Rationed Hay

[lisap]

I am horrified that a yard owner would say something like this. How much hay a horse eats per week depends on so many things -----------------it's size, it's breed, it's condition, the amount of grass available etc etc etc. If your pony needs more hay than 2 bales a week, surely you can find someone to fetch it for you?

I'm with SS on this one - YO's should always have enough slack in the rope to make sure that horses get what they need and not what the YO can afford. I'm afraid we will do a one off extra bill at the end of the winter for hay if we have to rather than skimp on hay when they might need it.
Having said that, we are actually getting though less hay this year than we did last year at the same time, weird, eh?

[mandal]

Mmmm, two bales wouldn't feed one of my minis a week! Mind you mine aren't getting any grass atm.
I wouldn't be impressed to have forage rationed myself.
Mine seem to be eating less as well. I think because it's been dry and cold rather than cold,wet and windy.

[Deleted]

I'd recommend top spec top chop lite as a hay replacer as it's unmollassed and does take a good while to eat. I have also used Hifi lite in the past but because that has a little mollasses on my horse scoffed it much quicker than the top chop.

I'd imagine SS grass nuts etc would also be good, though I'd be asking them about the sugar content before feeding to a laminitic

MTA: Top chop lite is only 3% sugar

[arabheaven]

I use Allen and Page fast fibre xxx

[taklishim]

I have been rationing hay since the begining of November as it was obvious that I was unlikely to find any more even if I could afford it.
On the normal mornings I opened up a strip of foggage rather than feed hay. On frosty mornings I had to give hay. I replace hay with molassed sugar beet. This is far cheaper than speedibeet especially as a bag is 25kg rather than 20kg. I wash the sugar out of the sugar beet. To make it more palatable I add either micronised barley or Spillers or D & H hi fibre nuts. The sugar beet with the nuts works very well for my LGL horse and excitable ridden ones. The pasture pets get the barley. The ridden horses seem able to do a reasonable amount of work on this regime.

I feed the SB/barley/nuts twice a day in reasonable weather and three times when it was totally frozen. I feed straw just after the late afternoon SB feed. They seem to want to eat fibre after a bucket feed and the straw (only a bucket full) means that they are not desperate for the night's hay net which weighs a max of 10/12lb. (each horse is 500kg)
Although this seems a relatively low amount of hay overnight compared to what some people feed it keeps them going most of the night and sometimes they even have some left over. If it has been an especially bad day I will leave then an extra bucket of straw overnight in case they are hungry.

This has been the only way I have been able to manage with limited hay. It has been the first year that I have not just thrown (and wasted endless hay) onto their beds and it is working rather well. The sugar beet is comparable in price to hay. I read somewhere that you can replace the SB at 50% ie 2lb SB replaces 4lb hay.
Oh and they are all looking very well on it.

[ymarsay]

I take it you pay a livery rate, was the Hay/feed agreed at the start, as he might be in breech of contract. He sounds a bully. I understand yards need to have some control over Hay as they have to plan but they should be making sure all horses are fed what they need and set the livery rate accordingly.

I live in Grampian and lucky to buy a square bale for £3 reasonably quality. I feed my ID one full square a day and apples/carrots and feed more hay depending on condition. I use no hard feed at all or mineral licks that has sugers of any sort to protect feed as laminitis is a huge issue up here.

A few of my neighbours feed small amounts of silage but the horses have to be introduced slowly also barley straw to help bulk out the hay.

[taklishim]

A few of my neighbours feed small amounts of silage

not a great idea unless you wish to kill the horse with botulism. ;D ;D ;D ;D

[penny70]

Thank you all for your comments.
The YO makes hay and then sells it to us at £4 a bale at the moment - up until 2 days ago you could order and use as much as you like, then he told us it would have to be rationed. I am lucky that Mouse is out most of the time, only in for a few hours a day to allow him to have a feed, some hay and allow his feet to dry out.
As he is a good doer, the grass and couple of slices of hay he gets maintains his weight, but that's while the field isn't yet too wet, and while the weather is relatively mild. Any change in conditions, and he needs a bit more feed (which was always hay!).
I have fed quality straw in the past, and if he's got straw bedding he'll eat that, so maybe that's what we'll do to cover any short fall in the amount of hay we can get.
Otherwise, yes, I'm sure there will be people getting hay to the yard in trailers, and if I ask them to get me some at the same time I'm sure someone would...
I'll also look into Top Spec Top Chop, as I didn't know it was so much lower in sugars than the HiFi Lite, which would suit us well anyway.
Other than that, it may be that old Mousey will end up with a feed with some beet in it - he'd think he'd died and gone to heaven!

[Trouble]

At £4 per bale you might as well buy in some haylage as well, if you get a decent sized bale it wouldn't cost you any more than the hay is!

If you have fatties you could always soak the hell out of it?

[sundance]

I wouldn't judge the yard owner too harshly. There was much less hay made this time as it had been so dry, and the weather has been exceptionally bad so far this winter. If he doesn't ration it now, maybe there won't be enough to last the winter. It is very expensive to buy any in at the end of winter, even if any can be found. My supplier is just selling to his regulars, and says he will do his best for us, but if he has to buy it in it will be extremely expensive.He is turning customers away all the time.

[starbuck]

My hay supplier was unfortunately unable to let me have as much hay as I needed to see me through to next summer, so this winter I have been buying in haylage and mixing this with the hay.

[mmel001]

I'd be looking at sourcing outside of the yard too, I would struggle on 2 bales a week, and that's with 1 (big) horse! What you could do if you are struggling with transport is when someone at your yard gets some extra hay for their horses ask them to pick you up a few bales?

If that's difficult you could try something like Ruffstuff, or Justgrass/Readigrass. Ruffstuff's a hay replacer I believe, I use a bit in my boys feed just to slow him down a bit when he eats it and it's basically just mature grass. Simple Systems also do the blue grass pellets as well which I think someone mentioned on here, which could be another option.

How much turnout etc does your horse get?

[mmel001]

Oops just read that you have plenty of turnout. If there's enough grass could you extend the turnout even more just so that you have less time in and therefore less hay needs?

[wendyinfrance]

Also, you can use Top Spec Fibre Plus nuts, soaked or not, as a forage replacer.

Just wanted to comment - be a bit careful with feeding a lot of alfalfa (more than 1kg a day) to eldery geldings as the high levels of calcium can increase the risk of urinary calculi (bladder stones).

Ours are getting just over their 2% of bodyweight per day in hay, in double haylage nets to slow them down, plus they have a feeder full of straw available to them all the time. Interesting to read some of your ways of replacing forage though - our hay bill is ginormous (6 horses x 4 quid a bale) so I will be looking into some of your alternatives as well.

I got offered barley straw last summer and decided we didn't need any... can you believe it??? Wot a dipstick I was! ;D

[Lulu]

I am lucky in that I am using the cows field over the winter, and dtrip grazing it per day. The horses prefer this to hay, but they do get hay for overnight once they've strip grazed the grass down. My local supplier has pushed is prices up top whack AND held the stock in, and refused to sell till October, so I found another source, it's meadow hay, and not as good as my usual source, but cheaper. They are all holding their own, in fact I had toput the Fjord back on a diet, she'd put on weight !!