If your hay has doubled but you haven’t passed that on to the boarder, you will save money when she takes her 8 horses off the property.
If she can’t afford 8 horses and is cost sensitive, that’s her problem not yours.
Also what does your boarding agreement say about hay and what grain she is expected to provide? Anything about body score?
Just tell her horse is loosing weight get the vet put asap for a physical, dental, bloodwork by x date.
Not saying the issue is something more feed will fix.
But until a vet makes the call 
My point was: for my horse & per my vet the added feed did fix the problem.
But that’s literally what you said.
No. A horse that’s eating 30 pounds plus of quality hay, plus a considerable amount of hard feed does not need more calories.
That’s nice your horse came through the winter better with less than a 1000 additional calories a day. Fab you figured that out. That’s not what’s happening here.
Without knowing the feed value of the hay, or what the Speshul feed HO formulates, more calories could be an answer, not necessarily the answer.
My emphasis lies in HO’s reluctance to get a vet involved.
Which is what I did* & - as has been pointed out in other posts - speaks poorly of someone who has 8 horses.
ETA:
Can we agree involving a vet is the best way to resolve this issue?
Conservatively, this horse is getting in the neighborhood of 30,000 kcals a day in hay alone.
The issue here is not lack of calories.
Yes, clearly, the vet should be involved. Something other than a deficiency in calories is causing the weight loss.
@house I feel for you, but you need to get into “professional service provider” mode with this owner and her 8 horses. You are in this boarding business to turn a profit, slight though it may be. Is your board income more than what you pay out for hay and farm expenses, with some dollars for your work time?
You need to realize “It is not YOUR job to subsidize HER horse habit! Not YOUR responsibility!!” Repeat that several times each day and as go to you talk with her. Being sympathetic, overly helpful, will let her suck you dry, take away all your enjoyment of being out with the animals. You get burned out with HER issues! Trust me, they never stop.
You are a horse professional, trying to stay ahead of your expenses just like various other professionals. The Farrier, Vet, Trainers do not cut costs for their services or they go out of business!! We have been in a horse service business for years, you provide what they contracted for, or YOU start losing money! No favors, no discounts, because they will just take advantage of you.
This is hard at times, you do feel for the animals! But users don’t give back, monetarily or even with labor time, to help you back, should you need it. If she can’t pay for Vet services to at least learn WHY horse does not gain weight, then fix what she can, she needs to sell some horses!
As mentioned, there are ALWAYS more boarders to fill her spots. You won’t lose money if she left because your expenses will be cut at the same time!
Sorry, but it is time to rewrite any contract between you and boarder, be more detailed on feed quantities, her SPEEDY Vet responsibilities when horses go downhill. Added board costs for extra hay and grain, time spent with extra care in HER injured animal.
might be wasting majority of that, even with using hay nets we have one mare who believes her job is to empty the hay net by pulling the hay out then dropping it to the ground
Some days she eats every piece but most often not
We do weight tape each horse regularly, usually monthly just to keep more than eye ball judgement on their weights…results are recorded so we have a historical record
The OP already addressed that question, saying “very little” is being wasted. You even responded to that post, clanter, I know you saw it 
A quantitative observation is objective while qualitative observation is subjective, very little can have a great range
Sounds like the horse has something serious going on, whether it’s cancer or kidney or liver or any number of things. And is likely in enough low grade daily pain from its issues that it’s stressing calories off to boot. Agree with everyone else, vet needs to be consulted and/or this lady needs to either move, pay more, or get rid of some horses until she CAN pay more. This is not and should not be the OP’s problem to support.
One thing to keep in mind, OP, is that if the horse is struggling to keep weight and condition because of something serious (which seems very possible since he’s already getting so much extra feed), there will be very likely be a point when he will not even want to eat as well as he’s eating now. At that point the disease process (if there is one) will cause him to go downhill and probably look terrible very quickly.
Are you confident that the boarder will involve the vet at that point? What if she won’t?
I agree about the quality of the article. It reads to me a bit like google translated it from some other language. And that the author is… um… lacking in knowledge about horses in general.
I’m going to take a stab at interpreting that bread sentence. The article mentioned near the beginning several breeds as having longer life spans so perhaps “Generally, after 15 years, aging symptoms start appearing in horses, with a few long-life breeds experiencing such changes in their twenties” was the intended meaning.
But GAH!! what an awful article.
@house I think you’re doing your bit. Did the horse’s owner ask you to change anything? Did you tell her you agree with her when she told you she was concerned? Perhaps ask her if she’s made changes and if she’s seeing any improvement. If she’s done nothing or isn’t seeing improvement, advise her to get her vet involved.
Why do you feel this is YOUR responsibility? (not your horse…)
How old is the horse? If he is already not rideable, and the owner is just literally throwing money at him, I’m sorry to be crude but I would not be paying money to board a pasture ornament who requires extra care, when I have 7 other horses. I’d be putting him down. JMO. Especially if the owner has made comments about not being able to afford things.
It’s your decision, but if you are in this to make a little bit of money on the side, it’s not really helping you to be losing money over this situation.
You’ll need to increase your board rates and/or increase your fees for this horse for the extra hay you are providing. Or I guess keep giving money away…
If you are concerned about legal ramifications, then you need to consult with a local attorney.
And also review your boarding contract to make sure it covers what to do when a horse is “not doing well”.
I didn’t want to say it, but that was my thought too…
IIRC, crypts are prone to testicular cancer. At least I read that once long ago. If that is true, even more reason to have the vet out.
You should weigh the hay you are feeding and maybe test it. But that’s all you are obligated to do.
As a boarder I just want to know what and how much my horse is being fed so I can get good advice from my vet about her. My experience in boarding situations has been varied—the place I am now “feeds to need” but board is expensive, some easy keepers and some hard keepers but no extra charges and everyone pays the same. Other cheaper places I’ve boarded feed every horse the same thing and then up-charge for extra. Both are valid business models. Sounds like the first one is what you have going on.
If the horse is getting 15lbs of alfalfa hay a day, they shouldn’t need much more than 5-10 lbs of lower quality hay on top of that, with maybe a balancer and some fat if they need “extra”? Especially if they don’t work.
Like everyone else said, probably something going on medically, or your measurements are off. The first is a boarder problem, the second is a management problem. Just focus on your end of the deal.
If you can confirm your numbers, and she still won’t call the vet, follow your contract — mine says they will call their vet and charge me if they deem it necessary. This keeps them from getting in trouble for neglect. I’d say if the horse doesn’t have a BCS of 3 or more you need to call your own vet if she won’t, even if you don’t have a contract, to protect yourself.
The very end of that article was also…interesting:
“There is no exact time that a horse will lay down before dying because the exact time varies in all horses. If we talk about average duration, it will lay down up to 3 hours before dying.”
???
Yes … except that I would expect that ChatGPT would have used correct grammar (“lie down” instead of lay down").
I can’t believe the horse is actually eating what the OP says, and I second the advice that others have given that OP needs to weigh the hay.
If the horse is actually eating enough alfalfa, it needs a vet check and a dental exam.
I have had good luck with feeding free choice alfalfa to my Thoroughbreds and a Vitamin E supplement. As they get older, I’ve needed to add a complete balanced senior feed and that has served me well until they get to the point that they do not want to eat. It sounds like the Thoroughbred in question has a good appetite, which is a very good thing.
which is why I said wish. com the knock off amazon site. 
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