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Expert
Posts: 2685
   
| I have a OTT QH and he does not like grass hay. I feed him baled alfalfa 2X a day plus all the grass hay he wants but the problem is "all the grass hay he wants" for an entire day is what he should be eating for 1/2 day... It has caused him to lose weight since he has been here. Teeth have been done, ulcer treatment and wormed. He is on good feed, high fat, low starch.
He does not want my grass hay. 2 different batches of hay. I did give him some of a friend of mine's hay the other day and he liked it but the guy she bought it from is out. I have tried prairie and bermuda.
How do I get this horse to eat more hay? |
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The Advice Guru
Posts: 6419
 
| I'm guessing it's not the type of hay, but how the hay was developed. Some farmers over fertilize with manure, or synthetics, and some horses don't like the taste. |
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Blessed 
Location: Here | Stemmy hay is sometimes the reason for them not liking a certain field or cutting. Sometimes they don't like the flavor. Taste your friends hay and then taste yours. No I am not kidding |
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  Warmblood with Wings
Posts: 27846
Location: Florida.. | SG. - 2015-02-18 9:23 PM Stemmy hay is sometimes the reason for them not liking a certain field or cutting. Sometimes they don't like the flavor. Taste your friends hay and then taste yours. No I am not kidding
agree.. you just go find differant texture or cuttings .lol some times mine wouldnt eat hay I got.. i wasted a ton... add soaked beet pulp then to feed that may help |
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 Take a Picture
Posts: 12838
| In all the years I have fed hay, my horses have always eaten the hay that I fed except one year. I bought hay from the same guy but my horses would not eat it. I always buy at least 50 balres at a time so most of that went to waste. The guy did not do anything different, same field, everything. Who knows. |
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I AM being nice
Posts: 4396
Location: MD | I have one who is much the same. She will not eat much in the manner of grass hay. I get very nice Orchard grass, nope. She also doesn't like Timothy, any of our local grasses, etc... It's a good thing she's a good one, as she eats about 20 lbs a day of Triple Crown Safe Starch Forage, along with her small amount of alfalfa. |
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 That's White "Man" to You
Posts: 5515
| Bibliafarm - 2015-02-18 8:26 PM SG. - 2015-02-18 9:23 PM Stemmy hay is sometimes the reason for them not liking a certain field or cutting. Sometimes they don't like the flavor. Taste your friends hay and then taste yours. No I am not kidding
Yup, My stud wont eat the grass in first cutting Grass/Alfalfa mix but he will eat third cutting all day long. Same field, same producer. The later grass is more tender. |
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 I'm Cooler Offline
Posts: 6387
Location: Pacific Northwest | My horses don't like orchard grass...they never have. For the most part they've always had hay that we did ourselves, or compressed bales of timothy.
If he really doesn't like hay besides alfalfa I would add some type of hay pellet and beet pulp to his diet and only offer him a little bit of the grass hay. Sometimes they'll develop a taste for it, but it's frustrating to see them wasting huge piles of hay. |
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Expert
Posts: 1611
| We got a spoiled OTT mare that's been used to high qualify alfalfa or coastal her whole life. She refuses to eat timothy, orchard, or any of your field hay. She literally dropped a ton of weight and we had to start supplementing her with all forms of fiber. She will lick up the leaves of alfalfa but will only consume enough of other hay to stay alive, beyond frustrating! Pickiest eater we've ever had too. I've never seen a horse actually be able to pick out supplements and powders as well as she does. Its like an art form to her. The struggle is always real to keep her eating even though she's been treated for ulcers and is on an ulcer maintenance. |
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Expert
Posts: 2685
| astreakinchic - 2015-02-19 11:59 AM
We got a spoiled OTT mare that's been used to high qualify alfalfa or coastal her whole life. She refuses to eat timothy, orchard, or any of your field hay. She literally dropped a ton of weight and we had to start supplementing her with all forms of fiber. She will lick up the leaves of alfalfa but will only consume enough of other hay to stay alive, beyond frustrating! Pickiest eater we've ever had too. I've never seen a horse actually be able to pick out supplements and powders as well as she does. Its like an art form to her. The struggle is always real to keep her eating even though she's been treated for ulcers and is on an ulcer maintenance.
have you found anything that works "good" other than just giving in to the alfalfa? I don't mind giving him alfalfa but at this moment he is getting 30-40# a day of it (in 2 feedings) and its just not enough to keep him in good weight. He gets a VERY high fat, low starch, low sugar diet. I am going tomorrow to get a different kind of hay. Maybe timothy. I haven't decided yet. |
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Expert
Posts: 3147
| RoaniePonie11 - 2015-02-19 6:38 PM
astreakinchic - 2015-02-19 11:59 AM
We got a spoiled OTT mare that's been used to high qualify alfalfa or coastal her whole life. She refuses to eat timothy, orchard, or any of your field hay. She literally dropped a ton of weight and we had to start supplementing her with all forms of fiber. She will lick up the leaves of alfalfa but will only consume enough of other hay to stay alive, beyond frustrating! Pickiest eater we've ever had too. I've never seen a horse actually be able to pick out supplements and powders as well as she does. Its like an art form to her. The struggle is always real to keep her eating even though she's been treated for ulcers and is on an ulcer maintenance.
have you found anything that works "good" other than just giving in to the alfalfa? I don't mind giving him alfalfa but at this moment he is getting 30-40# a day of it (in 2 feedings ) and its just not enough to keep him in good weight. He gets a VERY high fat, low starch, low sugar diet. I am going tomorrow to get a different kind of hay. Maybe timothy. I haven't decided yet.
