Thoughts on horses having no forage overnight?

I'm really surprised at some of the posters saying they know horses only having 1 net to last them all evening/night!
My mare (16.1 WB) can eat for Britain, she usually has 2 medium sized medium-holed nets and 1 smaller large holed net of hay to last her overnight from about 5pm until 7am when she goes out (there's still a decent amount of grass and forage in her fields). I've weighed her nets at approx. 10kg and it's generally all gone by 6am when I get there. At the rate she eats I suspect she does stand for maybe 6 hours without forage, but then again I know she lies flat out in bed every night so maybe once she's finished eating she goes to sleep! If she has to stay in for any reason she has 2 medium nets at 6am, a smaller net anytime between 11-3, and 2 more medium nets at 5pm.
She isn't fed any hard feed apart from chaff at and she's looking good atm but I wouldn't hesitate to up her rations if I thought she needed it. I hate to think of her not having anything to munch on as she can get a bit stressed and I worry about colic. She used to be on straw bedding which she often picked at, this gave me peace of mind, but had to change to shavings recently.
 
My mare gets three or four large sections a night - for a welsh sec a that's probably alot. But as I feed it free from the floor it doesn't last her all night! When eating continuously from small holed nets she ended up with a seriously upside down neck and it still didn't slow her down much so figured it wasn't worth it. No ulcers.
 
Thanks for all the replies - it's great to read all the different opinions.

These particular horses come in at around 4pm usually - and have been turned out since about 10/11am. So about 6hrs turnout daily. They get one small haynet of hay each. It's assisted DIY they're on so I'm not 100% sure of owners will be aware of lack of forage since they only do one end of the day.

My own TB gets ad-lib haylage and always has enough left in the morning that I know he isn't going hungry overnight. I've had fatty ponies before and have always managed to spread their overnight forage into a number of small holed nets/give straw etc.

I know it's not one rule for all so it's good to hear from others :)
 
kimberleigh said:
These particular horses come in at around 4pm usually - and have been turned out since about 10/11am. So about 6hrs turnout daily. They get one small haynet of hay each. It's assisted DIY they're on so I'm not 100% sure of owners will be aware of lack of forage since they only do one end of the day
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So a rough guesstimate, probably about 3-4kg each maximum to last them 18 hours? I hope there's good grass in the field! Do the horses look well on that?
 
Mine is divided into three nets one section in each one and the last one is a small holed net. She is 16.1 and it seems enough for her, the others use larger holed nets or no nets, it is personal choice
 
fattylumpkin said:
Wild horses in winter are still 'eating' but their forage is so low or empty of nutrition; like tree bark or twigs or whatever they can get their teeth into and get their saliva production going. I don't think there's any research that says it's natural for horses to have nothing in their stomachs for long periods, they do need *something* to chew at, just not necessarily prime summer hay.
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This ^^^^^.

I am feeling guilty at the moment because my lot (10 Highlands in one herd) get rationed hay forked out of the quad trailer in the morning but have free access to good barley straw 24/7. This morning I noticed they'd finished the straw but when I went to put out another bale, the tractor had a flat batery so they won't get straw until tomorrow! But there is grass there and they will nibble away so I am just being stupid. Having said that, none are over weight, just nicely covered. I never have problems with Laminitis and seldom have to diet them. I like to think that on a sensible regime they regulate their feeding without gorging or enforced dieting. It seems to work.
 
I have noticed this in the past - I have always fed ad lib forage (not always hay or haylage, and not always loose but always ad lib), but when I was on livery I'd say 80% of horses were nearly done with their nets by the time I'd leave in the evening (~8pm) and weren't seen to for another 12 hours. I am sure the horses did indeed cope, but I want my horses to thrive and be happy and healthy, not just 'cope'.

I find barley straw absolutely instrumental in keeping my horses happy and fed, including one which is a super good doer.
 
It's a no-brainer imo. Any-one who knows as much about the horse's digestive system, as a horse-owner should do, knows that horses are trickle feeders and should have access to forage all the time. They will not eat all the time, if forage is available but they become very uncomfortable, at best, if left without for hours. I have known horses develop all kinds of undesirable behaviours and health problems, when kept short of forage. Why any-one would want to inflict that on their hrse, I cannot imagine. I give oat straw chaff to fill up on, if ad-lib hay would lead to weight problems.
 
