How much hay overnight?

[charterline]

Just wondering if I can have a bit of help. Not entirely sure my horse is getting enough hay overnight, to last 14 hours or so.

circa 625kg, 16 hands, just needs to maintain weight, no metobolic issues.

on minimal hard feed, and out during day with some grass still in the field.

 

[doodle]

Robin is similar and I think has about 14kg a night. He gets enough so there is still some left in the morning. He has 2 of the shires biggest hay nets about 2/3 full each. That is anyway from large round bales so takes up more space than if using small square bales. I might actually weigh tomorrow to see how much he actually eats.

 

[Mrs G]

Mine is 16.1hh, 13yr old TB weighing about 600kg. He has 8-10kg hay(weighed out so I can monitor his intake) to last about 14 hours and normally has a little bit of hay left in his hay box in the morning. He’s just moved into a new field with lots of grass so he’s not eating as much hay as he was but 10kg seems to be plenty to last him overnight.

 

[charterline]

Thank you. I suspect my horse isn’t getting that much but I will keep an eye on it

 

[Muddywellies]

My 14.3hh can sometimes eat up to 18lbs hay in winter overnight.

 

[Equi]

Go by the condition not how many kg you think he should have or how long it should last. Loosing weight? Up the net. Putting on weight? Drop the net. Consistent? Keep as is.

The trend lately is to give adlib at all times or ulcers but to me obesity/lami/joints > ulcers. A horse warm in a stable not moving much all night will not need as many calories as one in a field in the elements.

Yes its my view, and i still struggle with it as my littles could stand to loose a few lbs but i do try my best to practice what i preach lol

 

[meleeka]

I don’t weigh but I think my 16hh gets around 10kg overnight and about 6kgs during the day (minimal grass).

 

[Scotsbadboy]

If there is no hay left in the morning .. give more. If there is hay left in the morning ... give less!

 

[AdorableAlice]

If there is no hay left in the morning .. give more. If there is hay left in the morning ... give less!

and stay in the stable to monitor what time the hay is finished?

Some horses trickle feed, some guzzle the lot in a nano second and I am an owner of both both types of horse. KG of hay has to be based on health and level of condition on individual horses. There simply is no set amount of hay that can be recommended across the board.

 

[ponynutz]

There is nothing you can do really, other than eek it out a bit longer. She seems like a good weight to me - normally would expect a 16.1/2hh to be 625kg so I wouldn't want to be giving more. I'd say double/triple net, break it up more if you use the square hay bales, and maybe buy a trickle feeder for her hard feed.

Another good thing is to tie a leadrope to a beam in the stable ceiling, and attach the haynet to it. They have to try harder to get the hay then as they can't press it against a wall.

 

[sherry90]

Currently have the same issue with mine and he is prone to weight gain and had very mild lami last year due to his weight so I do have to be careful. His weight is now good at approx 625kg 16.2hh ID. He is an absolute hoover and I have the small Shires greedy feeder he gets at 3pm when he comes in, then at approx 5pm gets the larger 8kg Shires greedy net which often has to be topped up when I ride between 6/7pm. He trashed his bed the other day so I’ve now also added a double netted net as well to his routine. He was getting hay in the field too as in a small paddock with not much grass but he just stood and ate so defeated the object of turnout so field hay has now stopped and will just up the hay overnight. He does then throw some shapes in the field as he protests at wanting to come in to just stand eating hay ? but I figure the shapes burn calories and get him moving about a bit!
I can’t do ad lib really that’s how he got fat before so it’s a case of weighing what is just enough to last him without him getting hangry and churning his bed! The vet did say to me, laminitis and joint issues are more likely (and harder to treat and ‘fix’) than ulcers so it’s more important to manage weight rather than over feed and worry about ulcers. In some ways would prefer a picky poor doer ??‍

 

[sherry90]

Oh I also tried chopped oat straw for him to pick at when he finished his hay but he protested at that by smashing the feeder/tipping it up ?

 

[ownedbyaconnie]

If there is no hay left in the morning .. give more. If there is hay left in the morning ... give less!

I tried this for my 14.1 connie cross hay vacuum. There was no limit! And this was in summer after going on a new field when she should have been full from grass!

 

[Auslander]

If there is no hay left in the morning .. give more. If there is hay left in the morning ... give less!

A couple of mine would eat til they popped if I did that! I use different haynets to try and slow them down, but the most determined one can empty a trickle net in 2 hours!

 

[PapaverFollis]

I'm trying to resign myself to the fact that mine are going to have to be without food in front of them for significant chunks of time in order to lose weight. The comment from the vet about laminitis vs ulcers has actually struck a cord and I'm going to get even meaner!

