Overweight

Whew my hose gets 3 flakes of hay a day total, with a scoop of grain and then there are two bales of hay outside for the six horses to snack on until they come in and get their 3 flakes, not to mention there is grass here and there as the snow starts to melt a little.

His is a mixture though, one flake of alfalfa and two of grass hay.

well there's no grass in his pasture, and probably never will be. I might move him to a different pasture that has grass though cause it's bigger.
Like I've said, he hardly gets any grain, not even a cup a week.

I still think you should cut back at least a flake or two at a time, feed him one flake less morning / and one less at night for a week then make it two flakes and see how that goes while keeping up with your exercising.

Hi
It does sound like alot of feed but I can understand that you don't want him to weave. Have you treid poorer quality feed. Not like rotten or anything but for example: lucerne (which I think is what some call alphalpha?) is alot of calories as is oaten and wheaten hay is a little less, but in aus we have other hay like medow hay which is just pasture baled, or oaten straw which is the same as oaten but with less of the grain heads. The other thing you could try is feeding less of what you are already giving him and put it in a hay bag with small holes makeing it harder to get out and taking longer to eat....
They are just a few suggestions. I have a porky horse too so I know how it feels it is worse than a horse who struggles to keep it on.
The other thing that you can do is keep him cool let him use his body heat to keep warm as this uses calories too

I think a bale of hay is fine a day. Poco eats that and whatever else he can get his mouth on and he's about 100 lbs underweight right now because of the winter. TROT, TROT, TROT!!!! My first mare was a pudge and I worked her Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I had to trot her for 2 hours straight to keep the weight off her but it worked. You don't want to do that with him all at once but work him up to it. My mare got about 1 gallon of dry pellets a day. Doesnt have alot of fat but good protien and LOTS of fiber!! Bump the fiber up. Get his body to working and burning the fat. I used to make my little mare sweat from head to rump and afterwards I would spray her off, give her lots of hay and let her rest in her stall. Do you have a pictures of HIm?

Yeah, but her horse is over-weight, your horse is under-weight.

Hay with no or little nutritional value is just a way for a horse to waste time. Keeps their guts working and their minds off other issues, for instance his weaving. A horse that cribs, weaves, or has other vices you want to keep something with them at all times to try and persuade them NOT to do that. My mare that was WELL overweight had unlimited hay available to her at all times during the year. With proper exercise and maintance his weight can be drop without have to sacrafice his hay which is keeping him from weaving and getting bored out of his mind.

Well obviously to me it sounds like you old horse was over-weight because she had constant access to hay.

I think this has not been asked yet, and should be:

How much do your bales weigh? How many pounds of hay does your horse get morning and night.

It is important to know the weight of hay your horse is getting rather than the number of flakes, as flake size differs depending on bale size. My flakes of hay are 25lbs each, as I feed from 900lb square bales.

For weight management (loss or gain), it is important to know pounds of hay being fed, and quality of hay being fed.

If I were you, I would try to get ahold of some very low quality (more stem, low protein) hay, and mix that in with your good quality hay. I would say 50/50. That way, you can still give larger amounts of hay to satisfy his need to chew while cutting back a bit on nutrients. Roughage is so important for overall health - keep the amount of chew time up if possible. Though not possible for most people, if you can feed 3 or more smaller meals a day, it is much more ideal.

Overall though, if you have only had this boy a month or so, keep exercising him, and you will likely see improvements.

Even though there may be other people feeding the same amount and their horses arent getting fat doesnt mean yours wont on the same amount. How big is he? Ponies are notoriously good keepers and need very little to get fat. Different horses, different sizes, different amount of feed needed.

To help with the weaving I agree with whoever recommended something to slow down his eating. Hay nets are really good and if you get a few you can hang them up around the place so he can move around from hay net to hay net. Put little tiny piles around the place so he can walk around and graze like normal but a bale of hay a day is quite a bit especially if he is carrying extra weight.