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Pearlsacarolsinger said:
It's a no-brainer imo. any-one who knows as much as a horse-owner should do, knows that horses are trickle feeders and should have access to forage all the time. They will not eat all the time, if forage is available but they become very uncomfortable, at best, if left without for hours. I have known horses develop all kinds of undesirable behaviours and health problems, when kept short of forage. Why any-one would want to inflict that on their hrse, I cannot imagine. I give oat straw chaff to fill up on, if ad-lib hay would lead to weight problems.
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this.
My horses are stabled at nights and in for a lot of the daytime in this weather as well. They have hay (in nets) constantly available. At night they have a large bin of hay plus a large haynet. They dont get fat on it and they dont eat constantly. There is always hay left in the morning which I use to feed the ponies.
The horses don't binge, as it is there all the time they find it boring. I will go and feed one horse his hay shortly and he will not even bother to come and look at it. He will be standing asleep. In a couple of hours he will wander over and start eating. Having spent a night living in the stables this week I could see they don't binge, they are calm and laid back about the hay. By 2am they had loads left.

They don't binge or overeat as they know they will never be short. There is no "famine" mentality.
 
Cortez said:
Yes, horses are grazers; yes, they are supposed to trickle feed; but I bet many, many horses go 12 hours or more without food at night with no ill effects. If fed ad lib a lot of horses would be/are overweight (mine would certainly be!). I have fed ad lib (result: fat horses), and now feed weighed amounts to maintain my horses at their optimum. Never had any problems feeding this way. There are a variety of ways to look after horses, there is no one, absolute rule that applies to every equine on the planet, despite what a lot of posters on here might think.......
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this^^. The Exmoors couldn't have ad-lib anything when kept in, they would be as big as houses. When they are home I can nip out before bed and stick their last rations in. The other one is on ad-lib but I bet he won't be once he's grown.

I don't advocate horses being kept without overnight, but I do think this ad lib at any cost is partly to blame for lots of overweight ponies.
 
I think if you are on a DIY yard I would stop thinking about it, you can't do anything without causing trouble, so don't go looking in their stables.
Not saying it is ideal but we can't fix everything.
 
I have a Connemara mare who has ems and I worry about laminitis. I have had her a year and she had fat pads and a crest when I got her which she has finally nearly lost. She is fed a hay cube full of hay which is soaked for at least an hour, sometimes more depending on my routine which she will nearly finish by morning. She is getting a little extra hay in a small holed net to keep her going at the moment as there is nothing really to eat in the fields. They are getting a small amount out in the field but most of the horses where we are choose to pick at the grass. She is fed unmollassed chaff to have her freestep lam alert in all year round. I do believe that this has helped to get rid of her fat pads (although pricey to buy it lasts a long time) and this is combined with enough work. She had had December pretty much off due to me being busy and for a holiday but is normally worked nearly every day for weight management.

I soak her hay all year round so that I can feed more and really it is ad lib which seems silly for an end pony but this method has worked for us.

If she has been stood without hay she is vile in the morning but if she has any left she actually leaves quite a bit but is her normal self!!

The horses on our yard are mostly on livery but they tend to nearly always have some hay left as far as I can tell. There is one who box walks if not so its easy to see if he's ran out.
 
paddy555 said:
They don't binge or overeat as they know they will never be short. There is no "famine" mentality.
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This doesn't apply to all horses, though. As others have said, some will just keep on munching. My maxicob, who was always a greedy lad, put on 40kg in 4 weeks (weighbridged) on ad lib soaked meadow hay whilst he was on box rest, he just ate and ate, and I got a rollocking from the vet for allowing it to happen!

I found that giving him weighed sections of hay four times daily was the way to go.
 
My mare spent years in the '1 hay net at 4 and nothing til 9am' catagory. When I bought her and got control of her eating habits, I put her on ad lib hay off the floor. She's happier, fewer ulcer type symptoms, cleared her nose, reduced her headshaking to almost nothing and she's a good weight (maybe a bit porky this winter but she's been out with injuries so I can't exercise her). My youngster is on ad lib as well, as is another I look after. All do very well on it and only one 1 of them is a poor doer, the other 2 are good doers. They also have a 'chop bucket' with an oat straw chop in it, so they are never stood without forage. Each to their own, but the mare who is a bit porky has just had more oat straw replacer and a bit less hay to manage it, she's still eating ad lib.
 
This is a very interesting thread.I am lucky that my 'pet' pony doesn't ever finish her hay so there is always something for her to eat.Which is my point.My dog has food available at all times and she just picks when she wants something to eat,plus I give her meat and veg and what ever we are having.She is not overweight at all and has plenty of energy,Now my point is when people come visiting with their dogs nearly all say 'Oh I couldn't do that she/he would just eat and eat and eat'.Well I sometimes look after my friends dogs for them and it takes about 3 days for them to get used to the fact that there is always something to eat,they do eat and eat and eat but then they stop and start behaving like my dog.Noww,I wonder if that would equate to a horse.
Would they just eat and eat or would they settle down after a few days and regulate themselves.Do they do it because they think this is all they are going to get or would they get used to having something to eat all the time so it doesn't become an issue.What do you think?
I have always fed lots of forage and if they eat it all I just give some more.
 