I definitely couldn't follow an ad-lib rule with The Beast. She is literally a black hole for hay.

 

[sherry90]

I'm trying to resign myself to the fact that mine are going to have to be without food in front of them for significant chunks of time in order to lose weight. The comment from the vet about laminitis vs ulcers has actually struck a cord and I'm going to get even meaner!

I definitely couldn't follow an ad-lib rule with The Beast. She is literally a black hole for hay.

mine has hollow legs I’m sure!!

 

[Annagain]

A gets about 8kg a night - he's retired and has never been greedy, he eats as much as he wants but no more. He always has some left in the morning. I've just upped Charlie's to 10kg as he was finishing his 8 completely. Now with 10 he has a handful left in the morning. They're out 12 hours a day on still relatively decent grass (7 acres for 6 of them, rested since August). They're a bit bigger than yours OP but A's retired and C's in fairly light work. By Feb when the grass is a lot less they'll be on about 12-13kg I expect.

 

[TPO]

A few years ago mum bought a "good doer" who's previous owner restricted him to 1-2 sections overnight and he was in 4pm-8.30am on average.

She fed him adlib whennshe got him and he started eating 8 sections a night but within a week he settled to around 6 and after a fortnight it clicked that he would always have hay so stopped gorging. Ultimately he settled on 4 sections a night; so fed him 5 and there was always approx a section left in the morning.

Mums current horse is an obese cob. Hes been restricted grazing and weighed soaked hay forever but it's made little difference to his waistline. Exercising him is tricky for multiple reasons and attempts to bring him into work resulted in mum needing surgery!

I've had to make peace that he will spend part (most) of the night with nothing. He gets soaked hay overnight and gorges it. Small holes haynets caused other physical issues with him so back to using his hay cube.

I have a 470kg QH who gets 6 sections a night and eats approx 5 overnight.

550kg TB gets 7-8 sections overnight and eats 6 on average but some days theres a full haycube left and other days it's just dust. Theres no rhyme nor reason to it.

They are in from 7pm (weather dependent) and out at 8am to a couple of sections in the field

 

[Bernster]

Probably around 12kg a day but mine are ad lib so hard to tell. You can try to make it last longer by using small holed hay nets, harder to eat reach hay nets. I have a haylo feeder which has smaller holes in the lid. Also can soak it to reduce the energy content.

A previous yard they didn’t get enough hay overnight and mine was always hangry. He’s better now and gorges less even though he has more.

 

[scruffyponies]

I don't think it's good for them to have long periods of nothing (especially as regards ulcers). If they're eating too much good quality hay, I would look to source poorer hay (last year's), so they can eat it ad lib or feed straw in addition, so they always have something to pick at.

That said, my Dartmoor pony has been known to eat every wisp of straw bedding, just leaving a neat pile of poo in a corner, with the tiniest patch of damp straw under it :/

 

[meleeka]

I know I keep telling this story, sorry ?
My cob lost 100kgs in a month (measured on vets weighbridge) when on box rest and he was never without something. He had a small net of soaked hay, a Tricklenet full of dry hay and a big shires red/black net of straw, replenished twice a day. His feed was loc-cal and a straw chaff. He’s the greediest horse I know and when he once broke into the hay shed overnight, he ate two small bales of hay and even hoovered the floor!

 

[Cortez]

Since when did food become more about amusement than nutrition (this goes for people as well as horses, dogs, whatever, BTW)? Yes, horses are grazing animals not designed to have "meals" but rather to have more or less constant access to forage, but stuffing their faces with unlimited amounts of hay is largely going to result in obese animals, judging by the majority of horses I see in non-working homes. If the amounts being quoted above are really what is being fed, then that is an ENORMOUS amount of hay to be feeding a mid-sized leisure horse.

I have an easy-keeping breed, but they would never be getting more than 8kg of hay daily, they do however have access to straw beds for snacking.

 

[scats]

I feel quite cruel in comparison. My good doers can’t have ad lib hay, or even anywhere near that.
They are both 15hh, a part bred welsh and a sports horse. The sports horse is easy to get weight off once restrictions start, the part bred is not.

Mine get 3.5kg hay overnight in a small holed net (not greedy feeder tiny, but small). They also get a ball with half a cup of fibre cubes. I have no doubt they stand without hay for a good long while, but when I have tried ad lib hay, they balloon. Neither will entertain soaked hay and they simply tip straw over.

It’s tough really, but they have very good daily grazing, even in winter and are out daily from 7.30am to 4.30pm.

