what to feed horse if no hay

Six Hay Alternatives for Horses

1. Bagged chopped forage. It can replace all of your horse's hay, if necessary.
2. Hay cubes. Chopped cubed hay (usually alfalfa or timothy or a combination) is another 100-percent replacement. ...
3. Hay pellets. Forage that has been dehydrated, ground and cooked to make pellets can technically replace hay. ...
4. "Complete" feed. ...
5. Beet pulp. ...
6. Soybean hulls. ...

Full Answer

What is the best type of hay to feed a horse?

Consider hay cubes, alfalfa (lucerne) or grass hay pellets, chopped forages, shredded beet pulp, or soy hull pellets. 6.

How to feed a horse for beginners?

Consider hay cubes, alfalfa (lucerne) or grass hay pellets, chopped forages, shredded beet pulp, or soy hull pellets. 6. Invest in a few hay nets. This will elevate the hay off the floor, away from sand and bedding dust, make it easy to weigh and preload hay to quickly feed hungry horses on busy days, and potentially slow consumption. 7.

What to do if your horse is not eating his hay?

If your horse is not able to chew its hay sufficiently, consider cut hay as an alternative. 3. If the horse is overweight, restrict grazing and offer mature hay with a lower content of easily digestible sugars and higher indigestible fiber. However, be sure that the horse will actually eat it and not just use it for bedding.

What can I give my horse to help him gain weight?

Supplementing with the forage alternatives, such as hay cubes and pellets or beet pulp, will further increase the calories the horse derives from the forages.” Crandell also warns, “An all-forage diet does not work for every horse in every circumstance.

What is a substitute for hay?

They can be made from grass or legume hay, but the most common sources are timothy and alfalfa. Although they are more expensive than traditional baled hay, these alternatives are both dust- and mold-free, can be easily stored for long periods of time and often come with a minimum basic nutritional analysis on the bag.

Can a horse survive without hay?

Horses can adapt to balanced rations that do not contain hay or pasture, but the absolute minimum of fiber necessary has not been established. However, low fiber/high concentrate rations have been documented to increase the risk of colic, gastric ulcers, and wood chewing behavior of horses.

Can horses eat grass instead of hay?

Grass Hay for Horses Kentucky bluegrass, orchardgrass and timothy are all examples of common grasses used for hay. Benefits: Grass hay is lower in protein and energy than legume hay — but it's also higher in fiber, which can make it a good choice for many horses.

Can I feed my horse alfalfa pellets instead of hay?

Remember, pellets are not a substitute for all your horse's forage needs, they can replace alfalfa hay if your animal has other hay or grass, but a horse must consume long-stem forage for proper digestion. Also, note that one pound of alfalfa pellets has the same nutritional value as one pound of hay.

Do horses need hay every day?

A horse should eat one to two percent of their body weight in roughage every day. Horses who spend much of their time in stalls aren't doing much grazing, but their natural feeding patterns can be replicated by keeping hay in front of them for most of the day.

Should horses always have hay?

Some say horses should have access to hay all day, every day to keep their digestive tract working consistently and properly. Others recommend feeding a few flakes of hay at meal time is sufficient for most horses.

Do horses need anything other than grass?

Mature horses need very little protein. They do, however, need certain trace minerals and a few vitamins that may not be supplied by the forage, particularly if dry hay is being fed. Horses eating fresh pasture rarely need anything other than access to a salt-mineral block.

Is clover good for horses to eat?

Clover can be a good feed source for most horses because it provides useful energy and adequate protein and fiber. You can use clover in hay or pastures. Clovers can sometimes mold, which causes slobbers, photosensitivity (reactive to light) and bleeding.

Do horses need hay all year round?

“In almost all cases, native pony breeds turned out 24/7 will not need hay supplementation during summer months.” Clare agrees: “If a horse has free access to grass, they usually won't need forage such as hay to be provided.”

Are cubes better than hay?

Because of how they're processed and stored, cubes typically have less dust and lower propensity to mold. Transporting cubes is much easier than loading flakes of hay as well. As much as 20% of conventional baled hay may be wasted when fed1, while cubes have little waste.

Are pellets better than hay for horses?

Horses often eat hay pellets faster than traditional hay because the smaller, ground particles are easy to chew and swallow. Hay pellets also do not provide any long-stem forage. However, for horses with poor teeth, soaking these pellets can still provide important fiber and nutrients.

