I don't know how much hay to give.

[PapaverFollis]

Sorry. I know this is done to death. But I'm so fed up with myself as I'm a complete feeder and the horses are always so hungry ? so I sneak in a bit more and bit more and then wonder why they are still fat!!

Useless. Honestly.

So.

They are out overnight on a grazed down paddock with a fresh strip of grass every night. We move the fence 1 fence post along. This is scalped by morning. They've been yarded on the hardstanding during the day just to reduce foot fall on the field. They aren't stabled so all hay is to share between the 3 of them.

I've been giving a large net, ~6kg, of soaked hay in the morning. And a further 3-4kg soaked hay overnight. There are also hay nets of dry hay in the barn which they eat while I groom and faff and tack up etc. So the big horses seem to eat another 2-3kg when they are being ridden. Little pone gets an extra scoop of chaff while the bigs are being ridden. If just The Beast is going out the MrT and Little Dragon get a small pile of hay 1-2kg ish to eat while she's out.

There is a multipurpose bale of oat straw in the shelter so they eat that too (as well as sleep on it and poop on it).

So shared food is 10kg of soaked hay plus restricted grass and as much oat straw as they want to pick at. And then individually they get between 1kg and 3kg extra dry hay.

The Beast ideal weight is about 600-620kg? MrT ideal weight probably around 550kg. And Little Dragon is a Welsh A and the only one who I don't think is far. I reckon Beast and MrT are possibly up to 50kg over. Maybe less. So if they were getting just hay Beast would need around 12kg and MrT would need around 11kg and Little Dragon would need 6kg? For 2% of ideal body weight dry matter? So 29kg total. They are getting ~16kg total plus overnight grass... I guess I don't really know what overnight grass amounts to. Or how much oat straw they should be allowed to rely on.

I've been all over the place with their routine in a way with the wet weather. I had to take them off the grass completely and then overfed hay because I got all scared of them eating too much oat straw... so I don't know if my current plan is creating weight gain or even weight loss. I kind of need to wait and see. But as I say I'm a dreadful feeder and worry so much about them being idiots or fighting when they are hungry!

If someone reassures me that I'm probably still feeding too much then I might just be able to hold my resolve. I probably need to split the 6kg net into a little bit in the morning and then the rest in the afternoon as the current regime is a bit top heavy and they have less to eat in the afternoons than I would like. That morning net is gone very quickly though. Equally if I'm feeding much too little I can add an afternoon net quite happily.

Again. Apologies. I also need to stop tweaking the routine constantly so I can stick with one thing long enough to see if it works.

Ugh. Don't want to post this but my brain won't leave it alone if I don't.

 

[Red-1]

My 15.1 cob was on 10kg a day, but had to be on less if he had grass. This is soaked hay. Straw is allowed in addition, but be wary of hard poos.

To lose weight he was on 8kg of soaked hay a day, less if he was at grass. In fact, for 3 hours, muzzled, on grass, he was then only allowed 4kg of hay, so I quit grass.

The vet worked this out on the premise of 1.5% of bodyweight to one weight and 2% bodyweight to be stable.

I have edited, as now it is colder (he is unrigged) and he is in a little work, he is on 11kg of hay. I think that he will be able to level out at 12kg in the end, whilst not having access to grass (he is on arena turnout 8 hours a day, plus a short bit of exercise). I have also recently added a feed of speedy beet and straw chop, with his bits and some linseed meal.

I think the key is to always measure feed/forage and weigh tape every week. That way you can tell what makes them go up and what holds steady.

My cob has some ribs visible. I thought this was a bit light for him (especially as you can see them through a thick coat) but the vet says no, it is perfect. he does have metabolic issues though, and is a recovering lami horse, so that may be why the vet would like to see some ribs. He still has a lovely gloss on his coat, and plenty of muscle cover.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

It doesn't sound like enough hay to me but if they are not losing weight it must be. I say this over and over again but IME and this was with a Westphalian Draft mare who was obese when I bought her, I would give them the opportunity to eat plain oat straw chaff (Honeychop or Halleys') building up to large amounts. They will eat it when they realise that there is nothing else, although I can guarantee they will turn their noses up at it at first. Use a weight- tape to measure them at the same time each week before tweaking your regime. Don't change anything between measurings.

 

[PapaverFollis]

I have put topchop zero out before but someone tips it over in disgust every time. Will try again but suspect they'd rather eat the oat straw bale which they tuck into quite happily.

