Advised on loaning full time

[Woody2013]

Hi, we currently loan a mare, 20 years old, massively overweight and suffers from colic and bouts of lameness. Not currently insured due to colic, we were told by owner.

We part loaned her and we are working on her fitness and has managed to reduced her weight just by 50kg. Her ideal weight will be to lose minimum 100kg more. Sadly her owner keeps feeding buckets of feed and treats galore. However, she is now on hay and has only colic once.

We feel we're losing the battle on weight management and the only exercise she gets is by us.

My query is what kind of loan deal you all think I can offer the owner to loaned her full time, without having to be responsible for the vet bills and the problems associated with her obesity.

The most obvious would be to find a healthier horse. But, this mare is safe with excellent manners that is a shame to miss the opportunity to ride her, but not only that, maybe we are the last chance to bring her back to some decent shape.

Without trying to take advantage of the owner and knowing that she is not a healthy horse : what do you think I can offer to pay and still have her full time? without taking on vet bills, for instance.

 

[JustKickOn]

I think you need to be honest with the owner and tell them the feed needs to be reduced for the sake of the mare's health. Put it politely perhaps, and say you feel with the effort you are putting in with her exercise, she needs a well balanced diet so she can work to her full potential. You could always offer to pay for all if her feed, make the whole bags of feed up and put in sandwich bags an label, then you can monitor what she is having?

 

[Luci07]

Maybe support this by saying you are working with the vet and need to get mare to x for health reasons? And as for taking the mare on full loan, you would need to cover all her costs. At 20 she would not be covered for most vet insurance so I would check with her owner. My old mare only has vet cover for external injuries. They would not insure for something like colic, but at my mares age (26) I would not put her through it anyway.