01/06/2025
๐พ ๐ช๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ง๐ผ ๐๐ผ ๐ช๐ต๐ฒ๐ป ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฑ ๐ง๐ผ ๐ฆ๐ผ๐๐ฟ๐ฐ๐ฒ
๐ด I'd like to preface this by saying that I am a huge advocate of hay being a superior and stand-alone roughage source for horses. It provides so many benefits; from supporting psychological health and calming behaviours, to increasing saliva production via mastication, to minimising the risk of gastric ulcers, sand burdens, and colic - If pasture isn't available or sufficient, hay is undeniably the best forage replacement you can offer your horse.
๐ฑ So with that out of the way, what should we as owners of horses be doing if they do not have access to sufficient pasture and we cannot source enough hay to offer them as an alternative?
โข Look for alternative hay types that may be available. If you cannot source your usual grass hay, it is okay to consider cereal hays like oaten *if* your horse does not have any diagnosed health concerns such as a predisposition to ulcers or hindgut acidosis, laminitis, insulin dysregulation etc. While I am not the biggest fan of cereal hay crops for a lot of horses due to their often high non-structural carbohydrate content, the bottom line is that any hay is better than none at all if there is nothing else to graze on.
โข If you can only obtain small quantities of hay, do not put it all out at once and expect your horse to know how to ration it out. It may take up more of your time, but putting out portioned piles or nets of hay so you can manage how much your horse eats is a highly effective way of making it last longer. Implementing slow-feeder style hay nets or grazing pods is another very useful way of managing how quickly a horse can polish off their hay.
โข Know how much roughage your horse actually needs per day, weigh your hay, and only feed them what you have to. Easy-keeping horses in particular don't need ad libitum access to hay, so don't feel obliged to keep them eating constantly if you're really struggling to source hay. Horses need 1.5-2% of their body weight in roughage per day, but they will happily eat 3%+ if allowed to do so. If hay is scarce, I would recommend aiming for 1.5-2% of the horse's body weight in hay (7.5-10kg for a 500kg horse), slow-fed over a 24 hour period.
โข Horses shouldn't go longer than around 3-5 hours (maximum) without ingesting food, so use this guideline to time how often you should be feeding out hay if you cannot afford to leave it out ad libitum. The risk of gastric ulcers and colic is significantly increased if horses are deprived of food for prolonged periods of time, so please make sure they aren't spending more than a few hours on an empty stomach at any given time, including overnight.
โข If clean straw is available, consider replacing up to 50% of your horseโs forage intake with some straw which will offer relief to your hay stores without compromising on gastrointestinal function. Keep in mind that straw is typically higher in indigestible fibre and lower in nutritive value than hay, so it is important to keep an eye on your horseโs fluid balance (hydration), manure consistency, and body condition score as impactions, dehydration, and weight loss are common symptoms of too much indigestible fibre relevant to digestible fibre in the intake.
โข Where hay is just simply not available to purchase, you can start looking at some fibre sources that are somewhat "hay replacements." Feeds like chaff, hay cubes, beet pulp, lupin hulls, and soy hulls are suitable hay alternatives if that is what it comes to. It's important to remember that horses are trickle-feeders, and this means that they are physiologically designed to be intaking roughage at a rather slow rate. The stomach capacity of a horse is quite small and makes up only around 10% of the whole digestive system, so feeding 5kg of chaff in the morning and 5kg of chaff in the evening is not an effective way of managing your horse's roughage requirements. Again, it may take up more of your time, but providing a horse with 3-5 bucket meals that contain lots of fibre per day may just help reduce how much hay you need to feed out in a 24-hour period.
๐ Feeling overwhelmed? Here are the important bits:
1. 1.5-2% of body weight in roughage per day.
2. No longer than 3-5 hours without food.
3. Small and regular meals rather than large and infrequent ones.
4. Substituting up to 50% of your horseโs forage intake with straw may relieve the pressure of hay restraints without compromising on gastrointestinal function.
5. Don't be hard on yourself if you need to implement different hay types or hay replacements to get you and your horses through.
6. ANY food is better than NO food (for most horses).
Please feel welcome to share. โค๏ธ๐พ๐ด
