what to feed horses when there is no hay

Hay Substitutes for Horses

• Beet Pulp. Beet pulp is a by-product of the sugar beet and is often fed to horses. ...
• Straw. If you read books about horse care in bygone times, you might be aware that straw was commonly fed to horses.
• Hay Cubes. Hay cubes may be an alternative to bales. ...
• Silage, Ensilage or Haylage. ...
• Concentrates. ...
• Alfalfa. ...
• Old Hay. ...
• Don't Feed. ...

Full Answer

How to feed your horse the best hay?

What hay is best for horses?

• Hay should be dry to the touch
• Hay should be free of Mold
• Smell like hay (kind of a sweet smell). You don’t want a damp or musty smell
• Bales should be consistent in weight (too heavy indicates mold or too much moisture, while too light can indicate over drying or lack of nutrients for your horse)
• Hay should be green. ...
• Pick a hay your horse likes to eat. ...

What is the best hay to feed a horse?

• If the horse cannot eat hay (leaves wads of hay by feeder): Feed complete feed with highly digestible fiber. ...
• Assure high quality sources of protein, vitamins and minerals.
• If the horse cannot chew well, one can make a slurry of complete (and/or) extruded feed.
• Feed at least 3 times a day.

More items...

What is the best hay feeder for horses?

What Is The Best Hay To Feed A Horse? Lucerne Hay and Grass Hay being the most popular. Lucerne Hay is a favourite hay for horses and contains ample protein (between 15% – 18%). For some horses, this may be more than they require. Lucerne is an excellent option (due to high protein levels) for Foals, Mares with foals at foot, and growing horses.

What type of hay do you feed your horses?

type of hay for horses – Grass Hay

• Timothy Hay. Timothy hay is a common favorite among horses and owners. ...
• Orchard Hay. Orchard hay is another common type of grass hay – it usually has a thicker blade than timothy hay but can be softer in texture.
• Brome Grass. ...
• Bermuda Grass. ...
• Oat Hay. ...
• Rye Grass. ...
• Fescue Hay. ...

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.

What to feed a horse when there is no grass?

Forage alternatives: What to feed horses when hay and grass are...Straw:Chopped dried grass:Grass nuts:Sugar beet:Short chopped fibre:Soakable fibre products:High Fibre Cubes:

Do horses need hay in their diet?

Many pleasure and trail horses don't need grain: good-quality hay or pasture is sufficient. If hay isn't enough, grain can be added, but the bulk of a horse's calories should always come from roughage. Horses are meant to eat roughage, and their digestive system is designed to use the nutrition in grassy stalks.

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.

Can alfalfa cubes replace hay?

Alfalfa cubes are chopped and compressed but not pulverized like pellets. Therefore, they provide some benefits of long-stem forage and can safely replace hay in an equine diet.

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.

Is it better to feed horses on the ground?

Why feeding hay and grain from ground level is in your horse's best interest. You can reduce your horse's risk of choke, colic and respiratory disorders and increase the amount of nutrients he gets from his ration by doing nothing more than eliminating chest- or head-high feed tubs and hay racks.

Do horses need grass to graze?

The importance of pasture to horses Horses are grazing animals and most horses in the Midwest meet their nutritional needs from cool-season grass pasture or hay. Forages are an important part of the equine diet and more than 80% of horses have some pasture access.

Do horses eat oats?

Oats are a good ingredient in horse feeds, but nutrient levels are variable, and oats are lacking in many important nutrients needed to sustain peak performance. When you cut a formulated feed with oats, you lose so much.

What vegetables can horses eat?

Horses enjoy celery, corn, lettuce, squash, sweet potatoes, and turnips. Vegetables are excellent sources of vitamins, too. For example, carrots are high in Vitamin A and celery is a good source of Vitamin K. Feeding these items in limited quantities is fine and your horse may actually enjoy the variety!

What is the best forage for horses?

As mentioned previously, legume plants (alfalfa and clover) tend to be higher in protein, energy and calcium compared to grass plants. Hence, legume forages are best suited for horses with elevated nutrient requirements such as broodmares and growing horses.

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.

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 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.

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).

Where to Start

When most horses are fed large amounts in two meals a day, they tend to bolt the food in a short time—an hour or two at most. Then they are forced to fast through the rest of the day or night until the next meal arrives. This is not at all how the equine digestive system was meant to work.

Controlling Feed Intake

There is one useful method to slow down the voracious eaters: The use of a slow feeder or small-hole hay net. These feeding systems go by many names, but are either a container that is hung on the wall or a ground box or frame feeding system that forces a horse to work at getting hay out from between closely-knit netting or wire mesh.

Horses in Motion

One of the key benefits to having horses on pasture is that they will wander and walk many miles each day. One study showed that horses given pasture access for 17 hours per day walked 8 to 9½ miles over a 400-acre field, while those given just seven hours pasture access walked 2½ to 3 miles.

Supplements for Non-Pastured Horses

One of the key ingredients that may be nutritionally deficient for horses that have no access to green grass is vitamin E. Without a sufficient intake of vitamin E, a horse can experience muscle, neurologic or immune system problems.

How to know if hay is good?

Getting your hay tested regularly (every few months or so) by your local agricultural extension is the best way to determine its quality. You should also do a daily quality check with your eyes and nose to catch any abnormalities. Top-quality hay should be green and sweet-smelling, not dusty, bleached-out or moldy.

What is pecking order in horses?

Pecking order dictates that the horse lowest on the totem pole won’t get as much to eat as the bully. If you have a pecking-order problem, separate your problem horses into fenced-off paddocks.

Is hay good for horses?

The type you select and how much you feed might differ from horse to horse (as it should!), but there are a few best practices that should come into play, no matter what type of hay you’ re feeding or to what horse.

Do you have to remove the string on a bale of hay?

Always remove the strings on square bales immediately when you break a bale apart to examine its contents before feeding. The string or plastic that binds together hay bales is irresistible to some horses, who may chew on it out of boredom — or even ingest it entirely.

Do horses eat forage?

Horses need to graze on small amounts of forage almost constantly. Hay, which provides fiber, nutrients and vitamins in a relatively low-calorie dose, can be fed in this manner all year round, allowing even horses with zero turnout time a chance to eat like their ancestors.

Can horses eat hay?

Feed Hay to Horses Often. Hay can be a true superfood for horses. It’s one of the most common — and easiest to obtain — sources of forage and, when fed correctly, can also do a world of good to support horses’ digestive systems. That’s because hay can closely mimic the natural feeding and digestive patterns of horses.