Thanks for confirming! I will have the barn manager switch him over to all nighttime hay.
I think he will adjust quickly too; when I come to ride after work he has finished his hay/supplements and I’m usually waking him up from a nap, so that will probably just happen a little earlier. He might be a little cranky hearing everyone else eating their hay, but he already finishes his first with getting less of it at that time.
If he is wearing a muzzle he isn’t getting that much grass. I wouldn’t eliminate his afternoon hay but just add to his nighttime hay to make it last a bit longer.
You figure his stomach is pretty empty when he goes out muzzled first thing in the morning. If you ride then he loses even more time grazing which equals even less calories in. I would feed a flake before you ride.
I was going to ask how much is the grass likely counting for in the equation? It sounds like not that much, I talked to BM yesterday and she also recommended keeping him on the flake afterwards too similar to what Candyappy mentioned. And to the point of if I am riding during turnout time, he would definitely be getting less grass those days. Giving him a flake before any morning rides wouldn’t be a problem and easier than buying/storing/prepping alfalfa cubes or pellets.
I am a bit hesitant to add another flake at night check since cutting the hay down was what got his weight off (grazing muzzle was already part of the equation). He WAS down to 3 total a day and I upped him to 4 when we hit goal weight which he seems to be maintaining now.
We are going into fall/winter. I was thinking once we get through fall grass, he would be getting even less pasture even without the muzzle so maybe increasing then and keeping an eye on weight would be the way to go? He winters VERY well. Is already starting to look like a wooly mammoth too haha.
I feel like my muzzled guy still gets a lot of grass when he’s out. Honestly wish I could slow him down even more somehow. But YMMV and that will depend a lot on the actual pasture.
Certainly can add that extra flake at night and monitor his weight closely. It would be ideal if he could just get an extra flake at night without removing the afternoon flake–but life isn’t always ideal. 
I feel like even with the muzzle, Charlie still gets a decent amount as well. However, the pasture he is in is small, is definitely weedy, and mowed regularly so its one of the weight watchers pastures haha.
Prior to the laminitis flare, he was out in a 30 acre, pretty lush pasture with 3 others for up to 10 hours daytime turnout. I started him on the grazing muzzle this spring but that didn’t help enough and when they switched them to overnight turnout, that was the trigger. He was also getting pretty much free access to hay as well which I wish we could still do when he’s stalled.
So I don’t know, maybe now that we are down weight, stable, and in the fat pasture going into colder weather; adding an additional flake may not set us back at all. I still ride through the winter…maybe a little less than in the better weather, but we have beautiful trails and four typical seasons so I suck it up in the cold. He sure doesnt mind!
I purposely buy a lower quality (still well put up and not weedy, just less nutritious) grass hay so that my easy keeper can eat more of it. Any possibility of that?
Unless I buy it myself, no. My barn is on 900 acres with several hay fields they cut themselves which is pretty amazing. He only gets first cutting, but Im not sure how that compares on the quality scale to other types or from other areas. We have it tested every year though which is makes things nice to compare YOY, especially with it always coming from the same fields.
This is what I do too. I look for summer grass hay because this tends to be lower in sugars than cool season grasses. I put out enough at night so that there’s always some left in the morning. My horses know they’ll always have something to eat, so they don’t feel they have to snarf it all down at once. Usually 2-3 flakes will last them dusk to dawn (depending on the size of the flakes).
I monitor my girl on a daily basis all year round and adjust the hay accordingly ( if needed) day by day. The grass may in fact add some weight now that we are going into Fall. So how long my mare wears her muzzle right now depends on how she looks that morning.
My Haflinger gelding gets most of his hay at night because of the longer time between me feeding dinner and me feeding breakfast. He does get a small lunch when I get there in the afternoon and he usually finishes that when I’m just getting done with my afternoon chores (mucking, prepping the mare’s senior, etc). He’s got hay nets for breakfast and dinner, but has a porta-grazer mini for lunch.
I don’t want to be rude, but . . . yeah, I’ll be rude: this is among the [edit] most ill-informed things I’ve ever read.
I sincerely hope this poster has somehow acquired a modicum of common sense in the last couple of years. Good grief!
If you put pieces of electrical tape on the inside of the muzzle you can make the hole a little smaller. Just don’t go too overboard because at some point your horse will decide it can’t possibly eat anything as the hole is too small and just glare at you.
Ha, he glares at me every spring anyway. I’ll give it a try next year though. The spring grass is when it’s really a problem–he usually ends up spending the month of May stuck in the dry lot completely. I’m sure he’d appreciate at least a few hours of grazing if I could limit it better. Thanks!
Thats a great tip, thanks!
For those who have air ferns, where do you find this “crappy” hay they can eat 24/7? I’ve been looking for something like this for my chubby girl, but all I can find is “cow hay” that hasn’t been analyzed. I used teff hay for a while and that worked great, but I can’t find any this year that isn’t insanely expensive.
Local farmer with a 1000 year old tractor and baler. They don’t fertilizer or soil test regularly. Just an array of local grasses.
But weed free and put up nicely.
I know of a local barn that is huge that uses a hay dealer and specifically buys “low starch” grass hay. But I know nothing beyond that.
You can also soak good quality hay to remove some of the sugar, which is what I do for the mini. This would be a bit more of a pain for a bigger horse, but you do get used to it once you’ve got a regular system going.
You really can’t tell how much sugar is in hay by looking. Has to be tested. Try to buy hay cut in the early morning as it typically has lower sugar according to my hay guy.
And yes, no reason to ride on an empty stomach or go 12 hours without food. Why chance it’s, ulcer meds are $$$.
Yes, ulcer meds are expensive.
Not to mention the fact that asking a hungry, anxious animal to work for you while you blithely ignore its most basic needs is absolutely shitty horsemanship. (I mean, just in case the cruelty angle actually matters to anyone.)
This morning was our first early ride! I ran over around 7 to toss Charlie a flake of hay while I got my morning started at home and came back around 8 to tack up. I think he thought he hit the lottery with the morning hay 
, until the saddle came out!
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