Best weight gain feed for a veteran pony please

[Sandstone1]

As title, any advice on what to feed for a little weight gain. 14hh aprox 23 years old in light work. just come out of winter on the slim side and would like to gain a little on vet vitality and hay at moment

 

[coss]

baileys outshine?

 

[team barney]

A glug of oil, much cheaper than outshine, and far safer for lami challenged ponies. Another benefit being that oil isn't usually GM, which outshine is.

Topspec Coolcondition cubes are good too, they are a low starch high DE feed.

 

[Sandstone1]

bit of a fussy eater and not keen on oil

 

[bluehorse]

Have a look at equijewel:

http://www.saracen-horse-feeds.co.uk/products/thoroughbred/stud-2/equi-jewel.html

I've had my poor doer on it for a couple of weeks and he's already looking better...

 

[Bettyboo222]

I've got a 45 year old veteran and have experimented over 2 years with what to feed her the best we have found so far it

D and H Pasture mix
D and H Build up mix
D and H 16 plus mix
as well as add lib herbi mollichaff

Other good ones that we have tried are

Soft and Soak Ready mash - brilliant stuff worked very well however when coupled with rich grass it gave her diarehoea

 

[team barney]

bit of a fussy eater and not keen on oil

If s/he's fussy, then I definitely wouldn't recommend Outshine, I took me ages to get my pony to eat even the tiniest bit, he hated it, and as soon as I got close to feeding the recommended levels he went down with terrible laminitis (no other diet/management changes so I am as sure as I can be that the outshine was to blame). I used Speedibeet on top of his normal rations to aid weight gain in the end, it worked much better than any of the other things I tried (copra, linseed, oil, outshine, balancer ect.).

Have you tried Calm and Condition by A&P? I have heard excellent reports about it, though I've never used it myself.

 

[claribella]

My girl is doing well on micronised linseed. A bag goes a long way and she's normally a poor doer but the linseed combined with fast fibre and she's looking great coming out of winter. My girl is also very fussy but she will eat the liseed on it's own from a spoon at times.

 

[BlackRider]

Have you thought about soaked grass pellets?

And another vote for speedibeet.

I'd probably try and avoid anything with high starch / sugar levels because of the age.

 

[redheadkelj]

When my old chap was alive he lived on D&H 16 plus. Tried lots of other stuff to keep weight on and this worked wonders. Mine was 32 when he went and the vet who came out said he couldn't believe what good condition he was in.