feed advice for an overweight/possibly lami pony??

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CazD

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I posted earlier about my pony that had gone lame. vet has been pretty useless and told me just to monitor and call her if the pony gets worse but has given no medication or advice. the pony is overweight with slight pulses so I'm treating it as a possible lami attack and will see how she goes. If she does not improve over xmas then I'll get a different vet practice involved.

Pony is a 10 year old 14.1hh coloured cob that weigh tapes at 430kg. I'd like her to loose at least 30kg and see how she goes from there. so, on the basis of 1.5% of (ideal) bodyweight, I estimate she should get 6kg of food a day.

I've done a reccy of the local feed store and have the option of feeding:

fast fibre, dodson & horrell safe and sound, marksway Horsehage, double haylage netted soaked hay (or a mix of these)

I can get to the yard 4 times a day (hopefully): 7am, 1pm, 6pm and 10pm.

6kg of feed is hardly anything as 1 slice of my hay weighs 3kg and the pony can eat that in a hour!! what would be the best way of feeding/splitting feeds. she's currently in 24/7 on deep bedding.
 
I would soak the hay ration for at least 12 hours then divide into 4, double or triple netted to ensure a regular amount going through her gut, fast fibre is ideal as a little dry weight is a fair amount once soaked and is good to use if you need to add supplements. A little straw can be given to allow her something extra to nibble without too many calories but just soaking her hay should make a real difference.

If she is lame/ laminitic I would want her on Danilon to help reduce the inflammation and make her more comfy, phone the vet and ask if you can go and pick some up, they rarely decline if you actually say what you want rather than wait for them to offer.
 
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And if she is over weight then just feed the soaked hay. Unless she needs painkillers, if you get some danilon just put it in fast fibre, she doesn't need any extra food.
 
be positive said:
I would soak the hay ration for at least 12 hours then divide into 4, double or triple netted to ensure a regular amount going through her gut, fast fibre is ideal as a little dry weight is a fair amount once soaked and is good to use if you need to add supplements. A little straw can be given to allow her something extra to nibble without too many calories but just soaking her hay should make a real difference.

If she is lame/ laminitic I would want her on Danilon to help reduce the inflammation and make her more comfy, phone the vet and ask if you can go and pick some up, they rarely decline if you actually say what you want rather than wait for them to offer.
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she wont eat straw - I've given her a large holed haynet with some in before but she wont touch it, neither will she touch it if its loose on the floor, she just mixes it in with her bed. she's struggling to get hay from the double netted haylage nets - do I just leave her to work it out and hope she "gets" it soon?

i asked the vet for bute but as she was only slightly lame on a tight circle the vet wouldnt give me anything, more or less suggesting that if we could make the lameness more contant (ie to my mind, worse) then they could do a full lameness workout. the lameness has been coming and going for about 2 months, ever since she had her vaccinations, somedays its bad and then a few hours later she is fine. both the vet and the farrier have agreed that she has slight pulses and a cresty neck, hence my treating her as laminitic. surely, if it is laminitis, then my turning her out and exercising her is going to make things massively worse??
 
You are doing the right thing, however, I would probably have her on 1.75% of her ideal weight because 6 kg is so little.My girl lost weight quickly on 1.75%. You could try marksway hi fibre horsehage as this worked better for my lami mare than soaked hay, as well as being much easier.
 
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She should be able to work out how to get the hay, the longer it takes her the longer she will have something to eat, a few calories used up struggling will also help as long as she does get there in the end.
If this has been going on for 2 months the vets should really be more help, a cresty neck suggests a metabolic problem, blood tests would be more help than a lameness work up, I would be thinking of getting a vet that is more helpful, turn out and exercise is not going to help and why should they want you to make her consistently lame, laminitis often comes and goes especially if it is metabolic.
 
If you do decide to feed horsehage, remember you need more of it (weightwise) than hay because of the moisture content. My mare has 11 kg of it plus two 1 kg feeds a day and maintains her weight on this. It is 2.5% of her weight in total.
 
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fast fibre has been fantastic for my laminitic. You can add extra water to bulk it out so it takes longer to eat. That and soaked hay is all mine has needed and he's dropped the weight this winter, he's now looking spot-on condition-wise. I am no longer having to soak his hay. Be careful with haylage as it caused a flare-up for my boy, even though it was very poor haylage it was too acidic for his gut.
 
When i had a pony that was prone to lami. When he had bouts of lami attacks I'd shut him in the stable all day feed him a slice of hay in the morning then I'd go round collecting nettles and basically feed him bunches of nettles throughout the day as horses actually love nettles and they're supposed to really help horses with lami/prone to lami. And then turn him out for an hour or 2 on basically a stripped bare piece of field that wasn't very big.
 
cupcakelaura said:
When i had a pony that was prone to lami. When he had bouts of lami attacks I'd shut him in the stable all day feed him a slice of hay in the morning then I'd go round collecting nettles and basically feed him bunches of nettles throughout the day as horses actually love nettles and they're supposed to really help horses with lami/prone to lami. And then turn him out for an hour or 2 on basically a stripped bare piece of field that wasn't very big.
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Oooh - I didnt realise that about nettles. I'll pop out and see if I can find any. I did get her some lami-shield sachets from the feed store and have started giving her those.

My farrier has given me details of an equine vet that he has done work with so I'm going to give the guy a call after christmas and ask him to come and see her.
 
be positive said:
If this has been going on for 2 months the vets should really be more help, a cresty neck suggests a metabolic problem, blood tests would be more help than a lameness work up, I would be thinking of getting a vet that is more helpful, turn out and exercise is not going to help and why should they want you to make her consistently lame, laminitis often comes and goes especially if it is metabolic.
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this is what I cannot understand. I specifically asked for blood tests and bute because the farrier suggested them but the vet seemed to think that there was no point. although no diagnosis of lami (or anything else) was made I still suspect that Lami is most likely to be the problem.

the lameness started at the beginning of November which coincided with vaccinations and removing her shoes. Initially I thought she was footsore and when the shoes were replaced she was OK for about three weeks but has now gone intermittently lame again.

she has been kept in for the last 48 hours and seems sounder this morning - at what point should I get someone else in to do blood tests to see if it is a metabolic problem? should she be having foot x rays too at some point?
 
Your vet does not seem to be very helpful, most would be onto doing bloods to test by now, I would get her tested as soon as you can, the new vet will advise about x-rays once he sees her. You sound more on the ball than your vet so a change is the right thing as you can have no faith in someone who ignores your concerns, pain relief should at least have been given to her even if it was only short term while she became more comfy.

The fact that she is so much better after 48 hours in from the grass really does point to her having problems such as insulin resistance or cushings, these are fairly easy to control once you get a diagnosis and her onto meds.

Nettles are a great idea, my laminitic pony loves them, they are a good tonic.
 
It may still be worth trying her with chopped straw. Sisters mare cannot eat long straw (gets colic) but does very well on honeychop, which is chopped oat straw. This allows her to eat while gaining almost no calories :)
 
Is she a slight framed cob? Her weight doesnt sound excessive but do perservere with the double net small holed nets and let her work it out. I had a lami scare in July and have used a tricklenet ever since always soaked and a muzzle for grazing out and mine has lost so much weight and whilst i was feeling guilty its being cruel to be kind and allowing me to still enjoy my 2 hour rides like today. Good luck.
 
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