My guy has been gaining weight. We got him a few months bad and he wasn’t at a great weight. Well he has the biggest hay belly that he has acquired over about 1-2 months. Just to be safe we had a fecal test done and dewormed him again to rule out parasites. My guy has access to a round bale and he gets roughly 6 pounds of nutrena triumph grain. He won’t gain weight anywhere but his belly. He has zero weight on his topline and you can see his hunters bump as well. He also has zero muscle because he previous owner never rode him (he hasn’t been ridden in about 2-3 years). His weight is good around his belly but no where else. I can’t see his ribs but I can feel a few towards the front. But he honestly needs weight around his neck and topline severely bad. Has anyone experienced this? I thinking about switching to a different grain when he runs out of this one to see if that helps, possibly something with more protein. I’m also going to start lunging him a few minutes per day to see if that helps with his belly. Oh and he is a thoroughbred, he is 16.1 hands and 8 years old.
What type of hay is in the round bale? It can be really hard to find top quality, second cutting hay in a round bale. Most is first cutting and often pretty stemmy. It takes a long time to digest and leads to hay belly.
More protein will also help but it needs to be correctly balanced and high quality. Many here reccommend TriAminos supplement. I found a big difference adding Triple Crown 30%.
Do you have a place to separate him long enough for him to eat some better hay or maybe 5-10lbs of alfalfa?
Don’t let anyone tell you his topline looks like crap because of not being ridden. I got that line at the last boarding barn when I was riding everyday and now the horse looks like a brick house and hasn’t been ridden in months.
We have a major shortage a hay here and we ran out about a month ago but thankfully I found some before they finished there last bale. It is second cutting and it isn’t the best to be honest. I can stall him and buy some alfalfa for him.
I agree with Gypsymare and was going to ask what kind of hay. I have found good quality Orchard grass and Alfalfa hay my horses look great.
And agree on the top line comment. One of my horses was stall confined for five months due to surgery and was on only orchard hay (soaked 5 times a day) Stabalized rice bran and supplements per veterinarian and he looked like he was still in work. He was also stall confined for another issue (injury) for six months before and same thing he had padding.
I know genetics do play a roll but if you are feeding frequent quality hay, don’t have a worm issue or teeth issue you should be okay.
Hay belly is from poor quality hay ,feed good quality hay and wont have that problem. Round bales are known to be low quality hay. Unless producer does horse hay and knows how to put up good hay.
There are hay producers here that do cattle hay and it’s not fit to feed to horse’s. If you have access to triple crown feeds that what I’d be feeding horse. The senior feed is good feed for putting weight on a thin horse.
What tazycat said…
I thought of this story when I read tazycats post - -
I had some young horses that I was told by the breeders vet to not feed them quality hay to prevent growth issues… they got hay bellies.
Moved the babies to my farm and my vet said you are swinging the pendulum the wrong way… it must be balanced for nutrition.
Put them on a little alfalfa and quality orchard hay and they looked great.
Stalling won’t help his topline. Honestly turning him out more, and he’ll move more. I second (third?) the protein addition- often that ribby top/belly bottom look is a chronic protein deficiency. Good quality protein from either forage (alfalfa and good hay) or a feed or additive (we use Equitop Myoplast) will help him get the most out of workouts and start building that muscle back.
We need to see a picture. Based on what you say, I’d suspect it’s a lack of muscle, not weight, along his topline. You aren’t going to get that up without working him.
I recently found that adding some alfalfa to my horses’ diet really helped them (my mustang, in particular) look better. I had been feeding strictly orchard grass, then slowly switched to an orchard/timothy mix. Once I completely ran out of the orchard, I added an orchard/alfalfa mix in addition to the orchard/timothy mix and now they look really good. My mustang looked like he had a belly and with the addition of the alfalfa he looks much better now . . . and he hasn’t had exercise since October (injury on my part plus cold weather)!
