building muscle up....

I too would be looking to Lysine/Protein.
Growing horses need quite high levels of Lysine in their diet, off the top of my head about 35gms a day on average, more if they are in work (45gms for an in training two yr old!)
It's hard to deliver enough lysine, especially for growing horses and those in high-demand activities (e.g., where muscle, blood, or hoof building should be occurring at accelerated rates). It's likely the horse isn't able to use as much as 50% of the crude protein he's being fed. Lysine is the first key to making the most of the protein you feed.

Winter grass & hay is usually very low in Lysine. So at 0.20% Lysine, 10kgs of hay would give her about 20 gms max.
It doesn`t list Lysine on the Fast Fibre breakdown so I would ring A&P and they should be able to give you accurate figures but I would imagine as mostly straw & only <10% sugarbeet it would be very low.
Linseed meal is low in lysine and inappropriate as a protein source for young animals unless the ration contains other sources of lysine and would add negligable amounts at a 200 gm feed rate
If you were to feed Prohoof at the recommended rate (57gms) you would be giving around 10gms of Lysine

From the above I would say that you need increase protein & supplement her Lysine intake in order for her to effectively build muscle. From the guestamates above, even with putting her on the full dose of Pro hoof will mean that you wouldn`t be meeting her requirements (nearly but not quite and remember those requirements increase with work load) so I would look to further supplementing/changing feed.

Sugar beet is an excellent feed, highly digestable and good source in Lysine.
Alfalfa is high quality protein and around 0.80% of dm Lysine, so can help too.

You could combine the two with Alpha Beet?
Full-fat soya is also rich in lysine and methionine but there is mixed opinions on feeding Soya meal to horses.

Alphabeet, linseed & full RDA of Pro-hoof possibly if you were feeding enough (two soaked scoops would give about 6gms Lysine)

I have had good sucess with a convalescing neddy using Happy Tummy (2kgs which is two stubbs scoops) gives 14gms of Lysine according to Dengie but it does also contain a vit/min mix so you`d have to take that into account with the ProHoof. I feed HT, linseed & straight Lysine and he looks like a different pony!

You can buy straight Lysine, I get mine from Pro Earth and it works out at less that £8 for 3 months supply! :)

This is a really interesting read ---->http://www.ker.com/library/health/2010/07/equine-protein-requirements.html
 
Added to above, the horse I mentioned earlier that was in the process of being switched onto a barefoot regime, in discussion with the trimmer and the nutritionist, was supplemented with pure lysine, as her diet seemed to meet her other needs, and that did the trick.
 
Lunge on a hilly field? Obviously not fast work but slow steady constant work on an incline saves you hacking up hills if you cant get out ;)
 
TarrSteps said:
Just a note about raised poles and even hill work. It's not just about doing it, it's about HOW you do it. If the horse is dropping its back and hiking its legs up, then it will build up many of the wrong bits. This is particularly likely if you do a bit too much when the horse is tired and/or don't prioritise the way the horse is working vs amount of work.
Click to expand...

This is so true. I was trying to explain it to someone the other day who didn't seem to get it. When I described how if they had a pilates instructor with them as they did curl ups or leg lifts or whatever, how often did they think that instructor would be reminding them not to tense here, to focus on using this muscle there, etc, and how hard do they have to focus on using the right muscles when they begin to get tired, and then it seemed a lot more obvious. We forget this sometimes: the horse can't consciously focus on what the exercise is supposed to be achieving, and is naturally going to do what's easiest when it tires and we need to be able to spot that and value quality over quantity.
 
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