How Much Hay Does a Horse Eat? Per Day, Month and Winter

By the XES Netting team — bale net-wrap manufacturer · Updated October 17, 2026 · ~22 min read

How much hay does a horse eat? Most adult horses eat about 2% of their body weight in hay a day, according to University of Minnesota Extension: about 20 lb for a 1,000-lb horse and 24 lb for a 1,200-lb horse. A horse needs at least 1% of its body weight in roughage every day, and given free access to hay it will eat 2% to 2.5%. For a 1,000-lb horse that adds up to about 600 lb a month and 1.8 tons over a 180-day winter without pasture, before any hay is wasted or spoiled.

The waste is where most hay budgets go wrong. In University of Minnesota research, horses wasted 5% to 33% of round-bale hay depending on the feeder, and 57% with no feeder at all. Hay is not cheap this fall either: USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service puts the U.S. average price received for alfalfa hay at $206 a ton in August 2026, against $171 a year earlier, and other hay at $152 against $136. Those are farm-level averages across all bale types; horse hay in small squares usually costs more per ton.

This guide is for horse owners planning winter hay and for the hay producers who sell to them. It covers daily intake, converting pounds into small squares and round bales, how long a round bale lasts, waste, cold weather and hay quality. It is not a ration: growing, pregnant, nursing, senior, metabolic and hard-working horses have different needs, and those belong with your veterinarian or an equine nutritionist. Our guide to net-wrapped hay and horses covers bale safety, including removing every piece of binding, and low-sugar hay for horses covers hay for metabolic horses.

XES makes bale net wrap, and many of the round bales our customers make end up in front of horses, so we read these threads with bale counts in mind. We read 725 posts from 218 archived farm-forum discussions in which hay producers and horse owners talked about how much hay horses eat, mostly on HayTalk and AgTalk, and extracted 230 reports. Then we checked the intake and waste figures against University of Minnesota Extension, Penn State Extension and University of Connecticut Extension, and the prices against USDA.

How much hay a horse eats per day

University of Minnesota Extension’s guidance, written by equine specialist Krishona Martinson with Bridgett McIntosh, which points readers to the National Research Council’s Nutrient Requirements of Horses for detail, comes down to three numbers. Horses need at least 1% of their body weight in roughage such as hay or pasture every day. Given free access, they “will willingly eat 2 to 2.5%” of body weight in hay. And “most horses should consume 2% of their body weight in hay each day.” Forage should make up at least half of any horse’s daily ration. Penn State Extension’s winter guidance gives a similar band of 1.5% to 2% of body weight in forage.

Start from the horse’s actual weight, not a breed average, then adjust. University of Minnesota notes that each horse’s needs depend on its age, metabolism, weight, growth, exercise and whether it is pregnant or nursing, and that the right amount of hay also depends on the hay’s quality. In its examples, an idle 1,000-lb adult gets 20 lb of good grass hay and nothing else; a 1,000-lb horse in moderate work, three to five hours a week, gets the same 20 lb as 15 lb of hay and 5 lb of concentrate; and a 700-lb yearling gaining a pound a day gets 10.5 lb of hay and 3.5 lb of concentrate.

The hay producers on the forums land in the same place, with the caution that horse owners tend to feed by the flake:

"Most horse owners feed 2-3 flakes twice a day or about 15-20 lbs/day (or at least they should)."

— rjmoses · HayTalk thread 20132

Horses also eat for most of the day when they can, which is why long-stem hay matters more than the pounds alone suggest. A longtime HayTalk hay seller put it this way in September 2015:

"A horse eats 18 hrs a day, unless working. Feed 20% CP alfalfa to a horse and only alfalfa and the horse will have nutritional problems. Feed a 10% CP Grass hay and the horse will keep busy 18 hours eating."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk thread 28945

Free choice: why horses eat more than they need

Free-choice hay changes the math. In the University of Minnesota round-bale feeder study (Martinson and colleagues, 2011), groups of five mature horses eating 10% crude protein orchardgrass hay from feeders took in 2.0% to 2.4% of body weight a day as dry matter. The study’s fact sheet notes that this supplied 19% to 42% more digestible energy than idle horses needed, and the herds gained weight with six of the nine feeders. With no feeder, intake fell to 1.3% of body weight and the herds lost weight, likely because more of the hay was soiled and trampled.

"the issue here is that horses will consume alot more forage then necessary for minimum body maintenance, i.e. DMI should be .02 of body weight just like cattle however horses will eat a good half to double that amount per day, especially a Gypsie Vanner light draft type."

