Why Hay Earns Its Place at the Heart of the Diet

For most horses and ponies in the UK, hay is the single largest part of the ration by weight and by importance. A 500kg horse at rest needs roughly 2% of its bodyweight in forage each day — around 10kg of dry matter — and if turnout is limited, that forage is almost entirely hay. Get it right and you have a calm, well-conditioned horse with a healthy gut. Get it wrong and you can be looking at weight loss, loose droppings, coughs or a flare-up of laminitis.

Hay is also the cheapest way to buy fibre, which makes it worth spending a little time understanding what you are actually buying. A bale is not just a bale: two loads cut from the same field in different years can differ enormously in energy, sugar and dust.

On a smallholding, you are often buying in bulk, storing it yourself and rationing it out through the winter. That makes a bit of forward planning pay dividends.

Know Your Grasses: Meadow, Seed, Rye-grass and Timothy

The grass species, and how mature it was when cut, dictate both the nutritional value and how much your horse actually wants to eat.

• Meadow hay is a mixed herbal ley — often several grasses plus clover, dandelion and other broadleaves. It tends to be lower in energy and sugar, softer to chew and generally good for good doers, natives and anything prone to laminitis.
• Seed hay is sown with a specific mixture and cut early, so it is finer, leafier and higher in protein and energy. It suits hunters, competition horses and poor doers, but can be too rich for a pony that lives on thin air.
• Rye-grass hay is the highest in sugar and energy of the common types, especially if it was cut late or made into haylage. Excellent for putting condition on a hard-working horse; risky for a laminitic.
• Timothy and other traditional species are usually lower in fructan (the sugar linked to laminitis) and are a sensible choice for sensitive horses when you can find them.

An analysis from a laboratory — typically testing for dry matter, digestible energy, crude protein, water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) and ash — costs very little compared with a vet's bill and tells you exactly what you are feeding. Anything under about 10% WSC is generally considered safe for a laminitis-prone horse; over 12% deserves caution.

Dust, Mould and the Cough You Hear in the Stable

Respiratory problems are the most common reason a horse refuses hay or is switched to haylage. Itchiness, a runny nose, a cough when you first put the haynet up — all point to dust and mould spores, not to feed per se.

Shake out a flake and look at it in good light. You want it to smell sweet, like dried grass, not musty or like a damp cellar. Black or grey patches, white powdery mould, or a warm feel in the middle of a bale mean the hay got wet before it was baled. Do not feed it — the mycotoxins can cause colic and are not removed by soaking.

For mildly dusty hay, there are three practical options:

• Soaking in clean water for 30 minutes to an hour reduces dust and can lower WSC, but the water must be dumped afterwards and never drunk by other stock.
• Steaming kills mould spores without washing out nutrients — ideal if you are feeding a poor doer with a cough.
• Buying haylage solves dust but brings its own rules: higher moisture, higher energy, and it must be used within a few days of opening a large bale in warm weather.

Matching the Hay to the Horse

Your choice should follow the individual animal rather than the yard's buying habit.

• Good doers and native ponies: late-cut meadow hay, weighed rather than guessed, fed from a small-holed net to slow eating and extend chewing time.
• Poor doers and veterans: early-cut seed hay or good haylage, and consider a forage analysis of protein and energy so you know whether to top up with a balancer.
• Laminitis-prone or EMS horses: low-WSC hay, ideally tested, soaked if you cannot test, and fed alongside restricted, muzzle-controlled turnout.
• Horses with ulcers or a history of colic: constant access to clean, palatable forage matters more than richness — trickle feeding suits the equine gut far better than two big meals.

Always change hay over gradually, mixing old and new across seven to ten days. A sudden swap from a soft meadow hay to a rich seed hay is a classic trigger for loose droppings or colic.

Judging a Bale and Buying Wisely

When you go to look at a batch, ask the farmer the cut date, whether it was barn-dried or field-dried, and whether the field was fertilised heavily. Then do your own checks: weigh a bale (a conventional small bale should be around 15–20kg of dry matter), look for green colour rather than brown, pull out a handful and feel for softness, and check the middle of a stack bale for heat.

Buying a year ahead is a realistic strategy on a smallholding — hay is usually cheapest in late summer and prices creep up by February. Store it off the floor on pallets, with airflow around the stack, away from walls, and never on concrete against a damp corner. Keep the oldest bales at the front so nothing goes stale at the back, and cover only the top if you must, so the stack can breathe.

Through the Year, Not Just Through the Winter

Hay is often treated as a winter-only feed, but in a British summer of dry spells or restricted grazing, it is the buffer that keeps the gut working and the weight steady. Weigh what you feed rather than eyeballing a net, keep a simple record of bale consumption, and review when the horse's workload or body condition changes. A little attention to type, dust and sugar at the point of purchase saves an enormous amount of trouble in the stable — and your horse will show you the difference in coat, droppings and temperament long before anything goes seriously wrong.