How much hay does your boarding barn feed, what kind and how often? Mostly AQHA including a mix of a couple show, but mostly pleasure and lightly ridden horses. Turn out for most (a couple are stalled all of the time). Paddocks this time of year here do not have much grass.
Iām lucky to board where I do. Our horses get free choice first or second cutting grass/alfalfa mix. Truly as much as they can eat. Each horse has a HayChix net that holds almost a bale. If boarders provide a different slow feeder (I prefer a PortaGrazer), it will be stuffed with as much hay as it can hold. As long as boarders arenāt wasteful, weāre allowed to top off nets/feeders without asking first.
Horses have excellent grass pasture in the summer, dry lots with round bales in the winter.
It wasnāt always this way, though. I was one of the first boarders to come in after the facility opened in 2016. At that point, the feeding program was 3 flakes AM, 3 flakes PM in the stalls, and a few flakes thrown per horse in turnout. Thankfully, our barn owners really listened when we came to them with concerns about the amount of hay being fed. They talked to the vet, did their own research, and changed their protocol accordingly.
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You are going to get a lot of very different answers depending on posterās areas.
My horse is out to pasture now, but when she was at a large boarding barn (urban area in SoCal), the barn didnāt feed hay at all! A bucket of cubes 2x a day was included with board. Feeding hay was extra (owner/trainer has to provide and arrange the feeding, not the barn management). Other barns I looked at offered alfalfa 2x day (2-3 flakes). At all put one, horses were stalled when not in work as there were no actual turnouts, just riding arenas you could temporarily use for turn out. One place had āpastureā but it was just one large dirt lot.
I agree with LilDunFilly - you should ask for regions with your answer 
When I was in SoCal, board included 2 flakes of hay in the morning and 2 at night. You could choose between an oat mix and alfalfa. Grass hay was never included (too pricey in SoCal) but you could usually buy and provided your own. No turnout was included, and any little sun pens available were just dirt. (I intentionally never boarded anywhere that fed cubes but that was very common.)
Now that Iām in the Mid-Atlantic we get as much grass hay as we want, and turnout is either all day in winter or all night in summer with grass paddocks (overgrazed, usually, but whose counting 
). Pastures have enough forage (grass and weeds) that most horses are muzzled for most of spring and summer.
I board at an amazing facility in South Georgia. Our pastures are lush and maintained, so we are pretty good until about the end of November. However, all hay is paid IN ADDITION to board, so we can buy whatever we want and they will feed however much of it we want. In full blown winter, my horse gets a west coast bale of Orchard or Timothy in a Hay Chix net to eat free choice. The 100 lb. bale will last him 1.5 weeks in a net.
To go along with the area variable, there is also the question of āhow big is your flakeā. A flake off a compressed bale, is different than a flake from the 40lb squares I use, is different than the flakes off the 100lb 3 string bales that are the norm in other parts of the country.
I have boarded at barns that did the two flakes twice a day thing, while feeding more hard feed. I have boarded at barns where they toss a flake many times per day.
I currently have basically free choice grass hay or pasture, depending on the season.
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Interesting and helpful answers. Thank you! We are in Mid Atlantic region but I am interested in all regions.
Iām in Iowa, and at the last boarding stable I was at the BO fed exactly 5 pounds of grass hay (he measured each serving on a scale) when the horses came into their stalls for the night. He also fed a scoop (not sure of exact amount) of a complete feed. When they got turned out in the morning (group turnout of about 20 horses) he threw out āapproximatelyā 5 pounds of hay per horse. There was no grass in the turn out area. These were all QHs that never got ridden or worked in any way. I turned my own horses out in a small dry lot and bought my own hay to supplement what BO fed. This was a very run down, no frills stable, and most of the horse owners were absentee. Board was $235/month.
Where Iām at now, which is a private situation where I share the barn with a guy, my 3 horses are on pasture and get a large square bale of grass hay in their shed to eat free choice. Last winter when I had 4 horses they would go through a large bale (approx 800 pounds) in about 10 days.
Those of you whose boarding barns put an entire bale in a net, how long does that last and how much does the bale cost?
Iām in central Florida and T&A is around 17+ a bale, sometimes a 2 string alfalfa is about the same price. I got straight timothy last week and it was 29.95 for a 78 pound bale (which has giant flakes that I have to split between horses, as apparently it is not up to their standards so if I give them a whole flake, Iāll be putting it in the spreader when I clean the stalls).
I am not boarding but if I were, Iād be bankrupt feeding hay like that as I doubt anyone would pay a board rate that could sustain that kind of hay feeding around here.
I think this is very horse dependent.
I have one horse, that even though she basically is never without food, if I put a whole 40lb bale into a small hole hay net she will have it all gone (by herself) in about six hours. I am shocked every time I try it.
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Good grief! Are you feeding an elephant? 
