fat cob

murphysmum123

murphysmum123

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Hadmy cob for coming up to 2 months now, he is getting fat with all the summer grass, would bringing him in at night help with weight or will he just eat more while out during the day? I try not to give him any hard food, but when i bring him in i tend to give him a bit of chaff and pony nuts, am thinking of changing to happy hoof, as am worried he is the type to get laminitis. If this isn't suitable for him can anyone recommend a low fat non heating type of food, just to give after we have ridden or when he is bought in in the evening?
 
Bringing him in during the day would help more as there is less sugar in the grass at night. If you really feel the need to feed him the. Something with no molasses would be best, like hifi
 
You could try something like happy hoof. Or Simple systems. Bringing him in during the day might help. But Cob types can sometimes live on thin air! Are you able to fence off a section of paddock so that he can graze it bare to try to limit his grass intake?

Otherwise more exercise might be the only thing you can really control!
 
That dreaded word again - muzzle ! During the day use one, and bring in at night if you can (or even the other way round). And ride as much as you can, even if just for ten minutes in the school/field. This works a treat for us, the boy has never been so slim and fit.

I feed a lite balancer on it's own, the bag lasts forever, and I know he is getting all the vits/mins he needs. the trouble with Happy Hoof etc is that you have to feed the proper amount to give those vits, and that is way too much. Plus hay of course.

Your horse is totally adorable btw :)
 
Shay said:
You could try something like happy hoof. Or Simple systems. Bringing him in during the day might help. But Cob types can sometimes live on thin air! Are you able to fence off a section of paddock so that he can graze it bare to try to limit his grass intake?

Otherwise more exercise might be the only thing you can really control!
Click to expand...

I would only give him hard feed if he was being worked hard and only in the winter when the grazing is poor. Just get a good old fashioned cheap mineral block and if he is ok with the electric fence tape I would tape off and keep him sectioned in. I just give mine a about 5 foot x 7 foot of new ungrazed grass a day(I move the fence over to give him a little bit of fresh grass). He is on about 3/4 acre of well grazed at the moment + the extra a day.
He might not even need this ie you can just give him an area(dont starve but the grass is growing and they will nibble away at all those tiny fresh shoots..so if your field has tiny new shoots of grass he will get enough and it does them good to keep moving and grazing like this. Check your grass! Brilliant for their teeth too.
If you cannot do this as suggested keep him in during the day and turn out only at night. But yes he will end up fat and laminitic etc if he continues to blow up. They can make you feel so guilty so dont give in. No treats etc. Stop the hard feeds and save some money.

Grazing muzzle is other option. Good luck.
 
I had a fat cob and he got a tiny handful of unmollased chaff when the others were fed. If he sneezed it would have been gone and he only got that as everyone else got fed.

Then I worked him a LOT. I did lots of long reining, hacking, hill work. Working hard is the only way my lad stays trim.

My advice is cut out the hard feed and exercise, exercise, exercise and then a bit more exercise!

I found once I got the weight of my lad and got him really fit, his weight doesn't fluctuate much when on the spring grass. And, with lots of exercise you are less likely to need to worry about muzzling. To keep my lad slim it does take about 14- 16 hrs of work a week.
 
Agree with amymay amwd indi.....why people feel the need to feed fat horses is beyond me....my little sec a gets a little bucket of soaked hay as his breakfast when the yard gets fed in the morning then is in a bare paddock for 7 hours and has a 12 hour soaked haynet at night.

Stop feeding and up the work load.
 
My cobs get 1/2 a mugful of rowen barbery ready fibre mash, just enough to add some minerals to (we know we are low on magnesium). I prefer it to chaff as you need to soak it so the magnesium powder doesn't get left & it is very low calories. A bag will last me 2 months for 2. Other than that you need to restrict grazing so muzzle, strip graze or both. There is research that suggests that if you keep in for part of the day they will gorge when they go out so strip grazing on short grass & or muzzling are preferable. And lots of trotting when you ride - we have a route that includes a 2 mile non stop trot that we call the fatbuster!
 
Cut the hard feed, give a sniffling of chaff as a good gesture after being ridden if you really feel the need to. I'd recommended fencing off your field so that he's in a bare paddock and not stuffing himself.
 
Agree with some of the other posters,

I'd cut the feed out completely, bring in during the day and give small haynets, double netted to make them last, and turn out at night in a muzzle,


oh, and up the workload as much as possible (walking up steep hills is always good!!)
 
Thanks everyone for the advice, I am gonna do more riding and cut out food completely may have to be a grazing muzzle as is in with other horses and don't want to upset the other livieries with changing the field around!
 
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