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Re: [RC] [RC] [RC] Pounds of Hay - Dawn Carrie<<I'm not sure how much of that is inborn and how much is due to horses being raised on inadequate forage, but what I glean from the folks who ought to know is that limiting forage to youngsters has a tendency to cause horses to grow up without adequately developing their hindguts, and hence having inadequate limits on what they will eat. >>
That's an interesting observation, Heidi. Of the 4 horses my husband and I ride, 3 are absolute hoovers at rides. My husband rides two Paso Finos. One was raised on a huge pasture, so no shortage of forage there. The other was raised in a large dry lot situation, but with 24/7 access to round bales of good hay. I ride two Arabs. My younger gelding is downright scary with the amount of hay he can put away at a ride. He spent his first 2+ year growing up on open range. My other gelding grew up on dry lot, a flake or so of good hay per horse fed I think 3 times per day. The rest of the time they didn't have anything to munch on. Don't get me wrong, all the horses were nice and plump, got grain twice a day and were well cared for, just didn't have free access to forage. This gelding is the lightest eater of the 4. In fact, the lightest eater of all 7 of our horses (the other 3 also grew up with free access for forage). He's also the hardest to keep weight on, regardless of the amount of work he's doing, since he just isn't a huge hay eater. He's getting better at eating during rides (a few 100s have taught him he'd better start eating early, this ride may last for a while <G>). But he's just not a ravenous hay burner.
Just our 4 rat study...
Dawn Carrie, Texas
On 2/6/08, heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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