Can I feed alfalfa cubes instead of hay?

The nutrient levels found in cubes tend to be more consistent than hay. Alfalfa cubes are sold with a guaranteed minimum nutrient content. Reduced dust. Cubes have little dust and are therefore a good alternative to hay for horses with certain respiratory problems.

How long can horses go without forage?

In addition it is recommended that horses spend no longer than four hours without access to forage to try and limit the impact on the stomach of excess acid. Horse owners can increase forage feeding time using a variety of methods, including haynets and forage slow down feeders.

Do horses need more than hay?

Horses require fiber in their diet for the gut to function normally. It is recommended that the diet contain no less than 1 percent of body weight of roughage such as hay, pasture, etc. For example, a 1,100 pound horse requires at least 11 pounds of roughage.

How long can a horse go between feedings?

Horses can go six to eight hours between feedings without a risk of developing dangerous health conditions. An empty stomach can also prompt your horse to eat unhealthy stuff like mold or even small dead animals. What is this? Horses in the wild typically roam until they find good-looking grass and graze on it slowly.

Choosing Horse Feed Hay Replacements

If you are going to use a fiber supplement, then I recommend using those that have shorter chopped fibers. This way, the food will feel more substantial in your horses mouth.

How Long can Horses go without Hay?

Horses are herbivores, which means they eat primarily grasses and other plant material. In the wild, horses graze on pasture for up to 18 hours a day.

Will a Horse Stop Eating when Full?

The question of whether or not a horse will stop eating when they are full is one that many horse owners struggle with. Some horses refuse to stop grazing, eat their hay and other food at the same time, and then go back for seconds. Other horses will only eat until they are about 3/4 full before walking away from their food source.

What to use when there is a hay shortage?

One of the first things you can use when there is a hay shortage are hay cubes. Hay cubes are often available even when bales of hay aren’t. These can be purchased at the feed store as 50-pound bags and fed pound per pound (weigh it!) as you’d feed hay.

What is the impact of drought on horse hay?

In certain parts of the U.S., particularly the western states, drought often causes a hay shortage, or at the very least has a huge impact on horse owners’ wallets as demand for short supply escalates hay prices.

What is haylage used for?

Because it has 25 to 50 percent more water in it than hay, you’ll need to adjust amounts, often feeding 1-¼ to 1-½ times as much haylage as you would hay, pound for pound. It’s useful for reducing dust and mold spores for horses with inflammatory airway disease. This high-moisture, highly fermentable feed should be used with the cautionary advice of your veterinarian. Haylage is packaged in plastic that keeps out oxygen, thereby promoting the growth of anaerobic bacteria, such as botulism. Mold also proliferates in haylage once the bags are opened. Only feed haylage that has been produced, preserved and stored properly, and be sure to immunize a horse that eats haylage against botulism.

Is hay a complete hay alternative?

It is not meant as a complete hay alternative because one block, weighing in at 2 pounds, expands only to a flake of hay, and these blocks are quite expensive. The hay blocks do serve a purpose, however: they are handy for traveling and for increasing water intake in a horse’s diet. The key is to use these alternative fiber substances as ...

Can you use alfalfa pellets for horses?

Again, be cautious with alfalfa-based feed if a horse isn’t used to it, and use pelleted feeds only as a supplement.

Can horses eat alfalfa?

If your horse isn’t used to alfalfa, then ease him into it gradually, and even better, only feed a proportion of his diet as alfalfa cubes, simply as a supplement to hay. These cubes also generate less waste than hay.

Is beet pulp good for horses?

These an excellent source of fiber and calories. Beware of feeding beet pulp to horses with metabolic problems, especially if it contains molasses . For young, growing horses, beet pulp is high in calcium, which could imbalance the calcium to phosphorus ratio, which is critical to normal musculoskeletal development.

What is complete feed for horses?

COMPLETE FEED – These have been specially developed to give your horse the right balance of grass, forages, vitamins and minerals and can be fed instead of hay if they have at least 15% fiber. They’re much higher in calories so it’s important to read the label before giving to your horse.

Why do horses eat?

Unlike most animals (including cows) horses need to continually eat, this is because of the way their whole digestive system works. Right from their gastrointestinal tract that is designed to always be digesting small amounts of food around the clock to their hindgut which is where most of their energy comes from.

Why do you need to increase forage for horses?