With a horse that has lost muscle mass in his topline, feed alone will not put it back. He needs careful slow steady work. You don’t indicate whether he is in solitary turn out nor how big an area his turn out is. Horses turned out in a group in a big hilly field will self exercise. Horses alone in a pen-no way.
I am not singling tazycat out in any way.
The assumption that round bales are in any way inferior in quality to square bales is ridiculous and I hear it over and over on this board!
What makes low quality hay is what is planted and growing in your fields and when it is cut and baled.
The OP could get the same hay in small squares and her horse would look just as bad.
The term " cow hay" is used all the time and it gets a bad rap because while a cow " might" actually eat crappy hay at times, the cow will also look like crap just like any other animal that consumes that same hay.
We put up round bales for myself and our neighbor ( who buys it). I would much prefer squares ( ease of feeding)but we just don’t have the time, energy and manpower to do them as we did in the past.
No difference between round and square except the shape of the bale and storage. We wrap ours and they are green and smell sweet when the bale cover is removed.
Candyappy…there is a difference between horse hay and cow hay were i am at unfortunately. Yes squares can be bad quality also had some in the past. Don’t do squares it’s too much work to put up in the barn. Only really good cow hay is alfalfa. The Hay guy i buy from also does cattle hay and it’s excellent hay…except this year it not great hay do to weather.
Most farmers around here do rounds, ones that did squares switched to rounds less man power needed.
You might also consider doing a cycle of sand clear. I think you do it for 7 days…
if he is eating round bales, or was being fed hay o the ground he may just have a build up of sand/dirt. I read somewhere that the sand and grass/hay can accumulate in the cecum, which will appear to make them look like they have a hay belly. I had a few older horses who were looking like they had hay bellies and it took care of that.
And not to be an alarmist, but have you looked into Cushings? he seems young, but some of the signs for Cushings are pot bell ( which can be similar in appearance to a hay belly) and lack of muscle tone on the toppling and back and croup… I doubt that is what is going on, but it is something to consider. if it was that advanced I would think you would be seeing the super shaggy coat, but you might not be noticing that since its winter, but I don’t know where you are located.
I would try getting more quality hay in him, and maybe adding a fat supplement to his grain. Alfalfa pellets are a good way to get more forage in them when quality hay is scarce and its also a good buffer for ulcers.
tazy, again, hay is hay. Squares can be just as bad as round “cow hay”. A farmer can be a squares-only guy, and his cutting gets rained on and downgraded to cow-appropriate hay. Horse hay is horse hay, whether small squares, big squares, 500lb rounds or 2000lb rounds.
So while a given area might be riddled with farmers who do rounds solely as cow hay (and guaranteed that’s not dairy cattle cow hay), that is because that is what they DO, it has nothing to do with it being a round bale.
[QUOTE=JB;9013182]
tazy, again, hay is hay. Squares can be just as bad as round “cow hay”. A farmer can be a squares-only guy, and his cutting gets rained on and downgraded to cow-appropriate hay. Horse hay is horse hay, whether small squares, big squares, 500lb rounds or 2000lb rounds.
So while a given area might be riddled with farmers who do rounds solely as cow hay (and guaranteed that’s not dairy cattle cow hay), that is because that is what they DO, it has nothing to do with it being a round bale.[/QUOTE]
I know that hay is hay I know squares can be bad hay. No rained on hay here will and does get sold as horse hay. I’m not an idiot like some on here seem to think.
You said “Round bales are known to be low quality hay. Unless producer does horse hay and knows how to put up good hay.”
That’s the point - it’s not about the shape (or size) of the bale. It’s about the bales, period. Granted, I would not just blindly buy bales of hay from someone who typically does “cow hay” just because he said “this is good stuff, safe for horses!” but that applies to small squares just as easily as rounds.
My dad, who grew up on a dairy farm, said they used to sell the crappy hay to horse owners, because cows in milk need the good hay. 
