How much Hay overnight??

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BadgerBoo

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Mar 24, 2010
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My share horse is on full livery during the week but when I get to her after work to ride ( about 8pm) ,she has practically has no hay remaining.:mad: I know they come into their hay at about 5pm ish from the field, so I assume she scoffs the lot between 5pm and 8pm, but I dont like the idea of her standing all night with no forage!, especially as they dont get turned out until 10/11am the next morning.

Does anybody think this is too long to go without hay? Im starting to feel a bit sorry for her but dont want to interfere with what YO has done....
 
BadgerBoo said:
My share horse is on full livery during the week but when I get to her after work to ride ( about 8pm) ,she has practically has no hay remaining.:mad: I know they come into their hay at about 5pm ish from the field, so I assume she scoffs the lot between 5pm and 8pm, but I dont like the idea of her standing all night with no forage!, especially as they dont get turned out until 10/11am the next morning.

Does anybody think this is too long to go without hay? Im starting to feel a bit sorry for her but dont want to interfere with what YO has done....
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Even if your horse is a good doer, for her to have no hay left at 8pm and not turned out till 10/11 is pretty bad. Horses are trickle feeders and require something to be going through the gut, at least every 4 hours.

Could you ask the livery yard owner to give her a small amount of hay when she brings them in, and leave the rest for you to put in when you leave for the night? It could avoid the difficult conversation...
 
Definitely :eek:

A horse is a trickle feeder as you are well aware I'm sure. Pushing it to the limit my vet reckons they should not be without hay for more than 3 hours although I know some people say no more than 8 hours.

I keep my horses at home and ensure that in the winter when they are in at night that I leave them hay at around 5/6pm which will take them about 3 hours to eat then I go back at 11pm to give them another lot so they are never without hay for more than 2/3 hours, 4 at the most. I then turn them out at 6.30 am.

Does yours get put in nets. If so, can the nets be doubled/tripled up to make it harder and longer for horsey to eat?

I would not be happy at all if I were you.
 
Thanks for the replys. Yes I know horses are trickle feeders ( much like myself actually :D ) and certainly should go for that long without hay. Its tricky as Im not at the yard every night so I need to rely on YO really. Might have a chat with a friend at the yard - I saw her horse didnt have any hay either last night. poor ponies looked rather sad...
 
eml said:
Are you sure they are not hayed later on??. At this time of year that sounds a very strange routine!!
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Pretty sure they dont get more hay later on...

Her hays left on the ground, I would rather it was in a haynet ( Thats what I do at the weekend..) - makes them eat a bit slower!
 
I feel horses should always have access to ad lib forage, as horses have a physiological and psychological need to chew for a very high percentage of the day.

A horses' stomach constantly produces stomach acid regardless of whether they are actually eating and the only way for this stomach acid to be neutralised is via their saliva and the action of breaking down food. Unlike other animals horses can only produce saliva with the enzymes in it to break down food when they are chewing. This is why a lot of horses on restricted forage, particularly on racing yards have stomach ulcers.
 
trying to remember what i read about horses not eating for about 6 hours at night anyway or something but cant.

so not useful.lol
 
I would find this totally unacceptable, horses are designed to graze for about 16 hours a day & the remaining 8 is staggered into short times without food. It's a sure fire way to give a horse gastric ulcers (trst me, you do not want to go there!) as well as causing mental distress.

I can understand that you don't want to create bad feeling but you really do need to talk to your YO. Even if you are trying to manage weight there are things that can be done - soak hay, double or treble net with haylage nets, split into evening & bedtime rations etc.

There are some useful articles here if you feel happier discussing this with the YO armed with some more knowledge.
 
This is why I put off bringing mine in until 8/9pm. Sometimes Rhia has run out by the time I get there in the morning but the majority of the time there is some left in the net. She would go mental at me if she had finished so early the night before. I would talk to the owner too- assuming when you say share you mean that. I think a lot of the time people just assume what goes on when they aren't there. Thinking that they have enough to last them. If a YO did that with mine there might not be a stable door left in the morning.
 
Claire1605 said:
A horse is a trickle feeder as you are well aware I'm sure. Pushing it to the limit my vet reckons they should not be without hay for more than 3 hours although I know some people say no more than 8 hours.
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Here in Portugal - and it was the same in Italy, where I worked previous to coming here - there is NOT the UK culture of providing horses with ad-lib forage. In the Mediterranean countries, where because of the climate grazing is sparse and hay/straw are extremely expensive, it is more common for horses to have forage provided three or four times a day but not overnight. Meaning that overnight they go for 6 to 8 hours without forage.

We are lucky enough to have plenty of turnout (another thing that's lacking at Portuguese yards). In the spring there has been plenty of grass for the horses to munch, and we have lovely neighbours who allow us to move paddocks around on their land as well, so our horses can make the most of it.

But in the summer it gets so hot and dry here that everything dies. In another 4 weeks or so we will have no grazing left. At that point we will be feeding forage four times a day but between evening stables at around 9pm and morning stables at 6am they will not have hay.

The winter was so wet that everything turned to mush and we didn't have any grazing then for about three months. Morning feeds and hay were around 8am, hay again at lunchtime, and evening feeds and hay around 5pm. We therefore gave them more hay at 11pm, but that still meant that they had no hay again before 8am.

