This is one of the first questions every new horse owner asks us — and it's also one that experienced horse owners revisit constantly as their horse's age, workload, or body condition changes. Here's how we walk customers through it at our Oklahoma locations.
The General Rule: 1.5–2% of Body Weight
Most horses need to eat roughly 1.5% to 2% of their body weight in forage per day, with hay making up most or all of that if they don't have quality pasture access.
For a typical 1,000 lb horse, that works out to:
- 15 lbs of hay per day at the low end (1.5%)
- 20 lbs of hay per day at the higher end (2%)
That's usually split into two or three feedings a day. Horses are designed to graze almost continuously, so spreading hay out over multiple feedings — rather than one big pile in the morning — is much better for digestion and helps prevent issues like ulcers and colic.
What Changes the Math
That 1.5–2% range is a starting point, not a fixed rule. A few things shift it:
- Workload: a performance horse in heavy training may need more total calories, often supplemented with grain rather than just more hay volume
- Body condition: easy keepers may do fine closer to 1.5%, while hard keepers may need closer to 2.5% or more
- Hay type: alfalfa is more calorie-dense than bermuda grass, so a horse on all alfalfa may need a slightly lower volume than one on all bermuda to get the same calories
- Pasture access: horses on good pasture may need less supplemental hay, especially in spring and early summer in Oklahoma
- Age: growing horses and seniors often have different forage and calorie needs than horses in their prime
A Simple Way to Check Your Numbers
If you don't have a livestock scale handy, here's a practical approach: weigh a few flakes of your hay on a bathroom scale to get a sense of how many pounds you're actually feeding, then track that against your horse's body condition over a few weeks. If your horse is holding steady weight and looking good, you're probably in the right range. If they're losing condition, you likely need to increase hay or add calories through feed. If they're gaining too much, scale back.
Don't Forget Water
A horse eating 20 lbs of hay a day needs a lot of water to go with it — often 5 to 10 gallons daily, more in Oklahoma summer heat. Make sure fresh water is always available, especially if you're feeding more hay than usual.
Bring Us Your Specific Situation
Every horse is a little different, and the right hay amount for your horse depends on details that are hard to generalize in a blog post — their exact weight, workload, metabolism, and the specific hay you're feeding. That's exactly the kind of question our Purina University Certified staff are trained to help with at any of our four Oklahoma locations.
Where to Buy Quality Hay in Oklahoma
We carry both alfalfa and bermuda grass hay at all four Cook Feed & Outdoor locations across the OKC metro — Oklahoma City, Yukon, Norman, and Remington Park. Need a lot of hay at once? We offer semi load bulk hay delivery for boarding facilities and ranches anywhere in Oklahoma, plus local farm delivery to 100+ zip codes across Central Oklahoma.
Stop by, call us at (405) 350-3333, or check our delivery options to get hay to your barn.