Around here, some farmers must be able to sell bad hay to cow owners because you will sometimes see it advertised as “mulch hay OR cow hay”…and some make them into baleage/wrapped round bales. My last hay supplier would feed any wet/moldy hay to his cows. It was the same hay he baled for horses, but apparently he didn’t worry about the mold with cows.
I wish I could store round bales because I can get the same hay a lot cheaper than squares. But they are just not as convenient for me.
As for the OP - I think a picture would help a lot. An underweight horse might look like they have a hay belly just because they are undermuscled in other areas. But I do agree that a meal of alfalfa/day would probably help, too.
LOL yes, “crappy” dairy hay is probably either just “good” for horses, or possibly still too rich/good for all but the broodmares LOL
[QUOTE=JB;9013208]
You said “Round bales are known to be low quality hay. Unless producer does horse hay and knows how to put up good hay.”
That’s the point - it’s not about the shape (or size) of the bale. It’s about the bales, period…[/QUOTE]
^^^^^^^
I said I know that already.
“Hay belly is from poor quality hay ,feed good quality hay and wont have that problem”
This is my understanding and this is the reason. Taken from The Horse By Shannon Pratt-Phillips, MSc, PhD
"Another common misbelief among horse owners is that the hay belly results from a horse being too fat. The hay belly, or enlarged gut region in some horses, is mainly due to the fact that within this region lies the fermentative area of the large intestines. If a horse is offered relatively low nutritional quality feed, it is believed that the intestines will retain the feed longer in effort to ferment it to a greater extent and to extract all possible nutrients. Thus, if the fermentative vat is more active, it stands to reason that the gut area would increase. One way to help counteract a hay belly is to decrease the required fermentation time by improving the quality of the forages.
Hay is a generic term for pretty much any type of “grass” that is cut, let dry to around 10-14% moisture content and than baled. Be it small squares, large squares or round.
In my neck of the woods The term “Cow Hay” usually means hay made from fields with a variety of known, unknown grasses and other “stuff”. It is not made from a dedicated hay stand of a known species of forage. Orchard, Timothy, Brome etc.
It is almost always of lesser nutritional quality needed for horses. Cow have a different digestive system than horses. This allows them to be able to digest and “extract” every last bit of of what ever “nutrients” the “cow hay” has in it. Something that horses are not able to do. But as the article I quoted from says it is thought that a horse’s digestive system being fed poor quality hay/forage,feed “trys” to compensate by taking longer to digest and the end result is a “blotted” looking belly, Hay Belly.
As other have suggested feed a higher quality hay and the “look” should go away.
In my neck of the woods “Cow Hay” can also be made from Timothy, Orchard, even Alfalfa. It is called “Cow Hay” because the quality was compromised during the baling process. Usually because it was rained on, re-tedded to dry again and then baled, and or had to be baled at higher than desired moisture levels because of a weather window that crapped out. So most likely the bales regardless of shape or size will be on the moldy side of things. Not really suitable for horses, but cows have no problem with it and do well on it.
In my neck of the hay producing woods round balers have fallen out of favor. By and large they do not make a quality bale of hay compared to large squares or small. I don’t really feel like getting into the reasons. Their shape does not lend to efficient use of indoor storage space. They are a PITA to transport in quantity.
Round Balers have been picked up by small “cow hay” producers as producers of quality hay, be it for horses or the cattle industry replaced them with large square balers. Large square bales make a much better bale and bale at a much higher speed. Skid loaded on to trucks and the field baled and cleared in a fraction of the time and effort round balers did it in.
They don’t have a lot value on the used market so they can be bought pretty cheap. They are effective for getting cow hay off the field in tight weather windows quickly. Round Cow Hay bales aren’t usually stored indoors. Stacked and tarped.
Because they are made for the cows it doesn’t really matter if the “quality” or look is compromised by storing outside with “suspect” tarping/storage. Round bales around here don’t command much of a price. That’s not to say that a horse person can’t find round bales of decent quality and value. Just have to know what to look for.
