That really doesn't sound like enough, especially the 5lbs at night and an empty stomach until morning. Has she considered soaking some hay and sticking it in a slow feed net or feeding some oat straw just so the horse can have some forage in its belly? She's asking for ulcers and stall vices at this rate.

 

If I remember correctly you shouldn't be calculating based on current weight but on what the IDEAL weight for pony is. Do you know what the ponies ideal weight should be? Then you can get a better idea.

 

Should be fed 1.5% to 2% of her ideal body weight in hay per day,what ever the ideal weight might be for the horse.

 

She is getting a nibble net made for this type of hay.

the pony should weigh around 950.

As i said the woman is nuts. I got some lower quality hay today, cut late I imagine.
She will not have any thing to do with it. She says that each batch of hay I pick up will have to be tested for nutrition value. I was going to get around 15 bales each month for her.

We are going into winter here and I can't imagine that is enough roughage.

Her cost of the hay in bags will be around $160 a month. At 10 lbs a day, Plus her regular board.

 

Has the owner showed any interest in getting this pony exercised daily? When our area produced no hay, I bo't 80 bales of oat straw to supplement hay that was shipped in from afar. Each horse got one 6" thick flake of straw per 24 hrs. which enabled me to save the equivalent in hay each day. They came thro the winter in great shape. I agree with you about the lower quality hay. Does this gal think she's feeding a world class horse?

 

It's ultimately up to the owner what type of hay she feeds her horse, especially if the horse is carb intollerant. I don't think 10 lbs is a huge stretch, not enough but I wouldn't call her 'nuts'. If she wants to spend the extra money, then that's all on her but I would talk to her about upping it to 15-19lbs daily.

 

Well, she is nut in a lot of other ways, this is a minor example.

I agree in getting the hay tested once but not every bale or every 12 bales.
She is also a person that will not listen to any one else's reasoning.

Yes it is up to the owner what she feeds her horse,
but if the pony is on my property and I am responsible for feeding it daily, I refuse to feed an animal in a way that I feel is unhealthy.

 

Well, I'd agree with her that just because a hay looks lower quality doesn't mean it's lower NSC. It does need to be tested to know that it's low NSC. That being said, soaking is a good way to reduce NSC and would probably make the hay acceptable unless it happens to be very high NSC or the pony is very sugar sensitive.

However, I'd also agree that 10 lbs is not quite enough. Adding ~5 lbs of either the same bagged forage or soaked hay would be for the best.

 

2% of ideal weight or 1.5% of current weight, if overweight. But, pony will hold on to what little it gets and just slow its metabolism into starvation mode. So no matter how she turns it, exercise is the only way to make it lose the excess weight.
Best hay for it would be a second cutting orchard hay, in a nibble net. Other possibility, if she wants guaranteed low starch/ sugar, are Ontario Dehy Balanced Cubes(aTripleCrown dealer can order it). They are also nutritionally balanced.

 

She lives about 45 min away, currently she comes to ride 1 -2 times a week.
The most she will probably get here is 2-3 x a week.

She did talk about getting a complete nutrition hay. I will see if she does.

Even with the nutritionally complete hay, I feel very uncomfortable feeding so little hay.

 

Taffy, don't you just love dealing with blockheads? I've had my share when it comes to horses. It takes a near-death experience to teach them that maybe someone else does know better.

 

If we fed our mountain horses 2% of their body weight in hay, they'd both be 9 out of 10 on the body score chart. We use slow hay feeders to make sure they have hay most of the day/night, but they get between 1.0 and 1.5% year round, up to 2% if it's super cold.

I think it's much harder to feed an easy keeper than a hard one (we have one of those too). I think they key is making sure they don't run out of hay; so getting a good slow feeder is a must, IMO.

10# for an 1150# horse is 8.7% (not .0087%). But I think feeding less than 1% isn't a good idea; 1% is pretty much the bare minimum.

 

10# for an 1150# horse is 8.7% (not .0087%). But I think feeding less than 1% isn't a good idea; 1% is pretty much the bare minimum.

Actually we are both wrong in the math department:


1150 x .0087 ( .87%) = 10.005 lbs

1150 x .087 ( 8.7%) = 100.5 lbs

 

I fed a 1200lb horse approx. 23lbs of hay, more when the temps plummeted.