I think it is very tough if you have a good doer as there are lot of health issues also associated with being overweight too.

My pony would be huge if he ate as much as he wanted to eat so he has soaked hay in a very small holed haynet. YO is clued up on ulcers and checks everyone has enough hay at 10pm when she does her late night check and can put extra in for them if necessary.

However just because a horse gets ad lib hay or forage does not mean they are eating enough to prevent ulcers as some horses won't eat straw or enough hay if they are fussy eaters- I did try giving my pony some straw chaff once and he did not like it and sometimes horse may also be a bit fussy about hay. Strangely enough it is often the good doers who are not fussy eaters though, my pony will often eat hay the others don't like and he also likes soaked hay as well though he does not like straw. I have also know quite a few horses that were on ad lib forage including one that lived out on good grazing that have suffered from ulcers so I think it is more than just having ad lib forage. I think any work faster than walk puts a horses more at risk of ulcers so it is important not to work them hard on an empty stomach due to acid reflux. So it may be a that a good doer in very light work who is quite lazy in the field is less at risk of ulcers than say a race horse, even if the good doer is not on ad lib forage overnight?

However I do agree it is much nicer for the horse in terms of quality of life to have ad lib access to forage and soaking hay and feeding in the greedy nets or other very small holed haynets can help a lot in terms of allowing horse to trickle feed whilst in at night.
 
Orca said:
I didn't mean to say you had but was using your point about horses being trickle feeders (grazers), to highlight how unnatural the provision of hay can be, in comparison to the natural feeding pattern of horses and that it can be difficult to replicate grazing (little and often) in a stable environment. It seems we use similar methods in an effort to try ��
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Mine gets 4 kgs of hay in a Marts net and a wheelie bin full of straw. He eats the hay in about 3 hours, then eats the straw. He eats about half a bale a day roughly. He doesnt gain weight doing this. I've just moved him today, and I'm going to fill the wheelie bin with the straw with the hay mixed in so he has to forage for the hay a bit, as I just dont like nets in general.

If he was fed ad lib hay, even in the trickle nets, he would easily eat 15kgs from 3/4pm to 8am. Hes an eating machine! While hes chewing a mouthful of hay hes using his lips to pick the next mouthful up. I've seen him go through a kg in 15 mins, my yard were quite happy to give him 4kgs of hay at 3pm, and nothing else on full livery days, and couldnt understand why I thought this was totally unacceptable. About half the horses on the yard have finished their hay by 6pm :(
 
Flora said:
Wish there was a"like" button! I totally agree with Cortez. I have a few greedy horses on my yard, including one of my own, who would eat everything in sight until there was none left all at the one sitting!. Ad lib sounds good, but if you have greedy horses, it would be impossible to keep them going in haylage all night. Never mind the cost! Mine get a certain amount each night and will be left standing for a while overnight with nothing until 7am, and they have never came to any harm. I even had a Tb who came to me with ulcers, (was treated and correctly managed), was given his net, which was usually empty next morn and his ulcers never came back.
Rules are all very well, but sometimes they are meant to be broken.
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Ad-lib forage doesn't mean ad-lib haylage!

I bought a massively overweight mare and got her weight down, so that she now has a condition score of about 2.5 with her ribs just showing by feeding hay from a haybar ( don't like nets) and trugs full of plain oat straw chaff. She was on a straw bed but gave herself colic from eating that, so had to be changed to shavings. She has Aloe Vera to counteract gastric acid and has learned to pace herself, so that she has a small amount of hay left in the morning, even though she no longer has chaff. I cut down the AV but have put it up again because she started to eat more, faster. I can only assume because of stomach acid that needed to be neutralised.
 
I am lucky I am able to provide my mare with ad lib haylage included in yard costs, with no detriment to her health. I always like her to have a bit left over come morning.
 
Tiddlypom said:
This doesn't apply to all horses, though. As others have said, some will just keep on munching. My maxicob, who was always a greedy lad, put on 40kg in 4 weeks (weighbridged) on ad lib soaked meadow hay whilst he was on box rest, he just ate and ate, and I got a rollocking from the vet for allowing it to happen!

I found that giving him weighed sections of hay four times daily was the way to go.
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yes but that is box rest. There was nothing else for him to do but eat so I don't think it is a fair comparision. Mine each have a stable and small yard. They don't stand in their stables all night, they wander out and talk to each other over the gates.
If you keep restricting them then they just pounce on whatever hay is given to them in case there is no more and they think they will starve.

If any of mine kept on munching there would be none left in the morning yet there is always hay left and sometimes a lot.

I think it is a bit like humans. If you go on a diet you are just focussed on what is the next meal, obsessive in fact. If you are restricted all you think about is food. If you don't diet you don't think about it half as much as you know it is always going to be there.

