I recently moved to a new farm and I am a little concerned that my horse is not getting enough hay. He lives out 24/7 with a buddy, so he can eat grass all day… however, as the winter has set in, the grass has obviously become far more sparse. We are in the south, so the ground isn’t totally frozen with no grass, but there isn’t a ton at the moment. He gets 1 flake of a Timothy alfalfa mix in the AM and 1 flake of a coastal mix in the PM. This is in addition to 1 pound of Purina senior AM and PM. Am I wrong in thinking he needs more hay? Or is this actually a fairly typical amount for a horse living out 24/7? He gets ridden 4-5x per week.
A flake can mean very different things to different people.
How big are your flakes? How many pounds of hay is your horse getting?
You may get more response posting on the Horse Care board.
Personally, I’m a strong believer in free choice forage. My horses have a full hay net in front of them while in their stalls and have access to grass or hay all day long while turned out. I can certainly understand this being out of the question, and out of the budget at a larger boarding farm.
When my horses are allowed on to the grass portion of their pasture (when it’s not sopping wet), I find that even in the winter, they are out eating the nubbins of winter grass rather than eating hay from their quality round bale. Consider what your horse’s weight is like. Is he eating the nubs of winter grass? He may be getting more forage than you think.
The TA bales are most likely around 75 pounds. The bales of coastal are lighter, around 50 is my best guess. I’m not sure about the weight of the individual flakes.
My equines live out 24/7. They have access to hay 24/7 once the grass browns up following our first freeze (or from lack of rain).
Your horse is the best guide to whether or not he’s getting enough hay. Is he maintaining his weight and energy level? Does he spend a normal (for him) amount of time snoozing in the sun or does he spend all day trying to glean one more blade of grass from the diminishing pasture? Do you notice him eating weeds or other seemingly unpalatable vegetation that was previously ignored?
In my experience, if a BO is having financial problems, reductions in the amount of hay being fed is one of the first things you will notice.
Around here the average Bale has 10 flakes, so you can do the math & figure out the weight fed.
If horse is maintaining weight then enough forage is being fed.
I’m in TN and I fill a slow-feed haynet for each horse (more than one flake) when they are turned out. They pick at the brown grass too. Then when they come in for dinner they also get a flake. Then I do night feed and they get another full haynet. I grain them four times a day. Im not sute, but just from reading, it seems low to me. Again, it does depend on total forage, weight, etc.
My horses get free choice hay 24/7 whether out in the pasture or in their stalls.
I like my horses to have hay in front of the as much as possible. They live out 24/7 but when the grass is eaten down, i make sure they have enough hay to tide them over. I aim for 1.5% of their body weight in good weather, more when it’s cold. It doesn’t sound to me like your horse is getting very much hay and 2 lbs/day of a senior feed is not enough to meet his nutritional needs (vitamins/minerals). My horses get a minimum of 3 quarts/day of senior feed or, if they don’t need the calories, a ration balancer.
Unless those flakes are about 10 pounds each (doubtful), that is not nearly enough hay. If it were spring and there was a lot of nice grass, it would be one thing. But in the winter without much grass, that is not enough.
It depends on your grass, I have fescue with a lot of bermuda infestation, so the bermuda mostly strangles out the fescue in late summer/early fall, then goes dormant leaving not enough fescue for decent grazing in winter. Pasture which should provide some decent winter grazing ends up being subpar.
So because of that, I end up with horses who really chow down on the hay in winter. However since they are a) gluttons and b) wear a muzzles all summer to control weight, I have to balance the idea of 24/7 forage without stressing pastures or having obese horses.
I generally fill up slow feeder nets and and also give them some in a hay rack or on the ground. The idea is that they can fill up on hay, then go nibble, not annihilate my winter pastures and if they are really hungry, they can come back and hit the slow feeder. And it pretty much works that way. The hay not in the net disappears pretty much right away, and the slow feed net can go a couple days without being refilled and then sometimes the mood hits them and they empty it overnight. (OK, not so much “they”, it’s just one this winter, the other is off getting trained to drive, and he is a wholesale hog, he eats ALL THE FOODS UNTIL THEY ARE GONE)
I would be willing to bet 2 flakes of hay isn’t really enough, especially in the winter with limited grass. How is your horses weight doing? Have you noticed him losing weight? I boarded at a barn once where the owner only fed dinner (2 flakes max per horse) because they horses were turned out on pasture first thing in the morning … yeah, no. Maybe that will work for an air fern, but not for my very active OTTB. Free feeding hay is the best option, but (at least where I live in CA) unless you own your own facility, no barn owner here is going to have free choice hay for all the horses. Where I boarded before, the horses got 5 flakes a day (2AM, 1 lunch, 2PM). Where I board now the horses also get 5 flakes, but they feed VERY generous portions … so the size of the flake matters too.
