How much hay & stabling overnight

[disneyhorse]

The main thing to remember is that horses are 'trickle' feeders and that this is the way their digestive systems work best. An old fashioned way of judging the amount a horse needs in a 24 hour period is to double the height of the horse. So if your horse measures 32" - 8 hands - it will need 16 lbs of food per day, give or take depending upon work/rest/metabolism/good grazing available. Let's say you have a dry lot and you are not 'working' the horse, so you maybe thinking of maybe a couple of lbs of 'hard' feed plus free choice minerals and vitamins, therefore you would also be offering some 14 lbs of hay per day, broken down into morning, lunchtime and the majority given at teatime/evening - say 3lbs morning and lunchtime and 8lbs overnight.

I know this may seem too much to a lot of people, but I seriously believe that a lot of the problems that occur with minis are due to the lack of available 'fibre' or 'munching time' in their daily diets, plus (and I know this is difficult for many folks) enough space to run/play/chase about in.

Of course every horse is an individual as is every owner and you will have to decide what suits you and your animals. Dont be frightened to experiment or to change things if you think it is necessary for the health and mental well being of your personal chips.

Annac... I've never heard this so your advice may be TOO "old fashioned.".

16 pounds of feed is way, way too much for a 32" mini.

Today's common knowledge is that a horse needs around 2% of their body weight in feed per day... Less for easy keepers (although never less than 1% of their body weight, ever!) and more for hard keepers.

If your 32" mini is 200 pounds, that would be 4 pounds of feed daily. There is quite a difference between 4 and 16 pounds! Our average saddle horses around here get two 7 pound flakes daily and they're 15 hands.

My 12.2 hand Shetland pony is a hard keeper a bit; he gets 10 pounds of Timothy/orchard, one pound alfalfa pellets, and a high protein ration balancer daily. But I can't imagine doubling that for him.

Testing your local hay is also helpful. Our hay here is very rich... High in protein and calories, even our Bermuda grass... So if you have poor quality hay you may need to feed more. Many feed companies will input your feed into a cool computer program to calculate how much hay and grains to feed to provide a balanced diet if you use their products.

 

[shalakominiatureshowhorses]

The key to feeding free choice and keeping weight off is to have the horses in a larger area. If your dry lot is small (less than an acre I'd say) then the horses aren't likely to move around enough and they do get fat. We have two pastures that are a couple acres each; they are grazed right down and on our soil we don't get lush pasture. So the horses have their hay but they also go out scavenging for what little grass they can find, and the moving around keeps them at a nice weight.

Your set up sounds like ours. Our main pastureis maybe about 2- 21/2 acres without grass in it at all, just dust and dirt lol. Then we made another pasture, what i call the paddock, about an acre that just serves as a shady pasture since the main pasture doesnt have shade at all...It does make a difference when you have enough room for them to run and play in with eachother weight wise...

 

[AnnaC]

LOL!! Yes "too oldfashioned" is a good way to describe it!! And I'm sure the amount is far too much for most minis, but it really does concern me that there tends to be a lack of fibre/grazing hay or grass time for a lot of minis these days. But a lot of the weight problems stem from the combination of food and lack of space/exercise. If the horse is doing some sort of work - conditioning for shows, driving, or simply playing outside with a friend in a large area/field, then it will be perfectly possible to provide more hay to graze on when they are stalled or confined back to a dry lot. Where you have a type of 'catch 22' situation is when you have a horse in a small space not taking much exercise so it gains weight. Then it's basic food is reduced to help it lose weight and suddenly it is not getting enough fibre to keep its system operating correctly and trouble like colic or ulcers can occur.

I'm really not explaining this very well! But I do think that if we could remind newcommers to the wonderful world of mini horses that they ARE actually horses, and that horses need to have the availability (is that a word? LOL!!) to be on the move/take exercise for their health and well being.

 

[Lil Timber Buck]

One flake of hay lasts my little man all night when I use one of these slow feeder bags! http://www.jeffersequine.com/slow-feed-haynet/camid/EQU/cp/0040519/