 

[TPO]

Since when did food become more about amusement than nutrition (this goes for people as well as horses, dogs, whatever, BTW)? Yes, horses are grazing animals not designed to have "meals" but rather to have more or less constant access to forage, but stuffing their faces with unlimited amounts of hay is largely going to result in obese animals, judging by the majority of horses I see in non-working homes. If the amounts being quoted above are really what is being fed, then that is an ENORMOUS amount of hay to be feeding a mid-sized leisure horse.

I have an easy-keeping breed, but they would never be getting more than 8kg of hay daily, they do however have access to straw beds for snacking.

IMO bedding on straw makes a huge difference as horses can pick if hungry. That's not an option on shavings for example.

As you've previously said that you've never scoped then you can't say for sure that your horses never had ulcers. Posters on this thread appear to have the aim of making sure that horses arent left without a source of forage so that ulcers dont have the chance to form.

I had a non symptomatic horse scoped because of something else and the scars of grade 2 ulcers were found along with a few grade 1 ulcers. He obviously had them before arriving with me (age of scarring and he was an ex racer) but being kept on a high fibre diet with adlib forage was working to heal him.

It's proven that excess acid, when there isnt a buffer e.g. forage, causes ulcers. To restrict forage and leave a horse for long periods with nothing has to be a form of cruelty

 

[L&M]

You should feed anywhere between 1.5% - 2.5% of bodyweight in forage, depending on their condition and work levels.

My cob weighs approx 500 kg, and using the 2% as a guideline (good doer but also hunting so uses quite few calories) he should be getting approx 8-10 kg.

 

[bouncing_ball]

You should feed anywhere between 1.5% - 2.5% of bodyweight in forage, depending on their condition and work levels.

My cob weighs approx 500 kg, and using the 2% as a guideline (good doer but also hunting so uses quite few calories) he should be getting approx 8-10 kg.

but isn’t that assuming there’s no grass in his field and he gets no bucket feed?

 

[AdorableAlice]

but isn’t that assuming there’s no grass in his field and he gets no bucket feed?

That is where it is so easy to get it wrong isn't it.

I have a had a nightmare with one of mine this year, in and out of hospital with colic symptoms. She was getting gassy after grazing so the time out has been cut back drastically. The vets told me in a 2 hour period a horse will consume its entire sugar requirement for 24 hours and put away a good proportion of its required feed weight %.

Just 2 hours, that really is a sobering thought and has made life very tricky for the management of this particular horse, who is an utter dustbin. I watch her on a camera and it matters not what time of day it is, she stands and eats all of what she is given in a haynet regardless of the size of the net. No movement, poo out the other end and feed in the front end. She has not got an off switch and in May when she came out of the field after being out over night on an area no bigger than 20 x 20 of rough grazing she was so bloated she looked like she was about to explode. She had eaten herself silly and displaced her bowel. I think the only place she could be turned out for long periods of time would be on bare moorland where there is nothing and she would have to walk miles to find the nothingness.

She is kept in a big box with an outdoor hard standing so I do split her ration up and hang nets outside. I left her at 7pm and she will be without food by 11pm. She will then doze and have several big lay down sleeps over night before going to the end of her outdoor pen around 4am where she can see down the lane, to wait for me to arrive at 6am. She is a source of real worry for me for a variety of reasons.

The others are trickle feeders, Ted The Twit is a bit piggy but he does have an off switch when he is full. The other 3 snack and rest, stand and look over their doors before another snack, they all have some hay or haylage left every morning. My husband says the mare is like me, see food and eat it ! Husband can have a box of chocolates and eat one per day in a self righteous smug manner, until they are all gone. I eat the lot in one go. Horse like owner then !

 

[Cortez]

As you've previously said that you've never scoped then you can't say for sure that your horses never had ulcers. Posters on this thread appear to have the aim of making sure that horses arent left without a source of forage so that ulcers dont have the chance to form.

It's proven that excess acid, when there isnt a buffer e.g. forage, causes ulcers. To restrict forage and leave a horse for long periods with nothing has to be a form of cruelty

Since most of my horses are kept until old age and then sent to kennels when the time comes, I have had the privilege of having a look in quite a few stomachs, and also usually ask the kennelman if he finds anything unusual. No ulcers; no impactions; no liver disease, in any horse I've had over the last 20 years. Perhaps I'm lucky, but I do seem to have quite healthy horses.

Keeping horses overweight has to be a form of cruelty too.

 

[charterline]

Greedy pig horse probably inhales the net by 8pm, then leaving her for 12 hours without anything. This will not be good for her health, and she’s stabled on wood pellets, so not edible.

added to the fact I think she’s only receiving about 5kg of hay a night.

 

[AdorableAlice]

For those that feed a little oat straw, do you soak it .