h I reckon on giving them a bale (mine are 60lbs) a day, it isn't rigid, I just fill the racks and top them up daily they are NEVER empty so they aren't starving. Taking into account that they are out 24/7, getting hard feed, mainly in pretty cold weather and usually up to their ankles in snow so no grazing whatsoever.
 
i have a 14.3 apoloosa x and he has breakfast then turned out all day until 4pm then comes in with 3 to 4 sections of soaked hay until about 7.30am!
 
Mine get what they will eat as am paying for conditioning mix, so no point in rationing, two full brothers both 16hh and one eats more than half a small bale 6-8 slabs and the other will only ever eat 4 slabs.

Interestingly the one that eats more is the thinnest and they are feed the same and out together and similar genetics!

(To poster about mini hesstons, you may need two slabs, and they are sometimes a right faff to split one in half... so pleased dad went back to small bales after buying a bargain baler!!!)
 
Give them as much as they can eat you know when it is enough when there is some left in the morning. I hate stabled horse without a continual supply of hay in front of them. We paid £2.50 per bale for hay, got it in the summer straight from field gorgeous stuff and still smells sweet. Farmer got loads left. Our 16hh tb is ridden in the morning, turned out till 1pm then gets 4 to 5 sections of hay and this lasts till next morning usually a bit left, could have more if he wanted.
 
2kg per night - that's shocking
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A horse of that sort of size should be getting minimum 1.5% - 2% of his bodyweight in fibre feed per day which would probably be around 10kg - 12kg a day.
 
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2kg is less than 4 1/2 lbs, unless your horse is on mega good grazing that's nowhere near enough! In my old pc days we said 1lb per hand per 24 hours. Even if the horse maintains weight on this ration it won't be good for its mental health or its digestive system!
 
17.3hh Warmblood gets a HUGE net full (is about size of 4 small nets), which works out about 1 full bale. He then regulates his own eating - if it's cold he eats most of it, if it's warmer then he will eat about half to three quarters of it. What is left gets carried over for my cob as he is not so picky.

George is a 15hh welsh section d cob. He gets about 3/4 of a bale a night, plus whatever is left over from the warmblood from the night before. He is also good at regulating himself and eats more when cold. Our mare was the opposite and ate what was there whatever the weather!

This is the first year I have done ad lib for George and Lou is with me this winter for the first time (he used to get 2 small nets of haylage in winter in his old home). This is the first winter George has been the IDEAL weight (he also gets some hifi lite and now some speedibeet as there is NO grass, with his vits and mins).

I believe in plenty of fibre and feed accordingly.
 
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