If a horse is standing in it's stable all night and is without forage for several hours what is it actually supposed to do? other than stress and be bored. If the hay is gone by 10pm then several hours can mean about 8 hours. Poor horse.
 
Does nobody else have a horse who will rip nose-sized holes in small holed haynets within 3 days if the rations are restricted too much? Given a decent amount horse is overweight by a lot but only trashes about one haynet every 6 months and is happy. He'd eat a small bale of straw daily if given the chance, even though he doesn't think much of it. A horse needs quality of life IMO, enough food to keep them reasonably happy but not so much they suffer the ill effects from obesity. I'd rather see a horse eg PTS at 20 after a happy lifetime of being a bit overweight causing metabolic problems and laminitis, than see a horse still going at 30 but having had a largely miserable life constantly deprived of enough food. I see it as a balancing act, not a black and white issue of either a)horse must have ad-lib forage to prevent boredom/ulcers/bad behaviour or b)horse must be kept at an ideal weight no matter what.
 
You can't project human behaviors onto a horse. A healthy horse on restricted intake of hay will look for something to chew until better forage is available, and provided they have something to gnaw and they're getting they're daily nutritional intake required, they're happy. They don't obsess like humans do - although my personal take is that this fear that the horse thinks it's starving is what leads many owners to give hard feed and ad lib hay to severely obese horses! Same with over rugging.
 
FrankieCob said:
Mine gets 4 kgs of hay in a Marts net and a wheelie bin full of straw. He eats the hay in about 3 hours, then eats the straw. He eats about half a bale a day roughly. He doesnt gain weight doing this. I've just moved him today, and I'm going to fill the wheelie bin with the straw with the hay mixed in so he has to forage for the hay a bit, as I just dont like nets in general.

If he was fed ad lib hay, even in the trickle nets, he would easily eat 15kgs from 3/4pm to 8am. Hes an eating machine! While hes chewing a mouthful of hay hes using his lips to pick the next mouthful up. I've seen him go through a kg in 15 mins, my yard were quite happy to give him 4kgs of hay at 3pm, and nothing else on full livery days, and couldnt understand why I thought this was totally unacceptable. About half the horses on the yard have finished their hay by 6pm :(
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Your method is absolutely what I'm planning to do for Orca following the chaff thread the other day. As soon as our straw arrives, she'll have it as forage and part hay replacer. My last horse was a TB and 'good-doer' maintenance has been a sharp learning curve!
 
I think it's commonplace on diy yards where the horses are brought in before the owners go home for their own dinner for them to have finished there couple of sections of hay within a couple of hours.

There are ways around this without feeding huge quantities leading to overweight horses as others have mentioned such as feeding oat straw, giving a late night and early morning net to split the ration up, using smalled wholed nets or doing as I have done and have access to 24/7 365 grazing that I manage myself.

Unfortunately many owners lack the knowledge or common sense needed to balance their horses forage so that they are truly trickle feeding as nature intended without becoming obese or going without food for hours on end.
 
Really interesting thread. For those that feed oat straw chaff, do you add water or leave it dry in a bucket? I have some Honeychop chaff that needs using up but am not sure how best to feed.
 
Orca said:
Your method is absolutely what I'm planning to do for Orca following the chaff thread the other day. As soon as our straw arrives, she'll have it as forage and part hay replacer. My last horse was a TB and 'good-doer' maintenance has been a sharp learning curve!
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It really does work :) He eats less because he has a mountain of forage so loses the desperate edge he has if hes restricted. I did for a while feed huge trugs full of chopped straw, but he used to kick it about and waste a fair bit, plus the cost of it was astronomical compared to actual straw. Now I've moved yards and have more control over his management he'll have it all in the wheelie bin and he can pick through at will. Sadly for him though, he will be going out muzzled as his new field has actual grass. Actual grass ends up with weight gain!

Good dooers are a steep learning curve! He can gain weight just by looking at food, and he is totally hysterical if hes hungry.
 
Aside from the fact the equine digestive system has evolved over millions of years to cope with a continual flow of fibre, however poor quality and small, what about the quality of life? Being stuck in a box with nothing even to chew on, for 12 hours or more, regardless of how hard they may supposedly work during the day...pfff. Some existence.

It's not about one way or no way, as some posters seem to think. There's a dozen ways or more to provide forage for a decent amount of time without stuffing your animal senseless. Or are we fondly harking back to a misguidedly golden era of stalls and cobbled streets?
 
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Our horses range from a welsh a to a shire cross and they all have access to all the hay they want in winter. They live out 24/7 so they need it to keep warm. We don't let them get fat in summer, so they don't have weight to lose over winter.
I hate seeing horses go without, when they have eaten all the forage and still have several hours before the morning.
 
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