There is a vast difference in weight of hay, often on a bale by bale basis, and there is a difference in the weight of grain and concentrates. A flake of grass hay, for example, might be twice as large as a flake of alfalfa and yet weigh less. A two-pound coffee can of shelled or cracked corn will be heavier than a coffee can of oats. What we should remember is that horses are grazing creatures whose digestive tracts are designed to handle small quantities of food on an ongoing basis. During the winter, when there is no grass, we should attempt to mimic this process by feeding the horses several times a day, rather than tossing them the day's supply in the morning and not feeding them again until the next day.
Horses also are creatures of habit.
If they are fed regularly at 7 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m., they quickly will adapt to that schedule and will be waiting for their food. Horses which are fed on an erratic schedule, especially those which remain in box stalls throughout the day, can develop bad habits, such as digging, kicking, or raking their teeth on stall walls. As with farrier work, if we have had the horse on a proper nutritional diet all winter, the nutritional tune-up period will be quite brief. We might need only increase the nutritional level as the workload advances. On the other hand, if the horse's ribs are showing and he is lethargic, we face a time-consuming period of recovery before we can get on with utilization of the animal.