# Can a horse live on hay alone?



## newhorsemom (Jun 20, 2008)

Lily is a 9 year old arab and she is an easy keeper. I think she is a good weight as I cannot see her ribs but I can feel them if I press along her sides but not if I just run my hand over her. Her current diet consists of orchard grass hay, hand grazing a few times a week and she always has salt available. It was suggested to me that hay only is not enough and I put her on vitamins and senior feed over the winter. I do want her healthy and warm however, I don't want her hot because my 8-year old daughter rides her.

Does anybody have opinions about this?


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## FGRanch (Feb 9, 2008)

My horses live off of hay alone, most of the time. I don't usually feed grain, the odd amount after I work them. However vits and minerals are always available to them (it doesn't make them hot)


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

You don't really need to change her diet if she is healthy. For the added vitamins/minerals, you may want to consider getting either a mineral block or loose minerals for her to have access to. They won't make her hot. Try to avoid sweet feeds and alfalfa (it can make some horses hot), but a nice balanced whole feed should be okay if you wanted to feed it to her.


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## dashygirl (Nov 21, 2006)

My horses are fed hay only. They also have a mineral block available and when I feed psyllium once a month they get a handful of sweet feed with it to entice them to gobble it down. I feed a timothy/bermuda mix. I wouldn't recommend alfalfa, like smrobs said, that can make a horse hot.
So to answer your question, yes, a horse can live on just hay and be perfectly healthy.


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## newhorsemom (Jun 20, 2008)

Thank you for all of the replies. Sounds like I don't really need to change anything in Lily's diet right now. I certainly don't want her to get too plump or too thin and I think she is good where she is at. My motto is "don't fix it if it isn't broken"!


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## Production Acres (Aug 26, 2009)

There is nothing wrong with a grass only diet! There is much to be gained by feeding mineral free choice. Alfalfa is frowned upon a lot by a lot of people ( for varing reasons ). Alfalfa is the "King of Forages" for a reason! There is no better way to put an animal on a forage only diet than by including some alfalfa in their diet. We sell all types of hay - grass only, grass/alfalfa mixes, bermudas, alfalfa, etc. but you will generally find a grass/alfalfa hay to be more palatable and more nutritrous that straight grass hays. You can buy many blends of alfalfa, from 10% all the way up to 90%, but a good 20-30% concentration is very hard to beat - especially if you want to get entirely off grain.


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## BackInTheSaddleAgain (Apr 20, 2009)

Yes, they can. Some horses do great, but mine doesn't. She was getting fairly skinny on me so I started giving her a no-grain feed and she's looking great.


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## MN Tigerstripes (Feb 20, 2009)

I just finished a research project where I asked 7 veterinarians, 3 University Extension Agents, and 3 University Professors and every one of them said "Yes, absolutely." The one caveat was there needs to be fresh and dried forages or a vitamin/mineral supplement to make sure that vitamin A and E are available as both are depleted from hay after a couple of months and the horse only stores 3-6 mnths worth in their liver.

It's not a huge study, but it was interesting that not one person said no.


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## luvs2ride1979 (Nov 9, 2007)

Hay alone, without at least 2-3 hours of grazing time daily, may not be enough. However, you do not need to feed her senior feed or any other horse feeds. An easy way to make sure she getting all of the recommended vitamins and miners is to use a small amount of hay pellets (1/2 of a 3qt feed scoop), a vitamin mix, and a little water or oil to make it all stick. Pick a well-rounded vitamin mix like Nurti-Plus++ (1oz serving), GrandVite SmartVite Maintanence Grass, or Accel Lifetime (listed in the order of "completeness"). A little flax or other Omega 3 supplement is not a bad idea if you notice dandruff in the winter or dry hooves (GrandVite already has Omega 3s in it, so you would need less or none).

If she loses condition during the winter, simply increase the hay pellets and add 1/2 cup of vegetable oil or other fat source.

This is the kind of diet I have my horses on and they're doing beautifully!


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## G and K's Mom (Jan 11, 2008)

Production Acres said:


> . Alfalfa is frowned upon a lot by a lot of people ( for varing reasons ). Alfalfa is the "King of Forages" for a reason! There is no better way to put an animal on a forage only diet than by including some alfalfa in their diet. We sell all types of hay - grass only, grass/alfalfa mixes, bermudas, alfalfa, etc. but you will generally find a grass/alfalfa hay to be more palatable and more nutritrous that straight grass hays. You can buy many blends of alfalfa, from 10% all the way up to 90%, but a good 20-30% concentration is very hard to beat - especially if you want to get entirely off grain.


Couldn't agree more. Alfalfa does seem to get a bad rep. There are some places in Canada and the USA that alfalfa is all they feed because that's what grows the best in that area.

Both of my horse's were raised on a grass/alfalfa mix, came in at about 40%. They still get about 5 pounds per day, the stuff I'm feeding now is about 25%.


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## luvs2ride1979 (Nov 9, 2007)

I also use Alfalfa as a supplement to my horses' grass hay diet. I use alfalfa pellets as their "grain", to mix the vitamins with. I feed about 2.5-4 lbs a day, depending on the horse and his/her workload. It's good to have some variety in a horse's diet.


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## G and K's Mom (Jan 11, 2008)

luvs2ride1979 said:


> I use alfalfa pellets as their "grain", to mix the vitamins with.


I do as well. Not much, it's a level cup that weighs about 1/2 a pound.


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## mom2pride (May 5, 2009)

My guy does best on an alfalfa hay; on the grass hay he doesn't maintain his weight nearly as well. 

He does have access to minerals, and he gets grain when he is worked.


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## luvs2ride1979 (Nov 9, 2007)

mom2pride said:


> My guy does best on an alfalfa hay; on the grass hay he doesn't maintain his weight nearly as well.
> 
> He does have access to minerals, and he gets grain when he is worked.


Yes, with grass hay, you need to give a LOT more. Alfalfa is more energy dense and higher in calorie, so you can feed less when feeding it as the main forage. With grass hay, you need 2-3% of their body weight a day to maintain for most horses in light work with no grazing. That ends up 20-30 lbs a day, 1/2 of an average "light" grass hay bale (50-60 lbs).


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