I wouldn’t really be comfortable with that. I looked at one farm around here that only feeds 1 flake/day (just when stalled, supplemental round bales in field) and that was a definite no thank you. I would agree that maybe he actually is getting some grass, but it’s only January and who knows what the condition of the field is going to be in another month.
Do you know for sure that they don’t supplement with round bales? It’s pretty standard around here. Maybe their definition of “no grass” is just a bit more “no” than yours?
I board and don’t have free choice flakes but there is more often than not a round bale in the field. Sometimes, there isn’t hay or grass in the field for a few days at a time, which is not ideal but no one starves. Are they in between bales?
That doesn’t sound like nearly enough forage. I prefer for the horses bulk of their diet be foragr. If they aren’t willing to give more, could you maybe buy extra hay and have them feed him more? Is he ever stalled? If so, easy for them to give him more if they are willing to feed the extra hay you buy
As a farm owner I can tell you that the single biggest expense is hay. Unless you charge a steep board, the profit margin is fairly minuscule if you feed a lot of hay. Personally, I feed a boatload of hay, because thats how we roll here. Orchard grass in the morning, alfalfa at lunch, a big pile of coastal at night. It’s probably close to 25lb per horse per day. More when it’s cold.
I’m sure we are probably not the standard, but I would keep a close eye on your horse’s weight and demeanor. And possibly he is getting more forage than you realize?
Ideally, it’s 1.5-3% of bodyweight, more if the horse needs weight. So for a 1000# horse, 15-30 pounds, with access through the day. Mine has access to a round bale 24hrs/day, or when she is in a stall, a giant stuffed hay net with about 50# of hay in it that I refill as needed.
This question isn’t possible to answer without knowing exactly what the field looks like, what your horse looks like, and how much the flakes of hay weigh. Horses can indeed consume a reasonable amount of forage from grazing on winter pastures, but it can be difficult to estimate.
How is your horse’s current condition? If he’s losing weight, that’s a marker that he may need more forage. And does the barn give more hay in rainy or snowy conditions where it is more difficult for your horse to graze?
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I live in Canada so it is hay only about 6 months of the year, no grass. I give my 3 yr old about 8 flakes a day, which is approx. 20 lbs. If I feed more than that it tends to get wasted. She has always been a good weight without being fat.
Yep, if your horse is losing weight it’s not enough. Some horses need a lot, some don’t- if you think it is too little, see if you can supplement it with either more barn hay for an extra charge, or bring in your own hay. I’ve had to do that at a few boarding barns in the past that simply would not feed enough hay. Right now our horses get all the regular hay they need, and if we choose to buy our own alfalfa they will throw it for us along with the regular grass hay.
It’s all about knowing your horse, really. My TB needs a TON of hay in the winter or he will drop weight and look horrible, bone rack-ish, ugh. He is in the stall at night and gets a big net stuffed with some really good grass hay, plus a flake or two of very high protein alfalfa on the ground (he never wastes alfalfa- all other lower-value hay is pretty much doomed to being strewn around and then pooped and peed on if not in a net). He also gets alfalfa cubes and his lease kid put him on some sort of fat supplement. During the day he is in a large field with three others and has two round bales. They didn’t touch the round bales until the first freeze, and then grazing was pretty much done as a main source of forage outside.
My WB needs less, because he’s an ultra-stereotypical WB, but he still gets alfalfa along with his grass hay in the winter. When it’s really cold we throw alfalfa for him in his little field (no room for a round bale in his “I have to go out by myself because I’m a violence-prone jerk” paddocklet), along with the regular pile of grass hay. We try to bulk up the TB going into winter because he can lose weight overnight, and just try to maintain the WB.
I currently don’t own, but when I did, one boarding barn did that. I always provided my own hay. I’m a firm believer of 5% of their body weight in forage daily. In the winter, that is hard because grass is minimal.
I have a pseudo lease on a horse right now, and I keep a slow feed hay net full in front of him when he is in his stall. Unfortunately, I cannot put a roundbale out in his field or I would.
Several friends that own boarding barns in the same town as me, keep 2-3 round bales in the fields at all times when grass has died down, and they alternate seeding patterns so grass is only gone for 2 months a year. They also keep free choice in the stalls at all times. They allow owners to add alfalfa cubes, Timothy cubes or hay extenders if they wish.
