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Feeding the easy and the hard keeper together

I expected to have horses out except for grain time when I brought them home, but disparate dietary needs made that really difficult.

Having them in overnight allows for a lot more fine tuning and attention to individual needs. My old lady mare also just really likes her stall. I’d certainly prefer less stall cleaning and bedding use but sigh the horses need what they need.

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I also do 12/12. I’d love to have them all out together 24/7 but I have two fatties, one average, and one old man low man on the totem pole who just needs more food. I do buy “less high quality hay” so that I don’t have to restrict anyone when they eat outside, which is helpful. Then inside, I can adjust hay and grain.

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If you do not want to have them in at night and you do not want to do the muzzle 24/7, then set up two smaller sacrifice areas so they can be outside, moving around, but have their separate feed needs addressed easily for those hours that they are not together.
Then you can muzzle the easy keeper all day while they are sharing the grazing and hay.

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I manage my Tried-to-Founder (5yrs ago) mini by muzzling from 7A to 10P. He gets a break to eat his evening grain (TC Sr) but otherwise is out on pasture with my non-problematic horse & pony all day & overnight.
My pastures are sparse, but drylotting made more work for me.
He’s been muzzle-free from late Fall & over Winter, but I’m watching & when Spring grass appears, muzzle goes back on.
So far, so good. :fist_right::deciduous_tree:< Knock Wood

I could try getting first cutting hay only, but with the Old Man’s teeth starting to go, I don’t want to have 300 bales of something he ends up unable to eat.

Separating them for hay time/dry lot wouldn’t be too hard with my proposed set up, but it will involve moving the trough to a very inconvenient place for the hose. Still, that may be the answer to at least give him a break from the muzzle. I could put his hay in a mega slow feed net, and hers in a more normal net.

Summer time I plan for all night turnout and daytime confined to the sacrifice area. Winter will be a crapshoot, probably on the sacrifice area more than I want them to be but I’m not going to let them tear up pasture.

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Everything will be fine. You’re set up for some grazing paddocks and a dry paddock and some sort of run ins (or will be if I recall correctly). You’ll get the horses home. They’ll try to destroy stuff. You’ll swear at them. Then you can tweak your management as needed once you see what’s going to be what.

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This. It will work out one way or another.

I try to live by “K-I-S-S” and try not to overcomplicate things that don’t need overcomplicating. You’ll get them home and just have to see what works and what doesn’t.

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I love this.

I am forever tweaking with the 4 horses on site now. Optimizing, trying new things, seeing what will make them happier.

That’s the beauty of having them at home and what makes all the hard work worth it!

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100%. And what works one year/season/month/week might not work the next. You’ll have many light bulb moments, feel like the smartest person on earth, and enjoy that feeling of self-satisfaction until the next great tweak dawns on you. It’s truly a lot of fun trying to game your own system and make your critters as happy as possible! :grinning:

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One thing I’ve done is to have the daytime hay in the extremely slow feeder bags (for instance, the Shire Greedy Feeder ones). It slowed the fast eater (who didn’t need the calories) way down, without slowing the slower eater (not a hard keeper, just more normal) as much as one would think.

Then I’d make up the difference needed with the night bags.

On pasture, I’d muzzle the one who didn’t need so much grass, but I don’t like to leave a muzzle on for more than a few to several hours. Normal grazing here is never more than four or five hours per day (sometimes broken up into two sessions), due to our climate and available grass, with horses mostly kept in a large sacrifice paddock with hay.

Much as I like the idea of keeping them out 24/7, and I’ve done that as much as possible, I’ve found it works well to have them up overnight (eight or nine hours), which allows the slower/needs more horse(s) to catch up on calories. I’m pretty quick at picking a stall, so really not much extra work or expense (I’d be picking up the paddock anyway, or picking and/or dragging the pastures).

