how much hay in kgs/ lbs do you feed?

charlie76

charlie76

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I have always fed ad lib hay to my horses/ liveries but they are pretty round for this time of year!
They are in 24/7 at the moment and have a hay net in the morning, one in the afternoon and a very large net at night. When they are back out(once fields are dry). They have hay when they come in and then a large net over night.

I am concerned they will be going into spring a bit too well so I would like to be feeding weighed hay.
So what size are your horses/ build/ work load? And how much hay do you feed?
 
My horse is only in over night, approx 12 hours. I posted a similar question recently, as I was concerned I wasn't feeding him enough. After some playing around, I am now feeding him about 8kg of hay, about 5kg of which is soaked. He always has a little left in the morning.

I would suggest soaking the hay rather than restricting them too much. :)
 
My 16.3 tbx has 14lbs of hay a day and 2 small feeds which are mainly chaff so that he gets his joint supplement and a handful of nuts to keep him happy. :) oh and he is out 24/7.
 
I am in a similar situation, feeding almost adlib haylage some go out each day but all are looking far too well, I have cut back the hard feed, from not much to even less!! now starting to reduce the size of the nets a little but still want to give them enough so they are not stood too long with nothing, although most are on straw which they can pick at if they really need to. I do not weigh mine but think it may be the next step.
 
My 15 hh gelding who weigh tapes at 480 kgs and who is laminitic has 8 kgs of hay in a 24 hour period. Half of which is soaked over night. He is turned out for about 4 hours at the moment on mud with no grass.
 
mine essentially adlib

14.2 21 yo welsh cob, in medium work (6 days a week) out 8am-2pm with hay and eating about 18-20lb of hay when stabled atm.

Others on the yard include 2 17hh dressage warmbloods - do more schooling and less hacking than mine on about 15lb of hay when in but they get more other grub :p.

I mostly weigh just so I can keep an eye on intake (usually dependent on the hay bale :p ), despite his type I have never really limited hay just other grub/worked more.
 
My 15'1 cob, weighs in at about 510 kg and a very good doer in very light work gets 4kg overnight and 2-3kg in the field (she sometimes nicks her friends hay) as there is almost no grass left. Other than this she only gets chaff and vit/min
 
My horses range from 14.2 Friesian/cob - 15.1 PRE - 15 PRE: all are rotundo's in light-medium work so they get 7 - 8kgs of soaked hay each per day split into 4 feeds.
 
I think the guidelines are 1.5 -2.5% of horses weight of forage per 24hrs, so by this I feed my c500kg go doer mare about 5-6 kg of hay overnight plus fibre based feed about 1kg split between 2 feeds and she is out on short grass at the moment during day for 12 hrs (don't know how many kgs of grass she would eat in that time but maybe 3kg!?) Other pony weighs 400kg but worked more and less go a good doer gets the same.
 
Thank you. I am going to look into the very small holed nets to slow them down a bit. I am currently using four huge bales of hay every 10 days between 12 horses . these hay bales are about eight foot long and four foot high so enormous!
 
Just under 2% of his body weight. He's overweight cos I'm not riding still and it's been such rubbish weather and we only have an outdoor school :(

I weighed a bale, him and his haynets to check!
 
Mine are both 14h2 and get 15-16kg over a 24hour period. They both live out 24 but the grazing is shocking... They have nets in the field not loose hay so very little wastage
 
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