3 year old weight gain suggestions...

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lisamarie2185

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I have a 3 year old mare who was broken last year and ridden from sept to nov before being turned away to dring back into work at end of feb. She is very dipped in at her back end. she has been wormed and is fed 1 dipper of conditioning mix, i dipper of fibre cubes and a heaped dipper of hifi. Could he shape be due to her age or are there changes i could make to her feed to help gain weight? She's not skinny though. Just want to do the best i can for her, she's my first youngter so not sure if it's a normal shape!!?
 
SOunds like it could be normal for her at her age. It is important to not have youngsters overweight as you want them to develop at a steady pace. Have you thought about a balancer as there are some specifically designed to meet the nutritional requirments of youngsters. This way at least you could be certain that she is recieving all of the essentials she needs. They all develop differently and it depends on so many factors. I have a 2yo colt who would pass for a four year old and another which is the same age but just looks so immature. Be mindful not to overdo the exercise/ridden work until your mare is strong enough. Keep all work light. Post a pic for people to look at if you really aren't sure.
 
Could you be more specific than a "dipper" - what weight of each? Do you mean a stubbs scoop?

Are you feeding any hay or haylage?

Are you feeding all that in one feed or broken down into two or three feeds?
 
have you had her worm counted?

is she turning 3 this year or 4?

how much hay/haylage is she getting?

i would be cautious of pumping a youngster full of feed to get condition on as she may be having a growth spurt and will level out in her own time and you don't want to run the risk of OCD etc.
 
I would ensure she is getting as much hay as she can eat and fed from the floor so that she is stretching the muscles through her neck and across her back to her tail rather than the incorrect ones on the underside of her neck if she is being fed from a net.

If she is only 3 I wouldn't be rushing to bring her back into work in February and instead would wait til march / april to give her the chance to get some spring grass...

When you do begin work, I'd sugest some two line lunging at walk and trot, progressing to a little work over poles and some hacking at walk up hills in a long and low outline to encourage her to use her back end.
 
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