Wow.
How do you manage the space to put an entire bale into a net, safely so itās not on the ground to be dragged around? I donāt think I could do that, first off I couldnāt lift it high enough to be safe! (but around here our bales are a minimum 100#).
This horse is barefoot so I do not worry too much about how high it is.
When I use the hay bag that holds a whole bale I actually put it in my home made large bale (rounds or big squares) feeder. It has a floor and a roof.
She must be part elephant, for sure. I am shocked every time she does it. She just stands there eating until it is all gone. Thankfully she does not do this when I feed rounds/large squares.
Keep the horses at home, but I can tell you my variety of experiences before I did. All based on 50-60lb square bales. Midwest.
Barn Aāhorse got 3-4 flakes when put in his stall in the afternoon. I would feed him an extra when I rode in the evening. Nice quality hay. Horse was in good weight.
Barn Bāhorse got 5-6 flakes and would just about always have hay leftover. Round bale outside in the winter, grass pastures in the summer. Well put up hay, but not super nutritious. Never underweight, but not quite thriving.
Barn Cāhorse got 2 flakes in his turnout and his stall each end of the day. Supposedly was thrown extra when he ran out (but never actually saw that happen and was out all times of the day throughout our time there). Bought my own hay and always threw him at least two extra. Hay was very high quality, just didnāt get enough. Weighed it once and he was getting about 11lbs/day of hay and 10lbs/day of grain. I died inside. Kept trying to have conversations with BOāfinally just left for a lot of reasons.
Homeā1 flake of alfalfa and about a half bale of grass hay each end of the day (two horses, but the dominant one gets all the alf as heās the harder keeper). Well maintained grass pastures otherwise.
South Georgia here. We buy from Standlee. A 100 lb. bale of Orchard is $42 currently. Itāll last about one week to 1.5 weeks (thatās a stretch) for my one horse in the deep winter. He does not get hay until about the end of November bc we have great pastures. The Hay Chix net makes it last far longer with less waste. I hook it into a trough so he eats from the ground still.
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The Digestinator could ( and would) go through that 100 pound bale of good western hay in two days. In spite of having 24/7 access to lush green pasture. She is on 15 acres of pasture by herself and we have had a ton of rain so it is GREEN. I am hoping frost comes soon. But she will stand in her stall all day sucking down the 20-30 lbs of western OG hay I put in her net and only goes outside to graze when she has cleaned that up. Now that it has cooled off and the bugs arenāt so bad I am cutting her hay some so she will have to haul her fat ass outside to eat grass ( which is free). I cannot imagine putting 100 lbs of that kind of hay in front of her at one time!
Luckily I do not have to board these days and mostly when I did board it was a co-op situation where I just rented the barn/ pasture and bought all the feed and hay and did all the labor. So I was able to feed as much hay as I wanted since I was buying it. I always tried to keep hay in front of the horses but I was buying cheaper, lower quality hay in those days.
I count myself blessed with the barn I board at currently. This is the only place I have boarded at that I, for the most part, donāt worry about my mare getting enough hay. They get a flake or two before breakfast to munch on. After feeding time they are turned out and are given a flake or two at lunch and then several flakes at night when they come back into their stalls. Occasionally I have to throw a flake to her after I ride but most nights she still has ample hay after I come out and ride.
As far as quality goes, it is almost always wonderful hay. The BO has a hard time feeding ānot prettyā hay, and it was like pulling teeth to get her to agree to feeding prairie hay instead of bermuda to my air fern of a mare.
Oh, I am in Oklahoma.
Iām in coastal GA at a low key show barn and really it depends on the horse.
Most horses are in full work. They are stalled during the day and turned out on pasture (with grass and free choice coastal bermuda hay) at night. In their stalls theyāll generally get 2-3 flakes of coastal bermuda or orchard hay 2x a day. If a horse needs more (old, hard keeper, etc) that is happily accommodated. There is 3 string western alfalfa available for an additional charge. They donāt mind borders topping off hay as long as itās not being wasted.
Upstate NYā¦ currently thanking my lucky stars for our hay prices after reading some of these posts! I got 50 bales of beautiful 3rd cutting alfalfa last springā¦ each roughly 45-55lbs for $8 apiece. Grass hay generally runs $6-$10 per 40-50lb bale here depending on if itās first or second cutting.
A bale of our hay will last 2 days for my horse in a slow feeder.
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I donāt currently board but when I did the horses were fed the amount they needed to maintain a healthy body weight. Of course hard keepers were supplemented accordingly by their owners.
Some obviously got more hay than others but they all got what they needed. Barn fed Alfalfa and on occasion Oat Hay as well.
When I boarded mid-Atlantic region I paid a surcharge for unlimited hay in a hay net in a dry lot for my pony. He ate around 15 lbs in the summer and 20ish lbs in the winter.