— hayray · HayTalk thread 14481

Hay producers see the same thing. One HayTalk producer guessed in April 2012 that a horse on a round bale might eat 30 lb a day against 15 lb for a horse fed squares, so the two owners may spend about the same on hay; he called it just a thought. A Texas producer who bales rounds for horse owners recommended 4x5 bales partly for that reason:

"4x5's tend to allow a little feed control over bigger bales (free choice on a greedy horse creates a fat horse)."

— gman1772, Texas · HayTalk thread 13660

None of this means free choice is wrong; many horses do well on it, especially on modest grass hay. It means the planning number for a free-choice horse sits at the top of the range, and that an easy keeper on rich hay can eat its way into a weight problem.

Per week, month, winter and year

The number of hay days matters as much as the daily rate. Where horses graze most of the year, hay covers winter and dry spells; where they have no pasture, it covers every day. Two posts from the same August 2018 HayTalk thread show the range:

"Up here in New England, there are a lot of back yard horse owners that have no pasture, so they're feeding hay 365!"

— Shetland Sheepdog, New England · HayTalk thread 90072

"I dont know much about horses but 250 bales i assume squares. Isnt that alot of hay for one horse? Do they not let the horse graze? Around here most people pasture a horse feed hay in winter and maybe some feed on working days."

— StxPecans · HayTalk thread 90072

Producers’ yearly rules of thumb reflect how much grazing their customers have. Advising a new owner who planned two or three horses on about 10 acres with 6 acres of pasture, one HayTalk producer wrote in January 2022:

"Figure 100 bales a horse per year and make a deal with someone to give you that much and take the rest even if you help pay for inputs like fertilizer and lime and seed."

— Hayman1 · HayTalk thread 99478

At the other end, a boarding stable feeds hay all year. In August 2014, another HayTalk producer sold small squares to a man boarding 30 horses who went through more than 5,000 bales a year. That is about 167 bales a horse; at 50 lb a bale, it would be about 23 lb a horse a day all year (XES arithmetic; the bale weight was not stated). Owners misjudge their needs, too. A HayTalk producer’s customer told him in November 2014 that she needed four tons of hay to get through the winter, then said after it was unloaded and stacked in her barn that she only needed two.

How many small square bales a horse eats

A small square is a unit of volume, not weight. Typical two-string bales run from about 40 to 70 lb, as our guide to 2-tie and 3-tie bales explains, so the same horse can go through very different bale counts.

Flakes vary even more than bales. Penn State Extension gives an example of one cutting with flakes of about 5 lb and another with flakes of about 7 lb: five flakes a day is 25 lb of hay from the first and 35 lb from the second, a 10-lb difference, and flakes within a single bale vary too. Its fix is cheap. Weigh the hay in a trash can on a bathroom scale (subtracting the can) or weigh a filled hay net with a luggage scale, then work out how many flakes of the current lot make the target. Producers describe the same problem from the baler side:

"A standard 14x18x36 bale is approximately 5.25 cu ft. and weighs about 50 lbs, giving a density of about 10 lbs/cu ft. A 3" flake would be about .4 cu ft and weigh about 5 lbs."

— rjmoses · HayTalk thread 20132

"Many of the horse folks feed hay by the number of flakes..... "Give each horse 2 flakes right now....." that really goofs them up when they get to a 6inch flake vs a 2 inch one......"

— Rodney R · HayTalk thread 23164

The same producer added in that July 2014 thread that 12 to 14 flakes make a nicer, more uniform bale than 9. Bale weight trips owners up the same way. A HayTalk producer who bales small squares for his horse barn wrote in September 2025:

"Plus, for some reason people feel a horse needs to eat half a bale of hay per day, no matter if it's a 50 pound bale or 25 pounds. So by keeping them around 35 lbs I split the difference on conserving storage space and avoiding overfeeding the horses."

— SwingOak · HayTalk thread 103510

How many round bales, and how long one lasts

For round bales the arithmetic is one line: days a bale lasts = bale weight × (1 − waste share) ÷ (number of horses × pounds each horse eats a day). The table uses 25 lb a day per 1,000-lb horse, inside the University of Minnesota free-choice range once its 2.0% to 2.4% of body weight in dry matter is converted to hay as fed (about 22 to 27 lb, for hay about 90% dry matter), and 19% waste, what that study measured for ring, cone and tombstone-style feeders.

