Dealing with the spring grass high spirits? Help needed quickly!

[Jericho]

Grass is growing madly now and my two have been out 24/7 and in the last few days mare has ballooned significantly and both are doing very green sloppy poos. Gelding who is my daughters pony needs to be level headed as a week of PC activities coming up and he had springs in his feet and the devil in his head on hack today which needs to stop before Tuesday. He is a new pony so still learning his ways....

On return from hack I turned them both out in tennis court size area with about 2-3 inches of grass covering which they will now eat down and not go back out in big paddock until this spring growth spurt is over but in the short term I need to get the sugar levels right down in the gelding. Short of keeping him in 24/7 which isn't going to help with energy levels what is the quickest way of doing this - shall I turnout in small paddock during day, bring in tomorrow night before Tuesdays rally or turnout at night and in tomorrow during day (due to sugar levels in grass being higher during day) and then out over night before rally? Also was going to lunge him very well tomorrow? Both have had feed cut right back for a week or so already - literally a handful of grass and straw chaff to mix in vits and mins, joint supplement and magnesium oxide. I also added a loading dose of herbal calmer to the geldings feed tonight. Anything else I can be doing? Helpppp - do not need rocket charged pony on Tuesday!

 

[STRIKER]

Can you feed a bit of hay to even out the different forage, also feed mag ox, works very well.

 

[Jericho]

Hi, yes have been feeding mag ox for about a month. Did put a small bit of hay out but they are ignoring it in favour of stripping grass right down...

 

[Kokopelli]

I find the best thing to do is get on them and work them hard, just push through the freshness. I do lots of trotting and cantering uphill this time of year.

If you're not able to do this is it possible to lead him off another horse and work him hard that way?

 

[ilvpippa]

I've just split my field in half with two horses in it. We will give them a strip every week to eat down & then take it down once theve eaten it all we feed extra hay through this & works great as mine gets footy from stuffin her face & the other is a good doer.

 

[maccachic]

Get them on salt start with 10g / 100kgs and increase if needed and have loose salt (not blocks) available as they consume if they need more and can get more than if they have to lick it.

Rapidly growing or grass that is stressed is high in potassium which affects mag absorption- salt balances out the potassium and your horses comes back to earth quite quickly. Plus its cheap.

Hay can help soak up excess sugars as well. Cut any potassium containing feeds/supplements as well.

 

[Jericho]

That's interesting about the salt. I noticed yesterday for the first time ever both were using the field salt block so they obviously felt they needed it. Will add some to feeds as well. Do you know long it will take for sugar to come out of their system ?

 

[maccachic]

The salt will work pretty quickly for potassium, sugars should be similar. Loose salt as in grains is better in the paddock as its much easier for them to consume what they need as licking is quite ineffective. Blocks were designed for cows and similar with rough tounges.