Florida Horse Hay Sales and Delivery
I have a 15.3 hand Quarter Horse who’s pretty good about keeping weight on. I’ll be starting to order my own hay, grain and shavings and I’m not sure how much hay I should be ordering each month.
It depends on how much hay you are going to be feeding, what size the bales are, and how much each flake weighs.
Start by figuring out how much hay your horse needs. A typical horse need 1-1.5% of their body weight in hay. An average horse needs about 15-20 pounds of hay. If yours is an easy keeper, you may be feeding slightly less.
Then take a flake that your normally feed and weigh it to determine what you have been feeding and what you should be feeding. Also, this will determine about what your bales weigh. You should be able to see how many flakes your bales are, or know from feeding. To weigh a flake take a plastic bag, put the flake inside, and use a fish scale to weigh it.
So once you figure out how many flakes of hay a day your horse eats, divide that by how many are in a bale, and that will tell you how many bales you will need a week. Then multiply that by how many weeks in a month, usually 4. That will give you your bare minimum for the month. Just remember to order one or two bales extra just in case your next order doesn’t come in time.
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7 Responses to How many bales of hay should I order per month for my horse?
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Florida Horse Hay
I would estimate that one bale of hay would suffice for your horse for for a couple of days, considering 2 feedings per day. That would make it approximately 15-16 bales per month….now, it makes a difference on the type of hay it is…if it is grass hay, I would keep it in front of my horses 24/7…it also depends on if they are on any pasture or are strictly dry lot or stalled. Lots of variables.
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It depends on how much hay you are going to be feeding, what size the bales are, and how much each flake weighs.
Start by figuring out how much hay your horse needs. A typical horse need 1-1.5% of their body weight in hay. An average horse needs about 15-20 pounds of hay. If yours is an easy keeper, you may be feeding slightly less.
Then take a flake that your normally feed and weigh it to determine what you have been feeding and what you should be feeding. Also, this will determine about what your bales weigh. You should be able to see how many flakes your bales are, or know from feeding. To weigh a flake take a plastic bag, put the flake inside, and use a fish scale to weigh it.
So once you figure out how many flakes of hay a day your horse eats, divide that by how many are in a bale, and that will tell you how many bales you will need a week. Then multiply that by how many weeks in a month, usually 4. That will give you your bare minimum for the month. Just remember to order one or two bales extra just in case your next order doesn’t come in time.
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If you feed it off of a square bale you need to find out 3 things how much your horse weighs how much the bale weighs and how much a flake weighs if you have a 1000lbs horse and a have a 80 lbs bale and a flake weighs 5 lbs that bale will last you 8 days feeding a 5 lbs flake in the morning and one at night a horse eats 1% of its weight a day if you need to put weight on feed 1.5% so 4 80lbs bale will last you a month. A better way is if you have a 1000 lbs horse feed it a flake in the morning and 5 lbs of a pellet feed in a bucket at night a 50lbs bag will last 10 days and a bale will last 16 days and every 3 or 4 days put a 1/2 cup of canola oil mixed in the pellet this will help keep the gut moving and give it a shiny coat
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I don’t know where someone got 15-20 lbs of hay. O_o thats a lot. >_O
Your quarter horse is about the size of my QH mare. She gets one to one and a half flakes of hay and two quarts of grain twice a day. During weather changes she gets mash, wet oats and a handful of grains.She’s keeping good weight on with that much…
also, extra shavings are always good in case of thrush~~
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Working with quarter horses for seven years
People feed different amounts, but often a horse will eat approximately two flakes, two times per day. You can multiply that out and figure out how many flakes are in your bales, and how many bales that will amount to each month. Of course, flakes can vary in size and quality and horses can vary depending upon their exercise level and how much weight they keep. Just make sure to have some extra, because come late winter when there is not much hay to find, it will either be high in price, or none to buy. Get a good quality hay, and find someone who knows hay to help you with that.
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Liv, based on "standard" calculations on appropriate rations for equines (I can't link the scientific article here, but you can look it up on the web and in several nutrition books written by experts), 15-20 lbs hay per day for a 1000 lb horse is "normal" for a maintenance/light work horse. The person who posted that was right on… (for this class of horse for feeding purposes). That is what the horse needs every day to keep their gut and tummy happy. But as someone else mentioned, depends on type of hay…grass vs legume hay…also always figure things out by weight for your horses…not by cups or flakes. Just as JohnW said…know your weights.
Just an FYI, the latest research has shown that feeding free choice coastal/grass hay works as well (and arguably better) than the bran/psyllium concoctions/SandClear type stuff we all use to clear sand out of horses' systems. Again, I've read the journal article, but don't have the citation handy…I can't speak from personal experience here, purely on what I read…which is counter to all I learned.
My gelding is on a dry lot most of the time and gets roughly 1/2 bale of grass hay a day, though the bales I just picked up are significantly heavier (by 15 lbs or so) than what I got last time.
Side note, I agree with JohnW's comment on know your weights, but I'm not sure I read his comment correctly about feeding 5 lbs of pelleted grain vs hay…Grain and Hay are NOT interchangeable for a horse's diet. They each serve a different purpose. Most horses could do fine without grain…but not without forage.
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