People who ad-lib forage...

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kit279

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... do you find that the horses self-regulate how much they eat? I'm planning to feed ad lib haylage and I've calculated it roughly based on how much haylage the horses are supposed to be fed per day. However, if they're going to eat more than that because I'm ad libbing, I should probably get more haylage in!

All of ours are TBs and I don't mind slightly overfeeding them - I just want to make sure I don't run out of haylage!
 
kit279 said:
... do you find that the horses self-regulate how much they eat? I'm planning to feed ad lib haylage and I've calculated it roughly based on how much haylage the horses are supposed to be fed per day. However, if they're going to eat more than that because I'm ad libbing, I should probably get more haylage in!

All of ours are TBs and I don't mind slightly overfeeding them - I just want to make sure I don't run out of haylage!
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If you ad lib you will need more than what is recommended. Imagine most humans not knowing that eating too much makes you fat and having full access to as much food as they want. Do you think they would stick to the recommended 2000 calories a day?

Most haylage suppliers say that horses need 10 kg of haylage a day on average. I think this is on the low side. Mine average at 16 kg (without gaining or losing weight in winter) and that is no where near ad lib. I tried ad lib and they all got ridiculously fat and ate over 20 kg a day! Mind you, my winter grazing is rubbish and most the time they are turned out in the all weather. If you have plenty of grass, obviously your horses will eat less haylage than mine.
 
I ad lib most of mine through the winter and generally they have a limit,there are always exceptions.
When we had the really cold spell they all ate more,it was surprising how much more they wanted, I did cut back the hard feed to chaff and sugar beet.They also had an extra rug on so were not cold.As soon as it thawed they slowed down again.
This was in at night out for a varied amount of time during the day.
 
Mine self regulate fed ad lib between 6pm and 9am, out the rest of the time with plenty of grass. They eat 10 kilos a day each, roughly and are sport horses of 16.3 - 17 hands. The dressage horses get a kilo or two of cubes and some sugar beet, and the hunter gets 4 kilos of cubes plus sugar beet. I feed them more haylage than they can eat overnight, if they ever eat it all they get more until they leave some.
 
I've given ad-lib hay for years and years and I've found that it is very rare for horses to not eventually self-regulate. I can only think of one horse who took (what seemed like) forever to figure out that the hay was never-ending and that gorging was not necessary. A few new horses that I've bought over the years have taken a couple of weeks to get used to ad-lib, particularly the ones who had been stabled and living in structured competition yards, but they got it in the end.
 
I have 2 very good doers, I ad-lib haylage from about December to end Feb - they have haynets filled (enough so some always left) they do self regulate - they have no hard feed (except balancer) and are rugged but not over rugged. Rest of winter they do have adlib hay but this is again only just before december and until grass starts coming through -key is to stop the ad-lib in time as grass comes through. Their winter grazing is only 1.5 acres and is rubbish though !!

Weirdly my retired mare never gains much weight and is always a good size whereas my gelding does gain a bit.
 
We ad lib hay and find that the horses generally settle into self-regulation but I wouldn't trust our lot with ad lib haylage because they would simply guzzle everything in sight and get too fat.
 
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