Should I cut back on hay or pasture?
She is so beautiful. As you know, I am not an expert on the feeding of ponies. I do, however, have the two Icelandic mares in two different situations and here's what we're doing. Tosca is boarded up the road because I enjoy the facilities and the easy trail access. She is out on irrigated pasture and is holding at an appropriate weight as long as I ride her three days a week. Her rides are pretty hard ones because she's going out with the endurance horses. Even though we don't go as fast as they do, on their shorter days (5 miles) we go as far. Yrsa is at home where we do not use our irrigated pasture for horses. It's planted for hay. She has had access to a very small patch of grass - about the size of a small dressage court. We have just locked her off thatt. She gets 1/2 flake of hay twice a day and that little bit of grass and she is really fat. I think for these two the obvious difference is the amount of exercise each gets. They have the same sire and are about the same size. Nancy
