We all know the importance of fibre in a horse’s diet and if they are stabled for long periods of time this largely comes from hay. But how much hay should you be feeding and how can you make sure your horse trickle grazes rather than gobbling his ration down in an hour or so?
Feed hay according to weight
Horses should consume about 2% of their bodyweight per day according to their condition and workload.
The first thing you need to do is find out how much your horse weighs using either a weigh tape or weigh bridge.
If your horse weighs 500kg he needs around 10kg of food every day made up of at least 70% forage.
Researchers at North Carolina State University found that horses grazing for nine hours a day will eat around 0.6 kg of grass per hour. This totals 2.7kg of forage. However during winter months many fields are bare and the grass that is available has little nutrition.
Working on this basis a 500kg horse will need around 3kg of hard feed and 7kg of hay during winter months – or less if you still have decent grazing.
Weigh your haynet
If you don’t already weigh your hay start now – you will probably be surprised at how heavy your net is. Most of us over-feed our horses which is why obesity is an issue even during winter months.
The problem with such a small amount of hay is that it will never last the night. How many times have you come up the yard at 7pm to discover all his hay has gone? Not ideal for an animal that needs to graze around 17 hours per day.
There are a number ways to ensure your horse has enough to eat without causing weight gain. One idea is to soak the hay before feeding to remove Water Soluble Carbohydrate (ie sugar content) enabling you to feed more hay without weight gain.
You can divide the hay between a number of haynets tied up around the stable – which also keeps him moving. Using small hole haynets and doubling them up will slow down his eating while giving him his hard feed in a treat ball should keep him occupied for an hour or so.
If your yard does late night checks you can ask them to give a second haynet to eke out his ration.