Fat horse - help

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ruthb

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I know that some people will jump down my throat, but my horse is fat, and now laminitic.

She has been on box rest (on and off) for several months - other issues, long story - and the vet insists she lose weight, which I am in full agreement with.

Here is the thing: She gets a handful of happy hoof morning and night, with one carrot. She needs some form of feed as she has various supplements, but it is truly tiny. She also has 3x slices of soaked hay, trickle fed. UNtil this week she was getting a couple of hours out in a starvation paddock with almost no grass. This is now stopped.

Despite this she is an incredibly good do-er (cob type) and getting no exercise and therefore still a fatso.

Normally what happens is she gets a bit of a summer grass belly every year but loses it all in the autumn and is lovely and slim by now due to poor grass/plenty of exercise. In future I will,of course, be restricting her grazing in summer so she's slim all the time, but that doesn't help me now.

I don't see how I can cut her feed any more but am obviously determined she loses weight.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
 
On that little feed I am very suprised she isn't losing weight!

Has you vet discussed possible hormonal causes i.e. Insulin Resistance or EMS?

I would ask the vet to do blood tests for these and go from there.... if she has one of these, it isn;t the end of the world and there are various medications and herbal remedies to help!

Hope you get it sorted x
 
I have a horse that is on a diet. He gets a scoop of fibergy a day and crap hay at night. He goes out without a rug on during the day so he keeps himself warm with his fat. I was told not to give him carrots and apples by one of the feed companies as they are no good for horses on a diet. He has actually started to loose weight and is starting to look good. I can even use a girth that was too small for him. I have done this for about a month.
 
Is she rugged at all? And is she clipped?
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Fleur has not been clipped this year, but she has the most extraordinarily thick coat you have ever seen so little chance of her shivering off the weight! She has not been rugged, other than a few nights when it was knee deep in snow and forecast to go down to minus goodness knows what and even then only had just a thin fleece.
The vet, not the best communicator, did talk about "medicine for her pituatory gland" so perhaps he does suspect something glandular is going on although she does have a history of being on the solid side.
She also loves her food and isn't taking the whole diet thing at all well, biting/kicking at other horses on yard which isn't like her at al (mostly!).
 
Could you think about clipping her then, so she has to work a bit harder to keep warm?

My mare's a good doer too, would like her a bit lighter going into spring so plan to give her an apron clip this weekend, for this reason.

Would it be worth going back to your vet too, just to clarify what he meant exactly by "medicine for her pituatory gland"? I'd want to know if it was me
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Both of mine are on a similar diet to your girlie.
My Fell mare is a fat score of 5/5 down from 8/5 (as put by the vet...Im guessing he means waaaaay to fat!) when I bought her, she is fully clipped and in light rugs - I refuse to freeze them with no rugs as its so exposed where they are - she has between 2 and 4 hours turn out a day, and comes in to 2 slices of steamed poor hay (not dusty as has RAO, just not major good quality) then later she has 1/2 to 3/4 scoop of Hifi lite and her supps, followed by 3-4 slices of steamed hay over night. The little welshie is on the same turnout, but is 6/5 fat score (think my vets a bit number dislexic!!) so is on 1/4 scoop hifi twice a day, and 4lb of hay spliced with straw and soaked for 12 hours twice a day. She is also clipped out, wears a lightweight rain mac out in the field and a fleece in the stable, or a lightweight stable rug if very cold (less than 2 degrees!)
Is it possible to clip your girl out? It may also be that she is holding her weight because she isnt getting enough to eat - I know that sounds wierd, but when I 1st put Melly (my fell) on a diet she coliced and then held weight because Id been too drastic.
It is advised - I think - that overweight neds go on a 1% diet - so if they are 600kg, they have 6kg of forage over each 24hours - include grazing in this - so weighing is the order of the day.My vet advised that I should feed the horse to the weight it SHOULD be not the weight it is - so if you need your ned to go down to 500kg, then its 5kg forage, not 6kg forage! Also, soaking hay reduces the nutritional value of it, but doesnt actually reduce the sugars in the hay...theres been studies on it but I cant remember the name of the study or where I read it!Useless hey!!...so the stalkier and older you can get the hay the better, or do like I do and splice the hay with ddecent straw.
Hope this helps and I havent waffled on too much talking nonsense!! xx
 
Stop giving the carrots, they are no good. You mention her very thick coat? and the vet talking about her pituitary gland this screams to me that she has Cushings! Get the vet to test her. Not all Cushings horses/ponies loose weight, some are the opposite and no matter how little you feed look like elephants! My own Welsh sec A was so obese he had what I can only describe as cellulite and his crest was so huge it had collapsed ( I rescued him) with a very strict diet (no sugers or succulents) , excercise, medication and NO grass, he lost weight, he is still far from perfect and his neck still flops but he is as healthy and lammi free as he will ever be.
 
