Most boarding facilities in my area feed twice a day, so yes. Typical feeding schedule would be hay at 6AM and again at 4PM. Some barns will feed a “grain” (i.e., complete feed/senior feed/etc.) lunch pre-prepared by owners, but it’s just as often fed with the morning or evening meal. There is no pasture to speak of during the summer unless there is also irrigation. The barn I am currently at does irrigate the pastures and the smaller paddocks (about 50’ x 100’), so my horses do have a very limited amount of grass to keep them occupied during the day. It’s enough to keep them movng and looking for more, but not enough to add any substantial calories (some of the horses in the larger pastures do have plenty of grass though).
We “feed” twice a day, meaning each horse gets their allotment of alfalfa and then the feeder is stuffed the rest of the way with an orchard grass at 7am every morning.
A few will Hoover down every bite and every bit that falls to the ground so I do like my heads in the stalls around 1pm and pitch a little extra to the ones that have completely cleaned up.
That being said, I don’t pile the hay to them, most of them will still have scraps on the ground when we feed in the evening (around 5) so to me, if they were really that hungry they would clean up the bits left on the ground.
so no one is really out of hay but I also don’t feed 5 times a day, just fill their feeders and top it off as needed.
Both of mine are metabolically challenged so it’s stalls, dry lot and very short turn out. My husband is retired and feeds them hay 3 times a day with the last one in the evening. They also get (lo-starch) grain twice a day. So they are fed 5 times a day.
I totally realize this wouldn’t be possible in a boarding situation. I’m very lucky my husband took them on as his retirement project.
“Does your horse ever go without hay?”
No. He has pasture or hay 24/7. Pasture from April/November-ish.
We do endurance, CTR, & trail. He has 24/7 turnout.
They can come in the barn if they want- mostly, they don’t want!
We feed small squares in the winter months, spread out into piles outside and inside. We only have 2 horses currently.
There is always some left over in the AM. Neither are pigs, and I would say they are moderate keepers. Certainly not Air-Ferns, but good on free-choice hay and about 5# high fat concentrate per day.
My horses got pig fat with hay during the day and turn out at night. Since I hate muzzles I do not give them any for the 10 hours they are inside so they can eat grass all night. Sadly, they are still pig fat
Yikes. That sounds like colics waiting to happen :eek: 10 hours without any feed?
I am sure my horses go without hay for a few hours during the day. They get fed 3 times, each time hay first and then grain. They get breakfast, lunch and dinner. I would like the gap between dinner and breakfast to be smaller, but if they have enough hay in the stall it’s ok. A few hours here and there without hay is a-ok in my book, anyway.
I have had horses at home for over 20 years, with between 4 and 8 horses on the farm at all times — ages 6 months to 27 years old) and I have never once (knocking on wood) had a horse colic.
The less grass they eat, the more hay they get.
Even if you give 2 flakes at 8 pm, most of it is eaten by 10 pm. = Nothing to eat from 10pm – 8am.
I feed according to a horse’s needs, not according to a chart of the wall.
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As it should be.
G.
Yes, my two pasture pets regularly go 10-12 hours without hay in their dry lot, spending the remainder of the day on pasture.
My pasture is very carefully maintained and monitored. I will hang slow feed nets if the grass is looking at all questionable or if there is any concern my schedule might leave them in the dry lot longer than 12 hours. When grass quality is good, they ignore the hay nets completely and just wait to be turned back out on the grass anyway.
About 10-12 hours without.
They go out to graze during the day, then they are in the “weight watchers” paddock overnight.
During the winter they get fed hay at 2 feedings which last about 1-2 hours each (iin slow feed hay nets).
I add a little more when the temps are below -20
I feed the horses here hay three times a day (7am, 4pm, 9:30 pm). When available, one pen gets round bales in the winter, and a few horses get pasture during the day in the summer/fall, but pasture is limited. I prefer to overfeed because it gives the horses something to do, but with the current shortage of hay, I am forcing myself to be more careful with the quantity of hay I feed (max 30lbs per horse). Part if the problem in my area, is the hay is quite high in calories.
My own two are easy keeper Arabians. They need very little hay to stay in good weight, so I try to toss them handfuls during the day to keep them happy.
My horses always have hay or pasture. The 15.3h pony cross/air fern has pasture at night. In the daytime, he is in his stall and gets a flake of hay at 9am and again at 1pm. He is ridden 8-10 times per week, in order to keep him from being massively obese.
Yes…she is at a boarding barn. They get fed twice a day (usually about 7am and 5pm) and the BO (who does all feeding and chores themselves) will not mess with slow feeders. I have had this horse at this barn for all but 2 of the 14 years I have owned her and she has done fine. On the days I go out, I do give her an extra bit of hay usually about mid-day and I usually stuff it in a small hole hay net. I have tried several iterations of slow feeding that the BO would try and none of them worked well for the horse. She was either super frustrated or the hay ended up outside her pen which is even worse as she doesn’t get it at all. She is an easy keeper. I cannot imagine her having hay 24/7 and be able to keep her at a fit weight. Even when I had my horses pasture boarded close to my house, they were up in pens for all but about 1-2 hrs AM and/or PM with hay AM and PM. Even then, the oldster I took care of succumbed to laminitis. (Way back when before we ever heard about insulin resistance).
I know now it is far from ideal but the only colic she has experienced was an impaction due to a tooth issue where she wasn’t chewing her hay well. Ulcers? She doesn’t show any symptoms of ulcers. I make sure she either has 30 minutes of turnout on grass or a pile of hay in front of her while I groom (if I didn’t take her away from another meal) before any exercise. Most barns around here are only 2x/day so unless you live at the barn, hay 24/7 isn’t going to happen.
Susan
This might be informative:
G.
My horses – all TBreds, average keepers, one hard cuz he cribs – are never without hay. Since they are out almost 24/7 I have big rubber tubs in the run-in sheds (one per horse) and each contains a 3 string bale in a net with 2" holes which are not all that restrictive. Bales are replaced as needed. Convenient for me + hay stays in the tubs; doesn’t get wasted.
The horses that do come into the barn/stalls – 1/2 day or more during brutal summer heat and sometimes overnight if we’re having a bad winter storm – get big hay nets fully stuffed. Hay lasts the duration. To keep stalls from turning into a mess I hang the nets fairly low outside the stalls + attached to webbings/cross bar = easy to reach, no neck strain + nets can’t be dragged into stall. Works for us!
My old hard keeper has hay in front of him 24/7. He won’t eat much of it.
My fat pony probably spends several hours without hay in front of him. He shows no signs of ulcers or any type of distress; he rests in his stall after he finishes. If I gave the guy a bale of hay, he’d eat the whole thing each day. He loves to eat. It’s his passion and it’s just not healthy for him. I try to slow him down with small hole hay nets, but he methodically pulls it out and can polish off a stuffed net in an hour. He’s mastered the art of eating from one.
It’s not fun having an easy keeper. He’s on a ration balancer and I just ordered him Metabo-lean from Smartpak. If that doesn’t help I’m going to ask the vet to check his thyroid.
And yes, after 10 years of the hard keeper I thought an air fern would be nice. It’s not. It’s worrisome.
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