How much hay for horse stabled overnight...

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fredflop

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Just after people’s opinions...

So horse is circa 600kg, in good condition and very light work. Gets a token feed of chaff x 2 per day. Circa 6-8 hours a day turnout with a quantity of hay plus there will be some grass coming through, currently on individual turnout, in circa 0.75 acres.

what sort of quantity (weight) would you expect this horse to be given in a hay net? (I know this is a “how long is a piece of string” answer!)
 
About 2kgs. I feed my 600kg horse up to 8kg hay a day if stabled or in all weather TO paddock and with no access to grazing.
 
My 540kg section D gets 4kg overnight if net goes in late (8pm ish), more if it’s going in earlier. She’s a good do-er on decent grass, out from approx 8-4.
 
Overnight my horse is getting about 7.5kg and about 6.5kg inthe day (out but no grass) These are dry weights - she has it soaked. She clears the lot!
 
i used to give my 16 hand half tb about 9 kg for overnight as she was in about 4.30 and then fed at 7 am before being ridden , she always finished her hay and i would adjust it up or down depending on her weight....i always preferred to give more rather than less...
 
My 600kg mare gets 5.5kg of very 'dry' haylage and a big bucket of oat chaff each night. She is in a restricted dry paddock with an open stable with bedding from 5pm until 7 am. Has access to 3.5 acres of grass during the day.
 
A horse should eat about 2.5% of its bodyweight of dry fodder every day. For your 600kg horse this should be 15kg. If your tunrout is .75 acre I think you can safely discount any nutrional benefit from this during the winter months. After this winter it may net recover if you cannot change to another turnout area and rest and repair what you have been using.

If your two token feeds make up 1kg the your horse will need 14 kg between the daily turnout area and overnight in the stable. If the horse is a good doer you can reduce the amount to 2%
 
Mine do okay maintenance of 2% mainly forage, except for 1kg of balancer pellets with beet pulp/minerals - theyre on the move everyday 24/7, but not worked in the winter. Theyre 475-500kg.
There’s nothing worth counting as grazing at the moment so i dont factor that in.

So 600kg id work roughly with 12kg dry weight forage, take off that your bowl feed weight if its a kilo+. Give roughly 6kg in field during day, and 6kg stable at night. See how they look on that, increase or decrease depending if weight shifts.
With one horse stabled theyll nibble slowly as and when thru the night, pacing themselves, as theres no competition from other horses.

It does also depend on nutrient quality of hay - mine can lose weight on low nutrient hay fed at 2.5% bw - and can gain easily on 2% very nutritious hay. I prefer ‘mid quality nutrient hay’ in winter when grass is sparse, so theyre getting more to chew on, bigger haynets, more moving thru in their digestive system fermenting for heat in winter, without them putting on weight.
 
Mine is around 650kg with target weight 620kg. Currently off work.

12kg in stable but its soaked and in small hole nets. In for about 15/16 hours due to state of fields.

I throw 1 net of dry out in the morning (5-6kg) between 2 and then they nibble at whatever grass they can find.

I prefer more to less because she has a history of ulcers.
 
I use a hay cube & just stuff that full, so ad lib really as I know he'll have left overs. Keeping him cooped up & thinking he'd run out of hay in the night doesn't sit right with me.
 
Until they changed paddocks mine (2 approx 600kg 16.2 warmbloods age10 and 25yrs) were getting 5kg at night each and 10kg between them in the field. Now oldie is on 4kg at night as he’s wasting a fair bit and younger 5kg and none in the field. I don’t feed ad-lib as they’re both good doers. They both have two fibre based feeds a day.

If they’re hanging around to be ridden in the morning or come in early they get a small haylage net to keep them occupied.
 
Mines on haylage, not over weight and gets it ad-lib. Never weighed it, but he gets 2 huge haynets that I suspect weigh around 8kg each. He probably only eats half of each a night but would never want him to go without.

His hay was weighed every night with his previous owner, so when I bought him just absolutely gorged at having ad-lib in his stable. Almost a panic it would run out, took a couple of weeks to adjust. He doesn't gorge whatsoever now.

Even when he was chunky and on hay (would soak it) he had it ad-lib, I just found no feed and with increase work the weight came off. I'd never restrict hay/haylage for mine, I can't get my head around giving tons of hard feed and limited hay like a few do on my yard.
 
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My horse was ad lib haylage last winter but he just doesn’t have an ‘off switch’ and came out too fat subsequently got laminitis. Another livery was also putting haylage out in the field too ? so he was definitely getting over his quota. Turned out 8-2 and he wasn’t in a lot of work.

We have now moved yards, he still has turnout 8-2 but comes in to a 2kg net in a trickle net, this was being soaked but now it’s colder I have stopped this. If he puts weight on it will be soaked again. At 4:30pm he has a small feed of chaff and speedibeet to carry his supplements and then 8kg hay in a Nibbleeze net which lasts him til morning. In the morning they have a chunk of hay over the door with breakfast (again just some chaff and speedibeet) before turnout.

He is maintaining weight at around 620kg on this and he’s a 16.2 ID.
 
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ForbiddenHorse said:
Do people actually weigh hay/haylage daily? I've never weighed a net before.
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Daily = no

But mine takes good doer to extremes and a while back I was trying to work out if I was over feeding so weighed nets. I broadly know what each of her nets takes now. Fluffy hay can come in quite a bit less than stalky stuff tho
 
Mine gets 8kg of Timothy haylage a night, it’s not enough to keep him going and he eats some of his straw bed. Luckily he has a robust digestive system (he will eat absolutely anything) so he manages fine. He’s a 16hh chunky ISH worked 6 days a week and a very good doer. He also has 3 large fields to graze, the first is half trashed but the other two still have good grazing.
Yours sounds like a fairly good doer, but pretty much all his nutrition is coming from the hay. 1.5% of body weight is 9kg, so that’s your minimum. If he doesn’t come with an off switch, then he’ll need more to keep him going. You could soak if you have the time, and slow him down by double netting it.
 
Mine get 5kg overnight in a small holed (but not tiny) net. If I have to leave early or they come in early, they get an extra 1kg added in. They generally have a bit left over by morning. They also get a snack ball with some fibre cubes in it.
 
A decent net, 4 or 5 sections. If she eats it all, she gets more the next day. If she leaves a lot, she gets less the next day. I aim for a few mouthfuls left and a bit on the floor.
 
ForbiddenHorse said:
Do people actually weigh hay/haylage daily? I've never weighed a net before.
Click to expand...

No and hell will freeze over before I EVER do it again! When I was doing my instructor training we had to do nets for 60 horses. 3 nets a day of varying weights and all had to be weighed. It was haylage and it smelt of vomit. Some days just 2 of us would be left to do them. Just thinking about it gives me the judders!
 
Leo Walker said:
No and hell will freeze over before I EVER do it again! When I was doing my instructor training we had to do nets for 60 horses. 3 nets a day of varying weights and all had to be weighed. It was haylage and it smelt of vomit. Some days just 2 of us would be left to do them. Just thinking about it gives me the judders!
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Apart from it being hay not haylage I did the same while training, after a while you knew exactly how much was in each just by feel, I would probably still be able to fill to pretty much an accurate weight but now feed adlib or nearly to them all.
 
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