This then means that you need to increase the forage you’re giving them because they’re not able to get so much of it themselves. If, however, your horse doesn’t normally have access to pasture then there’s nothing to make up for during the winter.

Why is silage so hard to make?

The big drawback to silage though is that the production of it can be difficult because the bags mustn’t be torn at all, if they are then the horse is at risk of contracting botulism ( Food poisoning caused by bacteria growing on food not properly sterilized ).

How long do horses graze?

Left to their own devices horses will spend up to 17 hours a day grazing but this isn’t because they’re being greedy. They’re don’t have gall bladders so aren’t able to store bile for digestion this, coupled with the small stomachs, means that they can only digest small amounts of food at a time. On top of their grazing horses should be fed ...

How much can a horse eat?

Horses are born grazers that can eat up to 25lbs (11kgs) a day so you can imagine that if you’re keeping a horse without any natural grazing you’ve got a lot of making up to do. That doesn’t mean that you can just increase the amount of food you give him, it means that you need to replace the grass he’s not able to eat with more forage.

Can you soak alfalfa before feeding it?

The disadvantage of them though is that they can often be quite expensive and if you don’t soak them beforehand then there’s also a risk of your horse choking on them. ALFALFA – Alfalfa shouldn’t be used to completely replace hay but instead fed in combination with it .

What can replace all of your horse's hay?

Bagged chopped forage. It can replace all of your horse's hay, if necessary. 2. Hay cubes. Chopped cubed hay (usually alfalfa or timothy or a combination) is another 100-percent replacement. Soak cubes to reduce risk of choke. 3. Hay pellets.

Can horses eat soybeans?

The hulls-- not the soy beans--are high in fiber, relatively digestible, provide about 12 to 14 percent protein and are accepted well by most horses. They can replace all hay but, again, a lack of long-stemmed fiber may lead to wood chewing and similar behavior.

What to feed a horse that is not heavy?

According to the National Research Council’s Nutrient Requirements of Horses, most horses not participating in heavy work can maintain a healthy body condition score by being offered forage as the only source of calories, in addition to access to fresh water and a salt supplement.

What to do if your horse can't chew hay?

If your horse is not able to chew its hay sufficiently, consider cut hay as an alternative. 3. If the horse is overweight, restrict grazing and offer mature hay with a lower content of easily digestible sugars and higher indigestible fiber.

How to manage horses without supplemental calorie sources?

1. Weigh your horse’s hay based on your horse’s target body weight and ensure your horse is receiving 1.5–2.5% of its body weight in forage each day. 2. Have a veterinarian or equine dentist routinely examine and treat your horse’s teeth.

Why do horses need to soak in hay?

Soak or steam hay to reduce dust if your horse has a respiratory ailment or to reduce the water-soluble sugar content for horses with endocrine abnormalities or chronic laminitis. In the case of harder keepers, Kathleen Crandell, Ph.D., nutritionist at Kentucky Equine Research, believes a forage-only diet can be challenging.

How to get rid of a horse's teeth?

2. Have a veterinarian or equine dentist routinely examine and treat your horse’s teeth. Don’t assume the horse has a functional mouth if you simply pull back his lips and find a full set of incisors. These front teeth are usually the last ones lost by aged horses. The molars you don’t see grind forage.

Do horses need to be fed forage?

According to the National Research Council’s Nutrient Requirements of Horses, most horses not participating in heavy work can maintain a healthy body condition score by being offered forage as the only source of calories, in addition to access to fresh water and a salt supplement.

Does hay have calories?

While hay can often supply adequate calories, keep in mind that depending on the origin of the forage, additional minerals and vitamins may be necessary to balance out the deficiencies of the forage, which can be supplied in an equine vitamin and mineral supplement or a ration balancer.

Forage 101

Forages ‒ the leaves and stems of plants such as grasses or legumes available to horses as fresh pasture or as preserved hay ‒ make up the foundation of the equine diet.

Special Circumstances

There may be times when a horse cannot consume hay or any long-stem forages due to poor dentition or jaw issues, feed sensitivities, or a variety of other reasons. In these cases, it is important to ensure the horse is provided with ample fibre and the nutrients that would be otherwise found in hay.

Free-Choice Feeding

Also, ideally (just like with hay), you would provide the fibre sources free-choice. This may be tricky as most of these feeds should be soaked prior to feeding. I usually recommend offering fresh beet pulp or rice bran at least 2 times per day, and up to 4 times a day in the summer (due to the heat and flies).