A restrictive feeder that wastes about 6% stretches each bale by roughly 16%; an open design that wastes a third shortens it by about 17%. Put the other way, one 1,000-lb horse eating free choice from a ring-type feeder needs about 31 lb of hay a day, or roughly 0.93 of a 1,000-lb bale a month, 5.6 bales over a 180-day winter and 11 bales a year with no pasture. With 800-lb bales that is about 7 a winter and 14 a year; with 1,200-lb bales, about 4.6 and 9.4.

How long a bale should last is a separate question. University of Connecticut Extension, writing on botulism prevention, advises that if you feed round bales, it is best to have an amount horses can consume in one week, to avoid moldy feed. On the same assumptions, a group finishes a bale within seven days only if it weighs no more than about 216 lb per horse: about 430 lb for two horses, 650 lb for three, 860 lb for four and 1,080 lb for five. That takes at least four horses for an 800-lb bale, five for a 1,000-lb bale and six for a 1,200-lb bale, while groups of one to three horses are better served by small squares or the small round bales some producers make for this trade. Producers say the same thing from experience:

"rule of thumb down in my parts is, 1 4X5 bale/animal/month. If you don't have enough animals to clean the bale up pretty quick, they'll tend to spoil some and get wasted once the bale is opened up, especially with horses."

— dubltrubl · HayTalk thread 24178

In the same December 2014 thread he added that many horse owners near him prefer a 4x4 bale so it gets eaten faster, and another poster said his group went through a round bale a week, if not more, with the horses on it eight hours a day. Real herds wander from the arithmetic in both directions. A horse owner in northeast Kansas who had used big hay nets wrote on AgTalk in March 2023 that one 5x5 bale fed to three horses would last about a month, and he put local quality brome 5x5 rounds at 1,200 lb. Three 1,000-lb horses eating 20 to 25 lb a day would finish 1,200 lb in two to three weeks, so his horses were smaller, had other forage, or the bale was lighter. Free choice can also run the other way:

"He bought a RB at $90, and two days later called back and said no more RB's because his horses who got the RB's for feed did nothing but stand there and eat for two days until the hay was all gone. A RB was supposed to last those horses 10 days."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk thread 15164

Round bale weights vary as much as squares, so weigh a few before you trust any table; our guide to round bale weight shows how. One HayTalk producer reported in June 2012 that twelve of his 4x5.5 bahiagrass bales weighed 1,080 to 1,320 lb each on a certified scale, and another counted 18 to 20 small squares to a round bale in April 2012. Whatever the bale, take every piece of net wrap or twine off before horses get to it; our guides to net-wrapped hay and horses and removing net wrap safely cover how.

Waste: the number that changes the hay bill

Waste is a share of the hay that disappears, so the hay you must supply equals what the horses eat divided by (1 − the waste share). The University of Minnesota study measured it for nine round-bale feeders sold for horses and for no feeder at all:

Every feeder paid for itself within 20 months with hay valued at $100 a ton, and the fact sheet notes that payback is cut in half at $200 a ton, close to where alfalfa sells this year. Texas research the University of Minnesota cites found the same pattern: without a feeder, horses wasted 38% of coastal bermudagrass and 31% of alfalfa round bales, against 2% and 9% with a ring feeder. One caution from the same work: with hay nets, the round bale can collapse and horses may stand and pass manure or urine on what is left, so it suggests using a net together with another feeder.

Producers’ own estimates run from worse than the research feeders to better:

"In our 40+ yrs of messing with horses, they will only eat 50-70% of the hay fed outside in a hay ring or on the ground."

— scrapiron · HayTalk thread 13824

"we now have all our bales on a deck with a lean to over it so it keeps the weather away and keeps it where I'm able to get 95% of it eaten by the horses so no to little waste."

— Brian8 · HayTalk thread 24178

Storage loss comes on top of feeding loss. University of Minnesota Extension puts outdoor storage losses for round bales at 5% to 35%, depending on rain or snow, the site and the bale, and notes that the outer 4 inches of a 6-ft bale holds about a quarter of its volume. Storing hay inside cuts storage waste by about two-thirds and a good plastic cover outdoors cuts it by about half, and the same page says net-wrapped bales can reduce grass hay waste by 32% compared with twine-tied bales stored outside. A producer who sells to horse owners summed up the combined effect in August 2011:

"Customers who buy hay to last the year do not store the hay to save hay and the end up feeding maybe 65% of what they bought. Then the way they feed the animals fail to eat a third of any good hay they are offered."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk thread 15164

Our guides to storing round bale hay and round bale feeder types cover the storage and feeder side in more depth; the feeder guide draws on cattle research.

