Dieting.

[_daisy_]

So Flighty is on a diet. Dont get me wrong she is not fat, obese anything like that but as she is a bad sufferer of lammi i want to make sure she doesnt get it this year (last year was the first year in her life she didnt get lammi

) Shes been on it since last weekend as all of a sudden her crest became really solid and just as all the warnings about lammi I thought it was for the best.
She has really only been exercised at a weekend as both me and mum havent been getting home early enough to exercise before dark, but as of tomorrow this will change. She will be exercised every night which obviously will help.
Problem is that she is eating everything really quickly. She is a greedy pony, ill not say that she isnt. Anything you put in front of her she will eat. Ive completely cut her feeds down to literally a handfull of happy hoof morning and night - just to make her happy when I feed Chantin and also give her her supplement.

So, if shes in 24/7 she has a small haynet in the day and the same at night , both of them in small holed haynets.
If shes in the field in the day, she has a small haynet at night but shares the haynet in the field with Chantin. Chantin needs weight putting on, and as there isnt any grass in the field im making sure there is enough to keep her going. They share the haynet happily but Chantin will push her off the hay when shes wants.
She is on haylage - buy it by the big round bale, so was thinking of mixing it with hay. Would this help? Cant really take her off the haylage as the bale would go off before it got used up if I was only feeding Chantin with it.

Is there anything else I can do to slow her eating down?
Anything that I could do to keep her occupied in the stable if she has finished her haynet?

 

[Scarlett1980]

Why do you want to slow her eating down? She will just gorge herself when food is available if she goes without it for periods of time, causing sugar rushes in her blood stream which is worse than if she just ate costantly.

Can you not swap them both onto hay, give her plenty of Happy Hoof and high fibre cubes whilst she is stabled and give Chantin more calories in his "hard" feed to make up the difference?

WALTHAM Equine Studies Group have just done a study into horses turned out for a short perid of time vs. ones with 24hr access - the ones turned out for 3hrs ate more!

Happy hoof is safe to be fed at fairly large quanities - I'd give spillers a ring and see what they reccomend x

 

[pottamus]

You will struggle to slow her eating down to be honest...I have a Welsh D and struggle with his weight too. I give mine soaked hay at night and he is out during the day on plenty of grass. In the summer I strip graze him. The key with mine is exercise...he keeps his weight down because I hack him 6 days a week and really make him work in trot for most of it and then do pleasure rides most weekends too. He probably does between 20 and 30 miles a week in exercise and that allows him a fair amount of freedom on grass time with no muzzles etc.
Appreciate you might not be able to do that sort of exercise with yours...but that is the key to weight loss/maintenance and also to help their circulation which is good for the feet.

 

[_daisy_]

yes but she eats so fast she grunts whilst eating!! she needs to slow down. Also if she slows down her eating then the feed will last longer.

Why should I have to put Chantin on more hard feed just to put her on hay??? she has enough hard feed as it is to help her keep her weight up with feeding her haylage. I also would like them both to have a high fibre diet.

If I let her eat as much as she wants then she will get very fat and even more prone to lammi.

 

[sleepingdragon10]

Could you use a snackball to dispense fibre nuts instead of giving her the HH? It might keep her occupied for longer while still giving her something to eat, and slowing her down in the process.

Bethxx

 

[_daisy_]

shes a welsh D too. she has to be muzzled all summer as she will go through electric fencing if she is strip grazed. Also if she is in the field on her own she will get out to be with her friends and Chantin will have as much grass as she can possibly have, so if shes not muzzled I run the risk of her getting in the field with her.
Hopefully the extra exercise will help keep her weight down. As she isnt that fit we will build it up over the next few weeks. She goes out for about 1hr each time at weekends. As she gets fitter we will build that up to 2- 2 1/2hrs and going out for 1hr plus on an evening. Weve got lots of off road hacking and access to the woods so lots of places to gallop etc, do fast/fittening work.

 

[_daisy_]

never thought about that SD - thankies

- good idea -will have to find the snackaballs out and get some fibre cubes tomorrow

 

[maisie]

I would do the following (having had horrendously obese cob with wrecked metabolism through being starved (not by me) her weight contributed to her chronic arthritis and we lost her in the end

):

1. DO NOT STARVE HER IT WILL WRECK HER METABOLISM!
2. give adlib soaked hay in small holed haynets (one inside other if necessary) and add good quality oat straw to bulk it out.
3. increase exercise as much as possible.
4. limit grass intake - keep amused with equiball & high fibre nuts or similar and substitute grass with soaked hay.
5. Do not feed anything with oil or molasses in it.
6. Feed good quality Vits and Mins in as small an amount of unmollassed chaff as possible.
Good luck!!

 

[pottamus]

That's good advice there...

 

[maisie]

Meant to say also, if she is fed small amounts, she will scoff what she does get really quickly, and her body will store it as hard fat deposits on the crest/loins, because her body will think it's not getting anything to eat for a while, so it had better store what it has just had to make up for it. Therefore if you feed ad lib, the body will eventually get used to the idea that it is getting regular amounts of feed and will manage itself better - also if you are going to increase the workload, the feed intake will be burned off during exercise instead of stored.
Once she has been on ad-lib for a while ( and it could take weeks), she will eventually get used to the idea that there is food there 24/7 and become less greedy. You need to get from diet to ad lib using low feed value fibre though. Would cut out the haylage totally as well and keep them both on hay - you can always increase the hay for the other horse to compensate.
Not trying to teach grandmother to suck eggs here, but I work in a vets and we see so much laminitis it's scary - it's my life's mission to eradicate it from the equine world!!!!

 

[_daisy_]

yes dont want to starve her at all - she gets enough to last her if only she would it eat it slower. Going to buy some hay tomorrow and will see if the farmer sells oat straw to bulk it out. Atm there is very little grass in out winter paddock so no problems there. Ive cut out all oil and she gets a hanful of soaked speedibeet. Shes also on Equivite supplement.

 

[_daisy_]

she was on adlib haylage. She got absolutely loads - again in small holed haynets as if she gets it in large holed haynets she pulls it out and tramps it in her bed. - she probably ate more than my 17.2hh WB mare!!! (btw shes only 14.1hh) I dont think ive ever gone down to the yard and found her with some hay in her net. They used to get 2 huge haynets in the field and they were always gone everyday. She hoovers up everything, stable and field. I think she is just a bottomless pit and there will never be enough to fill her.

I would also like to see lami becoming eradicated - its awful.. As i mentioned earlier, last year was her first year in all her life that she didnt have it. I didnt realise how bad a lami she was - she got it within 4 weeks of owning her - dont think the old owner told us how bad she really was.

 

[Christmas_Kate]

I know it sounds mad but I always give ours a good feed of soaked Hi Fi Lite before he goes out. If his belly's full he tends to not bother eating so much and plays instead.
If she was on her own I'd suggest a snackball filled with fibre nuts, she'd lose weight just chasing it round.
Obviously, she needs her forage, so slowing her down really won't make much difference. What you have to be doing is feeding something like soaked hay. If you restrict her forage you could end up with digestive problems, as they need fibre going through them almost constantly.

Our lad has ad lib soaked hay, he eats up to 5 slices in 24 hrs, and as i said a feed of Hi Fi before he goes out. he then wears a grazing muzzle to restrict but not stop his grazing. But by then he's usually quite full and just grazes a little and plays the rest of the time.