Why can't life be simple - feeding hay

[Casey76]

It looks like Tartine is going to be a bit difficult to manage *sigh*

At the moment she is getting 1/2 a measure of Baileys LoCal balancer morning and evening and hay twice a day. Her paddock is quickly turning into a sea of mud, and she remains porky.

Thomas (the YO/farmer) does the morning hay at about 6am and he is always a tad bit generous, consequently in an effort to a) slow her down so she doesn't run out of hay by 8pm, and b) doesn't eat too much full stop, I give Tartine a weighed haynet on an evening (4.5kg, which is just over 1% of her weight)

Tartine is so funny, given a haynet and hay loose on the floor she will eat from the net first.

Anyway, I have been double netting her hay with nets that have 2in holes and she has been eating this fine, though still has no hay on a morning.

Then I found the Shires "greedy feeder" haynets and bought a couple (£12 postage for 2 haynets!) of small ones at the stated capacity was 6.5kg. Well firstly I could barely squeeze 4kg into one, and the cord at the neck isn't particularaly long, but the holes are only an inch big.

The really small holes didn't seem to phase Tartine too much...

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151808606678337&l=7098894859001805546

However the next day she had eaten hardly any. So now I'm unsure what to do.

Today Blitz comes back up from the holiday field, and I could hang a second net on the adjoining section between their two stables, so she has one net with larger holes, and one with smaller holes (I haven't done this so far, as I didn't want her fighting with whoever was next door as it was changing day be day)

I had tried hanging a normal net up with wheat straw in it, and she won't touch it.

I'm not sure if she didn't eat the hay on Monday night because of the small holes, or because the hay is crap. TBH you could stick the bale of straw next to the bale of hay and you would be hard pushed to tell the difference. My hands are full of nicks and cuts from stuffing the nets because the hay is so hard and stalky.

Any ideas, thoughts or suggestions would be gratefully received

 

[Triskar]

I've got porky horses too - and I use small holed nets as well. Don't worry about her not eating enough, if she's hungry she'll persist with the small holes, and she'll eat the hay slowly. I had one (Arab) who literally ate a hole in the small holed haynet - there was a pile of quidded nylon on the floor under the net in the morning in order to show his displeasure at having to work for his hay - but in the wild they would be walking for miles looking for the odd mouthful of low feed value forage, so even with a small holed net, life's luxurious for him! I bought small holed nets made of fishing net off ebay in the end - they came with a 5 year guarantee against the horses trashing them - and they are still going strong!

 

[Hurricanelady]

My horses (5) all have the shires greedy feeder nets either to extend eating time or because one of them is recovering from laminitis and on box rest and needs eating time extended as absolutely long as possible. They are all eating all of the hay/haylage out of these nets, I agree with Triskar she should persist with the small holes. It's a trade off between having a net tied up in a not perfect eating position (i.e. not on the floor) but extending the eating time. Slightly off topic - I would love to feed forage either on the floor or in a hay bar type arrangement to encourage a natural eating position, unfortunately it would be gone far too quickly. I know some people do tie haynets in a trug through to a ring fixed on the wall at floor height, but I couldn't do this with shod horses.

Good luck

 

[dalidaydream]

I've tried every idea going to slow down my greedy pony and from observing him I've discovered he eats slowest from the floor. Anything I try to slow him down (trickle nets, quadruple small hole nets one in side each other and I even invested in a porta grazer) have all spurred him on to eat faster. If I've given him some on the floor, some in a net or the porta grazer he will attack the net or porta grazer first (and I do mean attack) and then eat what's on the floor afterwards. He's not one to share food and doesn't even like grazing with other horses so I'm guessing he thinks if he finishes off the tricky stuff first then he only has the hay on the floor to worry about protecting from any imagined interloper that might try to steal it

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that some horses just like to eat their hay quickly and only get frustrated at our attempts to slow them down - my pony was doing himself serious damage by grabbing at the net and so he is now happy eating from the floor. I am able to give him his overnight hay in 2 loads - one at 6ish and one at 10ish - and this definitely helps but I'm afraid that when that's gone, it's gone until morning.

 

[Casey76]

Thanks for all of your replies.

Tonight she was happily munching from the greedy feeder, and ignoring the ordinary double netted stuff

Dalidaydream, it would be easier if I could feed from the floor, unfortunately - as I found out a couple of weeks ago - if they get their evening hay at 4, when they get brought in, then she has none left by 8pm, and as she is on pellet bedding, that is too far to go overnight with nothing to nibble on.

 

[dalidaydream]

Sorry, meant to mention the other thing I've done is to use the porta grazer with chopped oat straw in it. Mostly my pony ignores this completely but if he needs something to nibble at in the night then it's there. You could just as easily put this in a bucket but after what I paid for the porta grazer it needs to do a job