How much more hay in cold weather

Hay is the horse’s furnace: microbes in the hindgut ferment fiber and give off heat. Penn State Extension notes that an average 1,000-lb horse needs 15 to 20 lb of forage a day, and that this can rise by more than 25% in the colder months for horses living outside. Its rule of thumb is to increase forage by 1% for every degree below the horse’s lower critical temperature, the point below which the horse must make extra heat; its example horse has a lower critical temperature of 18°F. That temperature varies with climate, age, body condition, hair coat, shelter, blankets and health, Penn State notes.

Penn State’s point is that feeding for warmth means more fiber for the gut to ferment, not necessarily more calories, so the extra should be hay. Watch water, too: Penn State notes that dry hay supplies much less water than pasture, and that horses drinking less because of frozen buckets or cold water are at risk of impaction colic. Some producers keep a better bale for the worst days:

"However, I will throw out a bale of alfalfa sometimes in the winter if it is really cold just to give them extra energy to stay warm or on top of grass hay to get them to clean up the less desirable remnants."

— rjmoses · HayTalk thread 23086

Hay type, quality and the easy keeper

The pounds above assume ordinary grass hay. University of Minnesota Extension notes that alfalfa is higher than grass in digestible energy, amino acids and calcium, and that less mature hay is more nutrient-dense than mature hay, so switching hay types is often a better first step than adding grain for a working horse. For idle horses, the same richness is the problem:

"Alfalfa hay is candy to a horse, high in energy, tasty and like being on an ice cream diet (not much roughage). Horses eat 16 hours a day. Most of that should be low protein food (grass and hay) that keeps their very delicate digestive system moving."

— Edd in KY, KY · HayTalk thread 98811

For overweight horses and horses with metabolic conditions, Penn State Extension recommends limiting hay to 1% of body weight with a ration balancer rather than grain, and says weighing becomes essential; University of Minnesota sets 1% of body weight in roughage as the floor. Work out any restriction with your veterinarian. At the other end, coarse, overmature hay raises the refusal rate, so more of it is left on the ground:

"But old reed canary will be half stems and half leaves. You can guarantee 50% refusal of this hay, but your horses will happily clean up the leaves."

— 8350HiTech · HayTalk thread 23681

A West Tennessee producer made the same point about price in January 2025: good bermudagrass horse hay ran $10 a small square and $100 a round bale there, worth it, he wrote, because the horse eats the whole bale rather than pulling half of it out looking for blades of grass. A forage test tells you what you are buying; see how to read a hay test, and for alfalfa, check for blister beetles.

A winter hay plan, step by step

A worked example, with every assumption stated (XES arithmetic): two 1,100-lb horses with no pasture through a 180-day winter, at 2% of body weight, eat 22 lb each a day, or 7,920 lb. Fed round bales from a ring-type feeder at 19% waste, they need 9,778 lb, about ten 1,000-lb bales, or about 11 with a 10% cold-weather allowance. Fed weighed flakes with little left over, say 5% waste, they need 8,337 lb: 167 bales of 50 lb or 139 of 60 lb, or about 183 of the 50-lb bales with the cold allowance. At USDA’s August 2026 average for other hay, $152 a ton, the round-bale quantity is worth about $743 before delivery; horse hay often sells for more.

Then buy and book early. Hay producers on the forums describe horse customers who buy a few bales at a time, and local hay running out by late winter, and they advise a standing arrangement instead: a West Tennessee producer told a horse owner in January 2025 to find a grower dedicated to horse hay and let him know far in advance how much hay you will need for the next year. In Wyoming, a producer wrote in June 2009 that by February or March there was no hay left locally except what he saved for steady customers. Haul capacity limits small buyers, too:

"We do get some outfitters that buy 10 to 15 ton at a time but most horse people can only carry a couple of ton in their horse trailer and almost a ton on their pickups. Others buy a few bales at a time."

— nwfarmer, Wyoming · HayTalk thread 11965

Hay sellers have their own reasons to want the order early. A producer 10 km west of Port Hope wrote on HayTalk in October 2025 that a horse owner wanted to buy one round bale and then one every 10 days all winter, leaving the rest of the hay in his storage until then. If you sell hay, our guides to making premium horse hay and pricing hay cover the other side of the deal. For cattle, see how much hay a cow eats.

Frequently asked questions

How much hay does a horse eat a day?

