Without OP chiming in it is anyone’s guess, isn’t it? I tend to think that even a pancake has three sides and there are parts of the story we aren’t privvy to and may never see. While some boarders are crazy or impossible to deal with, I found most in my life to be intelligent, reasonable women and I tend to side with them over BOs… even as a BO/BM myself!
It’s a nightmare being a boarder in so many places of the world - it’s exactly why I keep mine at home. I’ve been in a lot of barns and with the exception of those barns on the track, have genuinely never run into a barn that fed too much hay. Which is exactly why when I see posts like this I wonder about the other side of the pancake. Which is not to castigate OP - they are doing the thankless task of providing board for someone else’s horse, and we owe the BOs out there in the world a fair bit. That doesn’t mean that the boarder isn’t entitled to having a well-fed horse.
The above dependent on the boarding contract, but in general if a horse is skinny it is the responsibility of the barn owner to improve their body condition, not the boarder.
When you do the math like that, it can and does add up. I found that it was the labor costs that crept into things versus direct costs like feed or hay. I really hope OP isn’t paying $9 a bale.
We got our hay from Canada in bulk in my past life as a BM. We had a hay loft to store about a year’s worth of hay in and it averaged to about $3.75 a bale – but again, a year’s worth at a time. Not everyone has the storage space for that kind of hay so I do understand the smaller farms that have to only buy a month’s worth at a time. Even then if OP is siphoning out that kind of money she does need to get to the root of the issue: why does boarder feel her horse needs more hay? Then, address it. “No, crazy boarder, your horse is a BCS of 7 and he does not need an additional 2-3 flakes a day.” or “Alright, I see what you mean about him being ribby - let’s see how we can add a little weight to him without wasting hay.”
With rising costs of hay if the OP wants to keep boarder happy without the additional expense of adding hay, I’d consider talking to them about adding something like timothy pellets to the horse’s feed. That is, of course, if the boarder is reasonable and the horse is not overweight. I admit I paused at the OP’s comment about founder and how they insinuated the horse was at risk of founder if they ate too much hay… If this horse is at risk of a founder episode, he should be pulled from grass immediately among other things.