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I’ve managed this by feeding a hay that is geared towards the nutritional needs of my easy keeper and giving them 24/7 access to hay. The TB gets soaked alfalfa cubes at meal time. She takes much longer to eat, and the QH sulks in a stall while she eats. My 29 year old QH is only slightly overweight and the TB’s weight is just about perfect. I tried a muzzle on the QH but he basically had an emotional meltdown that went on for weeks. The vet said he was too old to be subjected to a muzzle if it made him that unhappy. The vet is not concerned about his slight overweight and everyone is happy.

I can see this happening with my old guy, or him committing to destroying it (and he’s VERY smart, so I’m sure can come up with several ways to accomplish this).

I’m already in touch with my hay guy on what I’ll need this year. Maybe I’ll up the amount of first cutting, and only get a few bales of second.

We have a long yearling in the same pasture as a muzzle wearer, in his playfulness he can pull that muzzle off which just requires watchfulness to replace. No harm is done, yet.

As for differencing grain fed to outside horses, we have two that are in the same pasture I just started putting the slow eater into an isolation paddock where she can eat at her pace without having to defend her feed

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If you have options, maybe feed 1st cut to everyone but give the hard keeper a couple of hours eating 2nd cut everyday?

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I could do that. I could use it as a reward for her standing nicely when I take the old man out to do some work and groom him, perhaps it will curtail any stupidity (and she will be tied, because tying = relax to my animals).

I have a tote of hay bags in the loft, several of which are not slow feed at all. Those would be perfect for her “chow down” time.

Yeah, I’m going to be at work so I really don’t want that to happen on the regular. If it happens first thing in the morning, Fatty Old Man will have 9 hours to try and founder. lol

My pony took a while to accept the muzzle. I was already imagining having to keep him off grass entirely bc he objected so much. He did finally simmer down and so far so good since then.

My big horse took the whole dang halter and muzzle off in one piece recently, without breaking anything or undoing any buckles and clips. He kindly left it hanging in a tree for me to find. :woman_facepalming:t2: Same horse also is an expert at removing fly masks and on memorable occasion removed his blanket without breaking anything or undoing any clips / straps. :expressionless::woman_shrugging:t2:

Can you get Teff hay where you are at? It’s been a real boon for my easy keepers. Mine is grown in OH but I dunno what part of the state.

Count your blessings.
I am jealous of your horse’s ability to remove without breaking.
I finally gave up on the whole muzzle theory for my mare.

I would put the muzzle on her, go into the barn, clean one stall and look out she would be naked. There on the ground is the muzzle/halter in bits and pieces.
I was literally 50’ away, heard no ruckus or strange noises (no music playing in the barn or anything, open stall doors right there).
The more I tried to make the muzzle unbreakable/not removable, the more effort she put into removing it.
I figured at some point she was going to hurt herself in her effort to prove to me that she was not going to wear the darn muzzle.
Horses are so fun sometimes.

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They’ve broken quite a few of the little straps on the GG muzzles.

I totally understand a horse just not being ok in a muzzle. Mine look really ready to get them off at the end of the day.

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My mare will shred the nylon basket style muzzles in minutes. She also goes into full giraffe mode if you try to use a basket style muzzle, despite being very well trained to put her head down. She really hates the things.

But she tolerates the Greenguard muzzles. She does break the straps on them occasionally, but usually just because she’s itching, not because she’s trying to get it off. I just use baling twine and duct tape to replace the broke straps.

This probably an unpopular opinion, but I’d rather buy less calorie dense grass hay that everyone can eat more or less free choice than to try to restrict richer hay for the easy keepers.

Also, when it comes to hay, my horses are ungrateful turds. :rofl: We often do not see eye to eye on what is “good hay.” I’ll get a load of unimpressive looking garbage and they’ll eat it like candy. Then I’ll buy a load of beautiful, nutritionally premium hay and they won’t touch it. So my top priority when buying hay is something clean they will eat that doesn’t break the bank. There’s a billion ways to compensate for any nutrition they are lacking.

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