How much hay should he be eating?

Sarah_Sayers

Sarah_Sayers

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Nov 15, 2006
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Great Yarmouth
Hello All.

I got my first horse 6 months ago now. Unfortunately he was under weight and in poor condition, and we've been working on that. He's starting to look much better, but I am starting to get some behavioural problems. It's possible now that he is feeling good I am overhorsed, but I dearly hope not. (I'm also considering physical causes, chiropractor been, physio and saddler on the way.)

Anyway I'm waffling. In short I have never worked out a diet plan, just kept gradually uping things till he started to put on a bit of condition. I've just weighed all his food today, and checked against the advice of the packets, and it's possible that I've actually gone too far the other way and am now feeding him too much mix. I'm planning to gradually reduce to bring him down to what's recommended.

He eats about 17Lbs of hay a day, it's provided ad lib. I think he should probably be eating more. Is it possible that he's just too full of mix to not eat his hay? Might this improve if I reduce his mix? I don't want him to loose the weight we've worked hard to put on.

Max is a 17.0hh Irish Draft who weights about 596Kgs, and lives out 24/7. This is from a weigh tape, so not sure how acurate these are.

Any advice or recomendations would be much apreciated please, and thanks.

Sarah and Max.
 
Sorry, I haven't a clue about hay weights as I just give it ad lib.

However, if you're feeding more than it says on the feed bag, I'd probably cut it back a bit as they tend to be generous anyway.

It really depends what sort of work he's doing. What type of hard feed are you giving him and how much of it?

You may be right - if he's stuffed full of hard feed and has grass too he might not eat as much hay. If he's out 24/7 what's the grass like?
 
I would ring around some feeding companies and ask what they suggest. They are usually very helpful (though obviously selling their products) but the advice is very good!

Trying ringing Baileys, Hobson & Dorrell and Simple Sytems (or e-mail them your post!) and see what they suggest. Tell them exactly what he is on now and how much exercise he is having. It's great he has ad lib hay.

I had really poor doer in the winter a few years back and I found Dobson & Horrel Build Up cubes really good he was a different horse the winter I started him on those and they didn't give him any excess energy.
 
Great thanks for your advice. Yes I think ringing the feed companies for advice will be my next step. He's only in light work, and he's getting about 2Kgs of Balies condition mix and 2Kgs of Allen and Page ride and relax. The packets suggest he should be getting about 3Kgs mix a day, so I'm a little over.

Grass isn't great, but he seems to be grazing quite often when I get there.
 
Yup does sound quite a lot. When my ID mare was in full work (schooling, jumping, hacking) she got a total of 2kg mix per day (+chaff/beet) and as much hay as she could eat. Its not a lot but IDs are usually good doers - she was probably a little overweight even on that.

I know I'm a bit sceptical but I do think the feed companies tend to overdo it sometimes. They'll definately give you some good advice on the best type of feed though, something that'll give him the energy he needs without sending him doolally! ;)
 
Thanks AlexNI, that's reassuring. I love him dearly, but am a bit scared at the minute.

If anyone's interested I'm about to post another thread. It's about time I introduced him!
 
I tend to think that you are safer with hay than with the 'feeds', except in certain circumstances. So if he's doing OK, then you can cut back the feeds a bit and as long as he's getting hay ad-lib, he should do fine.
 
Thanks Doris.

Yes I'll give that a try. I want his weight up, but it's important that I get us friends again too. I'm a novice, fortunately with loads of experienced help, but I'm finding things tough at the minute.

I'll give it a go and keep an eye on his weight.
 
You will find that feed is one whole big minefield? We all have different ideas, and what works for one is totally useless for another. There are just loads of feedstuffs on the market and we are constantly being bombarded with adverts for various feeds, and it can all get very confusing.

However, I think we probably all feed too much (me included) and sometimes of the wrong feeds with disastrous results sometimes in terms of horse behaviour.

I was taught to start of with plain feedstuffs and add a bit of something depending on whether I needed to add weight, lose weight, calm down etc.

The old saying of 'rule of thumb' is a good one and simply means that go by your eye! By all means use a weigh tape as this is a good way to be more accurate, but with a bit of experience you will know by just looking at your horse that things are OK.

You can't beat good quality hay.
 
I'm the same as Doris. I much prefer feeding ad lib hay to using a hard feed. I look after a yard of 17 horses and ponies, most in medium work but there's still only 4 at the moment who are getting a hard feed at all. We have also used hay to fatten up several skinny-minnies, and it has worked without needing any other source of nutrition.
 
Just seen your introduction post, Max is certainly one handsome boy :)

As well as cutting his hard feed down a bit, you may want to think about changing him to nuts rather than mix. I had a mare that went off her head on Ride and Relax, not sure if it was R&R of whether it was the change to mix, but certainly effected her behaviour.

My boy who can be hard to keep condition on is now on Baileys Number 4, and that hasn't heated him up at , but again I know people whose horses it has, so it is just trial and error, and I would be tempted to cut the hard feed back as much as possible, and up his hay, until you can investigate if it is hard feed related :)
 
Thanks for the tips Clare-22

Yes getting the feeding right does feel a bit like a mine field. I put him on R&R when we first started have a few troubles. It didn't chill him out any, and things have slowly gotten worse, so maybe after reducing his feed a little, I'll try a different mix. I was kinda assuming it did what it said on the tin! Doesn't look like it's a simple as that.
 
I've got an ID & I've known quite a few over the years - I grew up around an ID stud. Some of them are not the quiet, calm tempered horses people expect!

From personal experience I've found cereals can really really fire up the more energetic type of ID, indeed it can make them so hyper that they actually burn off the calories as fast as you can pump them in. Instead look at fibre & oil for calories.

I have a 16.2 ID who's about 700kg at the moment but needs to lose a bit of weight - around 650kg is better, much less than that & he looks tucked up even though he's still eating. Although he's had a month off his hay ration hasn't been cut & I still give some bucket feed because I know as soon as he's back in proper work he'll tone up & drop the excess. He gets the following
- ad-lib meadow hay, he normally eats the best part of four slices from a big square bale (roughly 3/4 of a small bale)
- about a dozen luciebix
- a scoop of Saracen ReLeve (cereal free mix that he'll actually eat rather than turn his nose up at!)
- half a cup of cooked linseed meal
He's out in the day on poor grazing & various supplements are also added to the above.

I really would suggest cutting out all cereals (which means most mixes & nuts too) for a few weeks & see if that helps. Get as much nice hay down him as he'll eat & top that up with feeds like alfalfa, speedibeet & oil to get the extra calories down him. At 596kg I'm guessing he's still looking a bit light unless he's the leggier type of ID - even when Jim's not carrying excess weight he's built like a brick ****house so always sounds very heavy for his height.

I hope you get something sorted out soon. ID's are lovely horses but they can be extremely daunting if they're on a permanent high!
 
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