[lover]

Hi, I was reading some other posts about what people feed their horses. And i wanted your opinion on something. Do you think it is better to feed a horse enough hay to keep weight on him and energy in him. OR do you think that he should have free choice all day? I know that horses are meant to be eating all the time but I always wonder if they get tummy aches from eating so much all the time.

[cminor]

No, they won't get tummy aches, they need to eat or have access to eating hay at all times. So yes I think they should have free access all day. My mare is penned up right now and I just went out to check her hay, and she was out, so she just got a bunch more.

[Chester]

My horses eat as much hay as they can, or that I can afford. If I can get bales at the right price then they get free choice at it. If not, they get it doled out to them. Hay at over $20 a bale must be fed judicially before I end up on the wrong side of the judicary.

[cminor]

Wow I don't know if that is expensive or not Chester, how big are your bales?

[Chester]

Originally Posted by cminor

Wow I don't know if that is expensive or not Chester, how big are your bales?

That was the price of a good square bale during winter, hence why I am stocking my shed now for next winter.

[lover]

That is expencive hay chester. Unless the bales are big. For grass hay it is 9$ a bale/ timothy 13$ a bale/alfalfa 15$ a bale.

[Preppy_Ponies]

Well my horse is currently getting 2 flakes of timothy morning and night. And then some oat hay at lunch. We board so I kind of have to stay with their schedule. That being said I am in the process of changing my horse over to free feeding with a hay net. His weight has been slightly down and I'm trying to work on that. I just have to arrange everything with my trainer so that her grooms will keep it full and the barn won't feed him at all.

Horses are meant to have hay or grass access whenever they want it. It just is not always possible for that to happen in some boarding situations.

[BettyBootsy]

I free fed mine grass hay as well. They also get a flake or 2 a day of alfalfa. Depend on there weight. Too me 4 flakes of hay isn't enough. Thats talking an average sized horse. Your average horse will eat about half of a 65 lbs sq bale give or take on both. If your boarding and your horse is only getting 4 flakes and under weight then me personally would add a flake of alfalfa too each feeding.

[lvmypnt]

Last year we had really good quality square bales for most of the winter. So we fed hay (about 4 flakes) morning and night with grain.

This year we have gotten some round bales but they arent the best quality so we are leaving them to eat free choice. I will keep an eye on their weight (both very easy keepers) and if they start gaining to much we will pull them off the free choice.

[imacowgirl2]

Free choice during the winter because we have rounds, but in the spring/fall we feed by weight, at least 2% body weight of each horse every day, because we don't have enough room to store enough rounds, and they tend to go bad in the rainy weather.

Horses have a different design to their digestive tract than we do...they have a large cecum, where hay is fermented and stays for a longer amount of time than in the rest of the tract -- if they don't have constant forage feed can get impacted in the cecum because there is not enough stuff to keep it constantly moving through. Horses are more prone to colic (tummy ache) if they DON'T have constant hay as opposed to humans who would get a tummy ache if we did eat constantly.