The orchard is soo soft!
My horses are bonkers for “imported” hay. They’ll abandon the grass for it every time!
Though I’m gonna have to start irrigating if I want to keep grass. It’s super dry here right now 🥲
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Yes! Walking across the pasture is like walking on Fritos this week. Hopefully rain Sunday and Monday and then into Florida’s summer afternoon rain pattern.
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Doing the rain dance!
No significant chances for rain here until late next week. Boo hiss
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If she’s still on/going back on wheat straw, please have it analyzed. It can be a high NSC feed.
I used to think straw was nutritionally poor filler. Then I talked to a dairy nutritionist or two. 
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Entirely depends on the situation.
Yes, hay will be lower than the grass right before it was cut, because as it dries, some of that sugar will continue to be used by cells. How much gets used depends on the environment (sunny, cloudy, and the type of hay) and how long it dries, and even if it gets a little rained on (which leaches out some sugars).
But you can have hays that are super high in sugars and starches because of how and where it’s grown, and grasses that are a lot lower because of where they’re grown.
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She didn’t end up needing it. It is now a cat house.
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Under a vet’s direction I have fed a horse only 4 flakes of hay per day for a few months to support fast weight loss (I don’t know how much the flakes weighted, I’m an eyeballer when feeding hay). You need to transition down gradually. But I would consult a vet first - colic-prone or easily stressed horses may not do well.
But before reducing hay, I would eliminate grain and replace it with something like Purina Equalizer (if the nutritional profile is suitable). My easy keepers do very well on 1 cup of that per day. For one horse I will mix in a spoonful of unsweetened applesauce to make the supplements stick. It has fewer calories than most grains and tastes better. Thyroxin has also been very helpful to help our obese pony drop 60lbs over a few months. I also set up a track in the paddock to force them to spend more time walking and less time eating. A grazing muzzle can be helpful too but the grass needs to be long enough to fit through the holes or else they’re not able to eat at all.
This is so important. Not only does the grass need to be long enough, it also needs to not be so long that it lays over. Even hay can be hard to eat, depending on how it is fed out.
Muzzles only work in some situations, not all.
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But without weighing the hay, it’s impossible to know if this is radical advice, or just not overfeeding. If you are feeding 5lb flakes, this is not necessarily a tiny ration – but if you had previously been feeding 30lbs of hay, and dropped to 20, it would make any horse lose weight - especially a pony.
I don’t weigh my hay at the moment, but I’m also not asking for feeding advice on the internet. I can eyeball it, but that doesn’t translate to a written post.
So - without knowing what the OP is currently feeding, we can’t offer any real advice. Switching from 1qt of grain to a RB can’t hurt, but it’s not going to make a dent in weight loss if she’s feeding 30lbs of hay a day.
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I feed my guy about 12lbs of hay per day. 3 small flakes AM and PM scattered throughout his lot. There are little bits of grass growing in the lot, so he spends the rest of the time wandering and nibbling (so no long periods with nothing in his tummy). Then gets about an hour on the lush pasture with a grazing muzzle. Once the grass is growing less, he’ll get more time on the pasture and I’ll drop his hay in half (since he’ll still need to be on the dry lot half the time). Could easily not give him any time on pasture if I were trying to get him to lose.
He gets a tiny handful of alf pellets and a vitamin supplement–pulled him off all grain last year sometime. The chunky ones really don’t need it. I’m not sure he even needs the alf/supplement because he’s got the world’s best feet and a shiny slick coat.
But how much does he weigh? That’s a critical piece of context. That would be terribly low for a 1500lb horse, and potentially too much for a 600lb pony
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Would this be a case for not using a balancer at all, just going to a vit/min supplement?
My mare used to be on a balancer, but now gets High Point Grass Pellets, 1/2 cup per day. For that meal she’s also getting a cup of Outlast pellets to carry the powdered supplements. It’s fed wet so she can’t pick through it.
(I love the idea of hanging hay nets but I don’t think there’s any place in her stall ceiling where I could hang them.)
1100-1200lbs which puts the 12lbs pretty low, but he does get grass as well which is hard for me to quantify. I do know that, even on this diet, he always gains a bit in the spring because the scarce grass in his lot is something.
In the winter, I feed free-choice hay and average 50lbs/day for two horses (both in the same weight range though vastly different body types). With him getting approximately 25lbs/day he will maintain his nicer, summer/fall figure that we work to get back toward after his spring gain.
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Can you try different hay net situations and see what lasts him the longest? Double up nets (2 2”, 1” and 2”, 2 1”, etc.) and see what combination works best. Then, perhaps, put out a net or 2 with a small amount of hay several times a day. My guys find hay is easier to get out when nets are full but harder when nets are less full.
I’m going to add that I do provide free choice hay and have a mini. He wears a muzzle from spring until fall and can easily eat hay (or grain or an entire apple). He sulked the first 3 days 6 years ago and then I dove into hay when I walked inside. It slows him down but he eats plenty. Now he doesn’t even care and can go eat grass when he wants which he loves (though my current batch of hay is better than grass?). Muzzle plus nets are harder but he can so that too (well, not the 1” nets). And eat from a hay feeder. He gets it off in his stall but this seems to work for him.
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Possibly. If a horse would eat a pelleted forage balancer (like HPG pellets, California Trace pellets) by itself, that takes those calories down to almost 0.
But most horses won’t, so you need a carrier. 1lb of hay pellets isn’t a lot of volume, even when soaked, and still brings in the 800-1000 cal range
3c beet pulp shreds would be more like 300-400 calories, and a lot more volume when soaked even halfway.
That said, sometimes the switch from a balancer to hay pellets brings the benefit of removing the soy, and it’s not (all) about the calories. So yes, it’s still worth a try. Because face it, 1300 calories in the context of probably at least 16,000 just isn’t significant.
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The basket style one, and the nylon ones with the smaller hole at the nose.
I was thinking about trying the Thinline one.
So much information here. Thank you everyone!
My vet has no concerns with insulin/metabolic issues. But alas, does not offer much advice when it comes to what to do other than cut down grain and net his hay (which does not seem to be working).
I have switched to 1 cup Elite in the morning so he’s not kicking his stall apart when the others are fed, and 3 cups Elite for PM to carry his supplements.
Going to pick up a fish scale and weight his hay to figure out the lbs I am actually feeding instead of continuing to guess.
I much prefer feeding my other big horses that are hard keepers because it’s way easier to have hay in front of them at all times and not worry about the weight.
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