I'll weigh tape tomorrow to get a better idea where we actually are. None of them are awfully obese but they are a bit fat and I want them much thinner by spring.

When I weighed the nets today they were lighter than I was expecting.

 

[Littlewills]

It doesn't sound like enough hay to me but if they are not losing weight it must be. I say this over and over again but IME and this was with a Westphalian Draft mare who was obese when I bought her, I would give them the opportunity to eat plain oat straw chaff (Honeychop or Halleys') building up to large amounts. They will eat it when they realise that there is nothing else, although I can guarantee they will turn their noses up at it at first. Use a weight- tape to measure them at the same time each week before tweaking your regime. Don't change anything between measurings.

Mine will not touch any chopped oat straw, not matter how long she is left with nothing else. She happily eats baled straw though. This year I've sourced some straw which is very grassy as well and shes eating loads of that

 

[Gloi]

Those large Rumevite sheep lick holders are good for putting chop in and not getting knocked over. I like Swedes too in winter they are so hard it takes them time to eat one.

 

[meleeka]

It sounds as if they have unlimited straw so I don’t see a problem with what you are feeding, especially if they are fat.

 

[scats]

Are they possibly getting more grass than you realise? Sometimes bare looking fields can be deceiving, what we think isn’t much is actually plenty. Perhaps limit the new strip of grass to every 2 or 3 days?

 

[PapaverFollis]

Are they possibly getting more grass than you realise? Sometimes bare looking fields can be deceiving, what we think isn’t much is actually plenty. Perhaps limit the new strip of grass to every 2 or 3 days?

Possible. But unknown. I don't know that they are gaining weight, not been on this routine long enough yet to know. I think they actually got fatter when I had them off the grass completely and was panic-feeding too much hay because I'm convinced they are either going to get hangry and charge about and hurt themselves or kick each other in or eat so much straw their insides explode. Despite them being pretty settled and not really fighting and eating straw completely fine.

It's very old grass with very little, if any, ryegrass. So it's not rich and fast growing. And it really is bare.

 

[WandaMare]

How much area of grass strip are you giving them per day? I was giving mine about 3-4 car parking spaces (can't think how else to describe it!) every day and have now reduced to between 1 and 2, my grass is rich and grows well. It feels a bit stingy but they were getting fat. On one day out of three I don't move the tape at all and give them one slice of hay each in the morning instead. They do look a bit peeved but they nibble on the previous days strips quite happily when they think I'm not looking. There are still the same amount of poos in the evenings so they haven't got hungry.
The vet told me to be careful with the strip grazing because it causes a sugar spike, so I suppose less grass and then nibbling on hay for the rest of the day is probably better for them.
Mine can get up to mischief if they are left with too little for too long so I'm like you I tend to give them extra hay because I worry they are going to do something silly, its tricky.

 

[PapaverFollis]

I feel like every weight management thing has someone warning against it! The only thing I've found really effective was a track on poor grass and being very stingy with hay. But the ground is too wet here to let the grass get so grazed on a track would definitely just end up completely poached. Or a very poor starvation paddock with a tiny armful of hay. But that was to the level of really needing to be individual turnout as it would have been fight club keeping a group together like that I think.

Probably giving about 20m² of new grass a night. It's not much and it's not lush either.

I don't actually know that they aren't losing weight on this regime yet. They are certainly hungry! In a week's time they may be skeletons!

That's why I'm asking. I don't know if the hay is way too much or way too little. As long as it's in the rough ballpark of what it makes sense to give I'll stick to my guns and see where we are in a week.

I'm just so lacking in confidence I literally can't convince myself to stick at anything for more than two minutes. I start twiddling about with stuff.

 

[PapaverFollis]

Update. Beast has lost weight on the tape... 673 a week ago to 640 today! So maybe a little too fast! They haven't worked either what with one thing and another. Started giving them another soaked net instead of random bits of unsoaked hay around working. So they are getting about 15kg soaked hay between them now. They seem pretty settled with that. Hungry but not mental. New bale of straw needed but have mountains of topchop zero to get through so will be putting a bucket of that out too and they still have a straw bed to pick at.

 

[Cortez]

How much hay to give? If they are still fat, less......

 

[planete]

I go by the amount of droppings I get in 24 hours. I know how many mean a stable weight so any increase in droppings would mean horses putting on weight and vice versa. Tthe grass can be deceptive at the moment, I thought coblet had enough grass in his field until he only produced 4 droppings overnight a few days ago, cue increase in his hay ration and guilty feeling owner.,