If my horse was getting 30-40 pounds of alfalfa a day, she would not touch her grass hay, nor would I be feeding her anything else. She also would be so obese she'd be unable to do much of anything. Maybe I'm wrong, but 30-40 pounds a day sounds like an awful lot for the horse to be unthrifty. |
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Expert
Posts: 2685
| BMW - 2015-02-19 7:28 PM
RoaniePonie11 - 2015-02-19 6:38 PM
astreakinchic - 2015-02-19 11:59 AM
We got a spoiled OTT mare that's been used to high qualify alfalfa or coastal her whole life. She refuses to eat timothy, orchard, or any of your field hay. She literally dropped a ton of weight and we had to start supplementing her with all forms of fiber. She will lick up the leaves of alfalfa but will only consume enough of other hay to stay alive, beyond frustrating! Pickiest eater we've ever had too. I've never seen a horse actually be able to pick out supplements and powders as well as she does. Its like an art form to her. The struggle is always real to keep her eating even though she's been treated for ulcers and is on an ulcer maintenance.
have you found anything that works "good" other than just giving in to the alfalfa? I don't mind giving him alfalfa but at this moment he is getting 30-40# a day of it (in 2 feedings ) and its just not enough to keep him in good weight. He gets a VERY high fat, low starch, low sugar diet. I am going tomorrow to get a different kind of hay. Maybe timothy. I haven't decided yet.
If my horse was getting 30-40 pounds of alfalfa a day, she would not touch her grass hay, nor would I be feeding her anything else. She also would be so obese she'd be unable to do much of anything. Maybe I'm wrong, but 30-40 pounds a day sounds like an awful lot for the horse to be unthrifty.
1 dense flake twice a day. The flakes are about 15# each. |
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Expert
Posts: 3147
| RoaniePonie11 - 2015-02-19 7:34 PM
BMW - 2015-02-19 7:28 PM
RoaniePonie11 - 2015-02-19 6:38 PM
astreakinchic - 2015-02-19 11:59 AM
We got a spoiled OTT mare that's been used to high qualify alfalfa or coastal her whole life. She refuses to eat timothy, orchard, or any of your field hay. She literally dropped a ton of weight and we had to start supplementing her with all forms of fiber. She will lick up the leaves of alfalfa but will only consume enough of other hay to stay alive, beyond frustrating! Pickiest eater we've ever had too. I've never seen a horse actually be able to pick out supplements and powders as well as she does. Its like an art form to her. The struggle is always real to keep her eating even though she's been treated for ulcers and is on an ulcer maintenance.
have you found anything that works "good" other than just giving in to the alfalfa? I don't mind giving him alfalfa but at this moment he is getting 30-40# a day of it (in 2 feedings ) and its just not enough to keep him in good weight. He gets a VERY high fat, low starch, low sugar diet. I am going tomorrow to get a different kind of hay. Maybe timothy. I haven't decided yet.
If my horse was getting 30-40 pounds of alfalfa a day, she would not touch her grass hay, nor would I be feeding her anything else. She also would be so obese she'd be unable to do much of anything. Maybe I'm wrong, but 30-40 pounds a day sounds like an awful lot for the horse to be unthrifty.
1 dense flake twice a day. The flakes are about 15# each.
i grow my own bermuda grass so know its quality. When I feed alfalfa (good, small stems and leafy), my mare really cuts back on her consumption of the bermuda grass. Consequently I feed about three pounds twice a day of alfalfa. I love the alfalfa, but its cost versus cost of bermuda grass keeps me from feeding more. I fed a broodmare and gelding about 15 to 20 pounds a day (for both of them, not each) through the winter with some winter dead grass grazing one year when my bermuda grass didn't make due to a drought. They stayed in very good flesh. With all that said, with that amount of alfalfa being provided I'm not surprised he's not eating grass hay.
Edited by BMW 2015-02-19 8:18 PM
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 The Vaccinator
Posts: 3810
Location: Slipping down the slope of old age. Boo hoo. | We had one who was picky and believed she only wanted alfalfa. I began fluffing her Bermuda and sprinkling alfalfa throughout the Bermuda in her hay bag....and dialed her back on alfalfa as time passed. Now just a bit of a sprinkle of alfalfa fluffed in her regular hay and she is happy. I had to "wean" here -- but just having that sprinkling gives her hay that great smell and taste -- so that worked for mine. Might work for your horse...??? |
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 Owner of a ratting catting machine
Posts: 2258
| Have you done 10 days of a good prebiotic paste? They won't eat what they can't digest. Crazy but true, I suppose like us, they crave what their body can handle. |
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Expert
Posts: 2685
| I had the probiotic idea also. I have ordered one so waiting on it to get here to see if it will help him. I had the "might have digestive issues causing him to not eat as much" thought.
I have been giving him a full hay bag, about 15lbs of grass hay with about a 15lb flake of alfalfa, spread through it and he is figuring out how to eat all of the alfalfa and about 1/4 of the hay. That's about 20lbs give or take a few, twice a day.
He gets 1lb Renew Gold and .5-.75lbs Empower Boost (fat) and 1/2 cup corn oil (fat and hindgut piece of mind for me) twice a day and a vit/min. I have recently added Ranitidine to his daily routine as an experiment to see if I see a change. The drug books at work said 6.6mg/kg every 8 hours is best but it can be given at 11.3mg/kg twice a day, so with me working 12 hour shifts he gets it BID. We are day 3.
ETA he is huge. Or should be... he is about 16hh maybe 16.1 and built thick, big boned.
Edited by RoaniePonie11 2015-02-19 10:29 PM
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horse that doesnt like grass hay