This has been my boss's routine for 9 years and the horses do not suffer because of it.
 
MissMare said:
This is why I put off bringing mine in until 8/9pm.
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Oh i love the thought of long turnout hours but the yard she's on dont have more than 6/7 hours a day max - less in Winter - That means 17/18 hours day stood in their stable - too long IMO..

MissMare said:
If a YO did that with mine there might not be a stable door left in the morning.
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haha, oh dear. Thankfully shes very well mannered so she wont put up a fuss- Doesnt stop her looking sad though... The owner works abroad but might be worth mentioning it - Just dont want to interfere since she's not my horse... Wouldnt want to accuss the yard of not looking after her properly..

At least she gets a big cosy bed and plenty of grub at the weekend when I do her..
 
joosie said:
Here in Portugal - and it was the same in Italy, where I worked previous to coming here - there is NOT the UK culture of providing horses with ad-lib forage. In the Mediterranean countries, where because of the climate grazing is sparse and hay/straw are extremely expensive, it is more common for horses to have forage provided three or four times a day but not overnight. Meaning that overnight they go for 6 to 8 hours without forage.

We are lucky enough to have plenty of turnout (another thing that's lacking at Portuguese yards). In the spring there has been plenty of grass for the horses to munch, and we have lovely neighbours who allow us to move paddocks around on their land as well, so our horses can make the most of it.

But in the summer it gets so hot and dry here that everything dies. In another 4 weeks or so we will have no grazing left. At that point we will be feeding forage four times a day but between evening stables at around 9pm and morning stables at 6am they will not have hay.

The winter was so wet that everything turned to mush and we didn't have any grazing then for about three months. Morning feeds and hay were around 8am, hay again at lunchtime, and evening feeds and hay around 5pm. We therefore gave them more hay at 11pm, but that still meant that they had no hay again before 8am.

This has been my boss's routine for 9 years and the horses do not suffer because of it.
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That my be the case but not natural, and I wonder whether the horses suffer mentally at all?

Then again, horses thrive on routine so may be that they know they are getting 4 lots a day and are happy in the knowledge that this is the case.

Life is never perfect.
 
Claire1605 said:
That my be the case but not natural, and I wonder whether the horses suffer mentally at all?
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It's also not "natural" for a horse to be put in a stable and given hay. Any more than it's natural for them to be ridden, or put on a trailer, or to wear shoes. We still do it, and they still cope, and it is still possible for them to be happy ;)

Horses do not suffer mentally because they have hay four times a day instead of constant access. They suffer mentally if they are stabled 24/7, or overworked, or fed the wrong food, or aren't given the opportunity to socialise with other horses. Those are problems that occur all over the world - even in Britain ;)
 
joosie said:
It's also not "natural" for a horse to be put in a stable and given hay. Any more than it's natural for them to be ridden, or put on a trailer, or to wear shoes. We still do it, and they still cope, and it is still possible for them to be happy ;)

Horses do not suffer mentally because they have hay four times a day instead of constant access. They suffer mentally if they are stabled 24/7, or overworked, or fed the wrong food, or aren't given the opportunity to socialise with other horses. Those are problems that occur all over the world - even in Britain ;)
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Luckily my horses dont suffer any of the above ;).

As I said yours are in a routine of 4 times a day. So are happy. Mine would probably be the same once they were used to the routine of 4 times a day. Luckily here in good old Blighty they have ad lib access to grass and hay all year round.
 
I lived in the Middle East for many years and was very involved with horses, and like Joosie said the routine was - HAD - to be very different. There's no way you can have horses out in 45 degree heat, so during the day they spent a lot of time in stables. There was no grazing at all, ever, and we could only buy alfalfa not hay. I wouldn't choose to keep a horse this way given alternatives, but your climate/access to grazing etc does determine much that you can do.

Interestingly, I have a Spanish horse now who came to the UK as a 4 year old, and came to me at four and a half. In Spain he was stabled most of the time outside of work, and of course coming from Cordoba again grazing was non-existent really.

Here, he lives out 24/7 (has free access to an open barn), and actually dislikes going into a box on the odd occasion that he must (when I'm preppping him for work and it's raining for example). So I guess they can and do adjust to most situations, given support from knowledgable, caring owners/handlers.
 
Claire1605 said:
Luckily my horses dont suffer any of the above ;).

As I said yours are in a routine of 4 times a day. So are happy. Mine would probably be the same once they were used to the routine of 4 times a day. Luckily here in good old Blighty they have ad lib access to grass and hay all year round.
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Yes I suppose the UK does have its benefits! ((not enough to make me want to move back there though :p)) It is always nice to see horses out in big grassy fields stuffing their faces and chilling with their mates. That thing I used to love so much as a child - being out for a walk in the country, seeing a horse in a field and spending half an hour leaning through the fence trying to tempt it close enough to stroke :D - that doesn't happen here :(
 
All the yards I have been on have only ever put a haynet in at like 5pm and then not turned out until 9-10am! Personally I don't approve - hence why I keep mine out 24/7. But even in the winter mine only ever get hay at night and morning, mind you I give them so much they hardly ever finish it so I suppose it's adlib! If mine ever stay in for a long time they have a double netted haynet which def slows them down!
 
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