I did once negotiate an extra bag of shavings per week for my easy keeper mare, who gets 1c of balancer a day and an average amount of hay…I was very pleased, since the average horse in the barn cost the BO about a bag of grain per week, it seemed like a fair trade (extra shavings + marginally more time cleaning the stall).
That seems like a nice trade off! What does a typical bag of grain run these days? The barns I have been at have by far and large had fewer truly easy keepers; we seem to be the minority in in that respect.
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At my very frugally run barn, the standard feed is a serving of ration balancer that complements our hay. Any and all can add to it, but they pay for it. And they do, but all of them feed the ration balancer as well.
Then there’s the very neat mare that only dirties one corner of her stall and the gelding that appears to use a mix master overnight. How do I adjust for bedding use, labor and manure removal? I can’t without driving myself and everyone else quite insane. I setup a budgeted amount (3 bags of shavings per week). If less gets used, hallelujah. If your horse is on stall rest or you need to take a bag or two to a show I’m not going to hound you. But if you consistently bed your horse’s stall up to his fetlocks, we will have words.
Real horsepeople, who have actually cared for horses themselves, generally get it. If they’re concerned about their horse’s condition, we can talk about it. But I can attest that in over 30 years of doing this, most horses that come into my barn end up eating far less grain than when they arrived with no loss of condition, and positive changes in their behavior.
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