About 2% of its body weight, according to University of Minnesota Extension: 20 lb for a 1,000-lb horse and 24 lb for a 1,200-lb horse. Horses need at least 1% of body weight in roughage, and with free access they will eat 2% to 2.5%. Weigh the hay, because flakes and bales vary widely.

How many bales of hay does a horse eat a month?

A 1,000-lb horse eating 20 lb a day needs 600 lb a month: about 12 bales of 50 lb or 10 bales of 60 lb, plus whatever is wasted. Fed free choice from a ring-type feeder, the same horse goes through roughly one 1,000-lb round bale a month, including about 19% waste.

How long does a round bale last two horses?

Fed free choice from a ring-type feeder, two 1,000-lb horses eating about 25 lb each finish a 1,000-lb round bale in about 16 days and an 800-lb bale in about 13. University of Connecticut Extension advises an amount horses can finish within a week, which for two horses means a bale of about 430 lb or less.

How much hay does a horse need for winter?

For a 180-day winter without pasture, a 1,000-lb horse eating 20 lb a day needs 3,600 lb, or 1.8 tons, before waste. Then add your feeder’s waste, a cold-weather allowance if the horse lives outside, and storage losses for hay kept outdoors, and convert to bales using the weighed weight of your own bales.

Should horses have free-choice hay?

Many do well on it, but free choice means more hay. In University of Minnesota research, horses ate 2.0% to 2.4% of body weight from round-bale feeders, more energy than idle horses needed, and most groups gained weight. Easy keepers may do better on weighed meals; set any restriction with your veterinarian.

The bottom line on how much hay a horse eats

How much hay does a horse eat? About 2% of its body weight a day for most horses, which is 20 lb for a 1,000-lb horse, 600 lb a month and 1.8 tons over a 180-day winter, with free-choice horses eating up to 2.5%. The bale count depends on what your bales weigh, so weigh a few. The real swing is waste: a feeder that restricts access can hold it near 5% to 11%, while hay on the ground can lose more than half. Size round bales so the group finishes them within about a week, store hay under cover, add a cold-weather allowance for horses living outside, and book the winter’s hay before the shelves empty.

If you bale rounds for the horse trade, XES Extreme bale net wrap was tested by DLG (Report 7439), which rated its edge-to-edge bale coverage as good in practical use. Producers who sell round bales to horse owners value net wrap for handling and storage: one HayTalk producer wrote in October 2016 that he net wraps only, because the bales handle easier, last longer and look prettier, which he said matters to horse people. Another described the reaction of a horse operation that switched:

"I sell 100-120 round bales to just one of my customers that runs a horse boarding stable. Last year sold 100 to the local scout ranch to feed horses. They were trilled with the difference of a net wrapped bale (they were using twine wrapped, junk 'hay')."

— r82230 · HayTalk thread 55977

Research note: We read 725 posts from 218 archived HayTalk, AgTalk and TheFarmingForum discussions about how much hay horses eat (the posts that discussed intake, bale counts, flakes, feeders or waste, and the posts on either side; 55 discussions started in 2022 or later; posts from 2008 to May 2026) and extracted 230 reports from hay producers and horse owners. We checked them in October 2026 against the sources linked below. Producer figures are what individual posters reported at the time and, where stated, the place given; they are examples, not feeding recommendations. Figures marked as XES arithmetic use the assumptions stated with them. This page is general information, not veterinary or nutritional advice. XES sells bale net wrap and does not endorse any feeder, hay supplier or product. Sources: University of Minnesota Extension, Using hay in horse diets (Krishona Martinson and Bridgett McIntosh, reviewed 2023); University of Minnesota Extension, Feeding horses with a round-bale feeder (Krishona Martinson, William Lazarus and Marcia Hathaway, reviewed 2024); University of Minnesota, Selecting a Round-Bale Feeder for Use During Horse Feeding (K. Martinson and colleagues, 2011 fact sheet); Penn State Extension, The Importance of Weighing Horse Feed (Danielle Smarsh and Erin Orr, updated August 14, 2026); Penn State Extension, Equine Winter Wellness Tips; University of Connecticut Extension, Equine Botulism; USDA NASS, Agricultural Prices (September 29, 2026).

Featured photograph: Back to Lunch, Peter Trimming, January 2010, near Merstham, Surrey, England, from geograph.org.uk, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. A blanketed horse eats from a round bale standing in snow, with pulled-out hay scattered around its base. Image unchanged apart from display resizing.