If there is one thing I will always promote, it’s providing your horses with free-choice hay. Free-choice hay is offering your horse hay at all times of the day and night. The hay is typically distributed to the horses through hay nets, feeders, or bags.
This week I wanted to share the benefits and practicality of feeding your horses free-choice hay. Some of the reasons may surprise you, so be sure to read on!
Benefits of Feeding Free-Choice Hay
Physical
Free-choice hay offers numerous benefits for your horse’s physical well-being. Horses have evolved to graze (consume forage) for around 10-17 hours a day, which, according to Kentucky Equine Research, is broken up into 15 to 20 grazing periods with 70% of daylight hours and 50% of night hours spent grazing.
As we covered in the post, Straight From the Horse’s Mouth: How the Equine Digestive System Works, the equine stomach constantly produces stomach acids, whether there is feed there or not. When a horse’s stomach is empty for more than 2 hours, these acids begin to erode at the stomach lining causing ulcers. Forages buffer the equine stomach (stabilize the pH) and keep them happy and comfortable.
When horses are exercised on an empty stomach (which is the case in many boarding and lesson barns that do not feed hay consistently throughout the day), the lack of stomach contents allows the stomach acids to splash around. This can lead to stomach irritation and “grumpy” horses. You’d be grumpy too if you had to work with a stomachache!
Psychological
Along with all the physical benefits, there is a psychological benefit for your horses as well! Studies have shown that chewing is a stress reliever in horses and free-choice hay is essentially giving your horse a big stress ball!
As previously mentioned, horses have evolved to graze throughout the day. When they are denied that evolutionary tendency, stereotypies and other unwanted stress behaviors can begin to develop. Luckily, the solution is often quite simple — free-choice hay!
Practicality
Providing your horse with free-choice hay has some practical benefits for you as well! While some may think that having to fill hay bags or feeders leads to more work, I’d like to argue that the opposite is true.
The time that you spend putting hay in feeders or bags helps save you time cleaning up hay that will be inevitably wasted. Slow feeders also make whatever hay you give last longer, meaning less time spent needing to feed again. In other words, if free-choice hay delivery is properly planned, there is less or the same amount of work as usual.
Some may think that this method means more hay needs to be given, which is not necessarily true. When hay nets or slow feeders are used, horses take much longer to eat their portions. You can feed the same amount you usually do, it just takes the horse longer to consume it.
The final practical benefit for you is that your horses will be happier. They are more likely to be willing to work (because they are more comfortable) and most of the time will be less aggressive/excited during feeding times. This is because feed is no longer a novelty to the horse and something to get upset about. Better-behaved horses are safer horses to handle and be around.
Thank you so much for reading about why you should feed your horses free-choice hay! Let me know if anything in this post surprised you! I’d love to hear from you.
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