Advice on how to put my fatty on a diet

bryngelenponies

bryngelenponies

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www.biopharm-leeches.com
My Welsh Section A mare, after having quite a hard winter, is now very round and plump. She has never had laminitis but I don't want her to start now. She's lunged most days for about 30 minutes, sometimes even twice a day. She only gets fed a handful of food, a small handful of pony cubes- the bulk of it is just chaff. She is turned out 24/7- the field is not full of grass though so there's no risk of her eating too much fresh grass. So how is the best way to get her weight down a bit, last time I measured she was about 250kg- how far away is that from 'ideal' section a weight? Thanks a lot guys!
 
I would reccomend that you have a look here and download the Right Weight leaflet PDF document at the bottom of the page, then do a condition score.:)

http://www.worldhorsewelfare.org/information/right_weight_advice

In general getting horses to lose weight is like us - eat less and move more. So things like restricting grass intake through the use of poor grazing or muzzles, soaking hay for 12 hours and cutting hard feed to the bare minimum, or better still completely. Plenty of exercise, brisk walking is the best.
 
If your pony has a hard winter every winter (and by this I mean outside, unrugged and largely without extra forage) then she can affored to be plump now. It's normal for true Welsh natives as their metabolism changes from that in 'times of plenty' to starvation mode in 'the season of nothing to eat'. They should meet spring on an almost skinny frame and be safe to fill out again on moderately fair grazing.

If you mean she came out of winter slightly thinner than she is now, you'll struggle like the rest of us with Welshies! I suggest less turnout and use a grazing muzzle when she is. Why does she need chaff and nuts anyway? Knock that off as it isn't doing any good.

ETS I think there's an echo in here!!!
 
I would just cut out all of the hard food. Natives don't really need hard food unless they are in a LOT of work, and 30min lunging a day definitely doesn't come under that category. If she has grass, she won't need any hard food at all.
 
Thanks for all your advice, I watched the video from the link that Spudlet posted- I'll score her first thing tomorrow. Would it be ok to just give her a handful of chaff though because I give her a powder vitamin supplement and it's easier to put in feed than just ask her to eat it straight? I'll certainly cut out the pony cubes. In winter she is rugged but is outside 24/7 and has little roughage but she is still too fat right now. I'm worried that she'll get laminitis :-(
 
Supplements in a handful of plain chaff will be fine, I'm sure :)

As Brighteyes says it's fine for a pony to be a TINY bit portly going into winter IF it's going to lose that weight over winter - the trouble is that with improvements in feed, rug technology and so on, very few horses actually lose weight over winter and good doers can even gain it - I have even seen a horse that came out of this awful winter we've just had massively overweight, and that takes some doing! So I think you are right to consider this now and right to take action now before it becomes an issue - if a few more people took that approach, we would see fewer cases of laminitis:) So good on you!
 
I had this conversation with a friend over turnout. Her horse is VERY fat so she's bringing him in during the day and turning out at night, he gets a soaked haynet to eat during the day. The field doesn't have masses of grass but I wondered would it be better to be out on little grass walking around or standing still in the stable eating hay?
 
a bit porky going into winter yes is fine but we aren't going into winter we have summer to go.
My exmoor has recently lost 23kg in weight after having lammi last winter.
He is now in by day out by night with a greenguard on and fed a net off hay soaked for 12 hrs and fed topspec anti lam so he receives all his vit/mins that he needs.
I would could down grazing time or muzzle for day time when the fricton levels are higher. Short grass is very high in sugar!!
Also unless you have had your soil tested you could be lacking certain trace elements etc so it will do him no harm to fed topspec antilam which is just a handful off goodness. Grass does not in a lot off cases give a balanced diet.
 
Well my Welsh D lost alot of weight over the winter as he was in for most of it with laminitis. He got down to his ideal weight and condition score and only put on 5kg over the snow period. He has maintained this weight since recovery and is out on the same winter paddock during the day (so nibbling the grass as it grows through but no real proper grass to get hold of) and in at night with soaked carefully measured hay. He has a couple of handfuls of healthy hooves to put his supplement in.
It has been hard restricting him as I feel he goes for periods in the stable with nothing to eat, but as the vet said, if he is maintaining his weight he is getting enough food. The trick is to start reducing the hay or grass intake in order to get them to loose the weigth..or up the exercise instead.
My lad lost alot of the weigth through stress but also because the vet told me how much to feed and that was it...so he was on 3 pads hay at night and 4 during the day with no grass. He now has 4 pads when in at night and tend to give him 1 pad in the field during the day to fill up on before nibbling the grass for the rest of the day.
It is finding the balance of what you are feeding and gradually reducing it until they start to loose weight.
You are doing the right thing though as would not wish laminitis on any horse or human.
 
Simple Systems make a good product called Metaslim, my friend's Welsh D is on it - I think it was originally developed for lamis, you can ring Simple Systems for advice, they are very helpful.
 
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