Need winter feeding/supplement hay advice please

Casey76

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Afternoon all, I'm looking for some basic food and supplement feeding advice please.

I have 2 horses: Blitz is 2.5 years, currently out 24/7 with ad lib hay. Tartine is 6 and has 1/2 measure of Baileys Lo cal on a morning and 1/2 measure on an evening, she also has hay 2x per day and is out during the day and in at night.

At the end of the month Blitz will come in over night, and they will be put out/brought in together.

They are both good doers, and prone to weight gain. As far as possible I would like to have them on the same regimen once their schedules are aligned.

Plan is:

Blitz will have hay (provided by YO) twice a day, 1/2 scoop of Baileys Every Day Fibre nut on a morning and 1 measure of Young Stock balancer on an evening. In addition I will give him 50g micronised linseed, 10g MagOx and 10g yeasacc, and 1 measure of hoof supplement.

Tartine will have hay twice a day, 1/2 measure of Baileys Lo cal on a morning and 1/2 measure on an evening, In addition I will give him 50g micronised linseed, 10g MagOx and 10g yeasacc, and 1 measure of hoof supplement.

Does this sound OK?

Additionally, I need to net Tartines hay as she is such a gannet, and as she is on a pellet bed, can quite easily end up with nothing to eat at all by 8pm. I can net her hay for the YM to hang up for her twice a day. If I was just giving netted hay, how much should I give? At the moment I'm only netting her evening hay, and weighing approx 4.5kg (1% body weight) as she gets more on a morning. However I know that she always has an empty net on an evening (nets have 2in holes).

I've never really had do think too much about forage amounts before as mine have always been on a straw bed, so if they run out of hay they eat their bed - with Tartine that's not happening now. So, I don't really need her to lose any more weight (currenly taping at 424 kg), but she doesn't need to gain any either.

How much hay should I measure for morning and evening nets? (I can double net no problems).

Many thanks :D
 
In relation to the hay I was in the same predicament... No matter what she would eat her straw bed and it wound me up big time so I just stuck a whole bale of hay in with her to see what she did... it took her about two days to eat it so I would say base it on half a bale a day initially and see if they have any left over and adjust accordingly. such as:

1/4 bale morning and night - if none left try half a bale at night n see if any of that is left in the morning?

Is the only reason they eat their straw bed because they don't have enough hay? Mine has loads of grass... I just can't stop her eating the straw!! Tried everything :(
 
I have a similar predicament too. Pony lives out and he is a greedy Haflinger. He currently gets half a bale a day, split am and pm along with a big bucket of beet pulp and a scoop of grass nuts soaked. He eats his hay so fast! I too thought to put a whole bale out and see what he did. Put it out at about 5 pm and there wasn't a scrap left by 7am!

So now he gets his rations and when its gone its gone. He will get more when it gets cold, but for now he has to make do.
 
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