Weight of Hay to feed

[ballvicki]

Could anyone remind me what weight of hay I should feed overnight?

Both horses very good doers, and will shortly be coming in at night for the winter. They will be coming in around 7pm and out again by 8am. I'd normally feed one haynet when they come in and top up just before I go to bed at around 10.30.

One weighs 530 kg, and the other 480 kg.

Just had to take out a small mortgage to buy my hay for the winter and am keen to not overfeed the buggers, so was going to weigh it!

Its very good quality, and the bales are really heavy, so my usual policy of stuffing haynets until you can barely lift them is going to cost me a fortune!

 

[Jericho]

I think a horse needs to eat between 1.5% and 2.5% of its own body weight in fibre e.g. hay (inc hard feed, but this should be a very small proportion of that unless horse cant eat hay etc) a day, towards the lower end for good doers but possibly adlib for those who need weight on. For example my mare is on a diet to achieve target weight of 500kg and she is being fed 7.5 kg (dry weight) of soaked (to wash all sugars out) hay a day only -very very little grass and hard feed. It is only actually 3 sections of hay which she complains isnt enough to last her an hour so it is double netted and fed in 3 lots. I also pad it out with straw to give her something to nibble.

Hope that helps