A horse eats roughly 1.5 to 2 percent of its body weight in forage a day, and a barn of them eats a truckload a month. The order to the hay supplier is a chain of multiplications — horses, pounds a day, days — divided by what a bale actually weighs. Round up, because the supplier delivers whole bales and the horses do not stop eating on the 30th.
Six horses at 20 lb a day for 30 days is 3,600 lb; in 55-lb bales that is 65.45, so order 66.
The example
Three barns with different herd sizes and different bale sources. Bale weight varies more than people expect — from 40-lb two-string to 60-lb-plus three-string — so it is a column, not a constant.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barn | Horses | Lb/day each | Days | Bale lb | Total lb | Bales |
| 2 | Main barn | 6 | 20 | 30 | 55 | 3,600 | 66 |
| 3 | Broodmare barn | 10 | 22 | 31 | 60 | 6,820 | 114 |
| 4 | Pony paddock | 3 | 18 | 30 | 40 | 1,620 | 41 |
The formula
Pounds first so you can sanity-check against last month's consumption, then bales:
How it works
Three multiplications, one division, one round:
B2*C2is pounds of hay the herd eats in a day. Twenty pounds is a working figure for a 1,000-lb horse on hay alone; horses on pasture or heavy grain need less.*D2scales it to the month. Use the real day count for the month you are ordering for, not 30 every time./E2converts pounds to bales. Weigh a few bales from each supplier; the label weight is aspirational.ROUNDUP(...,0)turns 65.45 bales into 66. A partial bale is still a bale you have to buy.
Add a waste allowance — 10 percent is typical for hay fed on the ground — by multiplying the pounds by 1.1 before dividing. Feeders and nets bring it down to 3 or 4 percent.
Try it: interactive demo
Enter the herd, the daily ration, the days in the month and the bale weight.
Variations
With a waste allowance
Multiply the pounds by one plus the waste percentage before dividing by bale weight.
Monthly hay cost
Bales times price per bale. Because the bales are already rounded up, the cost is what the invoice will actually say.
Pitfalls & errors
Round bales change everything. A 900-lb round bale fed free-choice is not a per-day ration, it is a per-week one with 20 to 30 percent waste. Use a separate row and a separate waste figure.
Order for the month plus a week. Weather, a late delivery or a new boarder arriving early are all cheaper than an emergency run to the feed store at retail.
Do not use ROUND. 65.45 rounds to 65, which is 24 pounds short — a full day's feed for one horse, missing on the last day of the month.
Practice workbook
Frequently asked questions
How do I set pounds per day?
What if boarders supply their own hay?
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