I have the same problem with my connie - and he's worked pretty much every day!!!! But yes well meaning people on the yard feed him when he bangs his door in his stable - which is pretty much all the time when he's in and now he's figured he gets more food if he bangs ie HAYLAGE from my neighbour he just does it all the more. I've asked them to stop but they know best and won't be happy until i have to have a bullet in his head when he gets nasty laminitis.
 
These are all good ideas, and I will start experimenting. I wonder if something like turnip or swede is less bad than carrots? Her feed is so tragically tiny I feel dreadful already.

It is certainly true she begs for food shamelessly and people do fall for her charms ...

Someone mentioned cushings, which obviously had occurred to me & made my blood run cold. The only reason I am not panicking like a lunatic is that she has had a coat you would't believe like this for years (3x clippings each winter normally). Also she has no other cushings symptoms - coat not curly, she doesn't sweat, you know the drill. Also she's just back from the vet college (MRI scans) and they have not asked for further tests in that direction.

xx
 
They dont need a curly coat to have cushings ,or sweet. she could be in the early stages, PLEASE PLEASE dont feed parsnips or turnips , they are classed as succulents.
 
you dont say how big she is or how long you soak the hay for etc?

I would strongly recomend that you don't feed by 'sections' and instead you actually weigh the hay. the correct amount of hay to feed her would be about 1.5 - 2 % of her bodyweight in dry hay over any 24 hour period. I would soak this for 12 hours.

As for keeping her ammused... have you considered putting some high-fibre cubes in a snack ball? only about a cup full should keep her amused for quite a long time...
 
My lad was laminitic in Aug and on box rest etc. The vet instructed me on his feed and care in order for him to start loosing some weight. He was fed a couple of handfuls of hi fi lite to put his bute and vit supplement into twice a day. Hay wise he was given 4 pads of small bale hay during the day and 3 pads during the night. Nothing else at all and after a couple of weeks he started to drop weight quite well.
Now he has been back out on his mud paddock for some time he can wander around and that couple with a bit more hay has enabled his weight to stabilise now he is at his ideal weight. He has put on 5kg throughout the winter but I am about to start walking him out on the roads and slowly bringing him back into work...so that will soon go again.
I will not be giving my boy any carrots or mints...like I used to as they are all 'bits' of added sugar that he does not need...and over the course of a week it adds up.
 
I did try her on one of those food ball things. She watched intently as I demonstrated kicking it about. Then she lumbered over it it, kicked it into the corner, stamped on it three times causing it to shatter, gobbled up the contents and that was that ...

In answer to other questions I soak the hay for 12 hrs, and also rinse it afterwards. Will ask vet for a recommendation about doing it by weight rather than by slices. She's 15.1hh and cobby build.
 
Hi, I would change the happy hoof for a handful of this stuff http://www.allenandpage.com/Products/Specialist-Feeds/L-Mix.aspx Lower in starch and oil and higher in fibre, no molasses and lower in DE than happy hoof, if you soak it in some warm water it swells making the pony feel fuller too.
Can you source some nice clean oat straw?? this can be fed as part of the hay ration, find out your horse's bodyweight and feed 1.5% of that the oat straw can make up half of her forage ration. You say she gets supplements - I assume one of those is a broad spectrum vit/min?
Get her checked for cushings and EMS, insulin resistance is also getting pretty commonplace now and makes it extremly hard to shift excess pounds, all of these conditions are treatable.
Is your horse still on box rest?? can it be excercised at all?? Even some gentle walking in hand would help.
 
I would def test for cushings no point in fighting a loosing battle if you dont know what the battle is....

Is she not in work due to the lami? Is she on box rest now due to the lami. If you have a bare paddock if out she would at least be moving some off? if boxrested due to lami could you change some of the hay for oatstraw?
 
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