Feed reccomendations please - overweight native

[Sarah1986]

Hi,

feed recommendations for an overweight native pony please - ridden about 4/5 times a week.
He lives out, is a good do-er and usually has only grass and hay. Just wanted to give him a 'handful' token gesture of something when he comes in to be ridden alongside his mates on the yard.
Thankyou

 

[be positive]

If he is overweight any feed will be adding to that, if he is good to catch and not used to a feed I would not start giving him one just to make you feel better, he will start to expect it, you are likely to gradually increase the quantity and it will do him more harm than good, if you want to give a reward give him a sugar free polo or a single herbal treat and a pat, I very rarely feed my native ponies even if they are not overweight and they are more than content with receiving praise for the work they do.

 

[SmartieBean09]

You could offerr a bucket of something like Top Chop Zero or Honeychop Lite and Healthy.

 

[southerncomfort]

I wouldn't give anything either TBH.

If you really want to feed something then maybe a pelleted vits & mins supplement or low calorie feed balancer.

 

[teddypops]

I wouldn’t give anything if he doesn’t need it.

 

[orangeversion]

Hi,

feed recommendations for an overweight native pony please - ridden about 4/5 times a week.
He lives out, is a good do-er and usually has only grass and hay. Just wanted to give him a 'handful' token gesture of something when he comes in to be ridden alongside his mates on the yard.
Thankyou

You don't have to feed anything as a handful token gesture to your pony if he doesn't need it. You have said your pony is overweight. So it would harm him more than you think. You can give a pat as a reward. It will do.

 

[Nari]

Why? And unless your grazing is incredibly poor - think wearing his front teeth down - I wouldn't be giving hay either, especially if you aren't soaking it for at least 6 hours. He's fat, you need to reduce calories to less than he's using on a daily basis so more energetic work and less food - it is that simple.

The one thing I would give him if he's on very poor grazing (please tell me he's on very poor grazing) and well soaked hay is a low calorie balancer.

 

[Sarah1986]

You don't have to feed anything as a handful token gesture to your pony if he doesn't need it. You have said your pony is overweight. So it would harm him more than you think. You can give a pat as a reward. It will do.

Thankyou - I think he will just have to be moved out of the way whilst his friends are munching theirs! He is not dramatically overweight and is currently being ridden very little but will he stepping up a gear now and didn't know if he should have something on top of his grass to add. Thanks for your advice.

 

[Sarah1986]

If he is overweight any feed will be adding to that, if he is good to catch and not used to a feed I would not start giving him one just to make you feel better, he will start to expect it, you are likely to gradually increase the quantity and it will do him more harm than good, if you want to give a reward give him a sugar free polo or a single herbal treat and a pat, I very rarely feed my native ponies even if they are not overweight and they are more than content with receiving praise for the work they do.

Thankyou - he is not dramatically overweight but currently ridden very little and will be doing a lot more. He will just have to be moved out of the way whilst his mates are munching theirs.
Thankyou for your helpful advice.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

If you really feel that you must, a haycob or 2 or a pelleted 'balancer' probably won't hurt.

 

[Cortez]

I have horses in work that haven't seen a feed bucket in 10 years. If a horse is fat it needs less food, not more.

 

[Lex2009]

Ballys low calorie balancer is brilliant and it doesn’t make the horse put on weight. I would highly recommend it

 

[Sarah1986]

Thankyou for all your helpful comments. I appreciate your time in answering them.

 

[laura_nash]

A handful of Top Spec anti-lam pellets wouldn't do any harm, that's what I used in a similar situation

 

[TPO]

Equimmins advance is a balanced vitamin and mineral supplement. It comes in powder or pellet/pony nut form.

Feeding the pellets version would be a good way of killing 2 birds with 1 stone.

Horse gets vit/mins and feels like hes getting a feed

 

[Shay]

Does the horse feel like he is geting a feed - or does the human feel better for feeding?

Bring him in and ride him. Don't condition him to expect more unless you have a genuine need to add more.

 

[ecb89]

My ID gets a tiny handful of chaff to carry his supplements. If he wasn’t on any supplements he wouldn’t get anything

 

[Cortez]

My ID gets a tiny handful of chaff to carry his supplements. If he wasn’t on any supplements he wouldn’t get anything

Why is he on supplements?

 

[ecb89]

Why is he on supplements?

He’s on brewers yeast as I believe it helps his scurfy chestnut coat and it’s good for his gut. He is also on magnesium, this is a trial as he went a bit crazy, his behaviour is much better, whether that is due to the magnesium or not I dont know. He is also on electrolytes as he is a sweaty beast

 

[windand rain]

I give my natives 400 grms of ossichaff with vitamins daily as they are on restricted grazing so need a little extra. the two babies are on half rations of suregrow again because they are on restricted grazing partly to slow their weight gain and partly as the whole herd is fat so to keep them all together they need to have individually supplemented feed

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

Forgive me for being severe, but I've just gone through a laminitis scare with my very chubby (as she was!) cob mare.

I think you need to look at the weight situation totally differently. It isn't a case of what you CAN feed, its a case of what you SHOULD feed, if anything.

If this pony is obese, please believe me when I say that this is a serious situation and you need to take action NOW. I'm not over-reacting when I say this.

My mare was radically obese, and started going lame. Vet diagnosed possible changes to the laminae on one of her front legs and said that she was radically obese and had to lose some weight otherwise she would go laminitic, with all the risks and issues involved with that.

He put her on a 1% of bodyweight over 24 hrs regime. It was tough, very tough. So tough that I moved my mare to a friend's yard (who had experience of managing weight loss) to enable the process to happen. She weighed 500k and we had to measure out soaked hay: 5k for the whole 24-hr period, then we divided it up into two portions of 2.5 each, then sub-divided that again into little hay packages which we did up and rolled up in a small haynet, then put into a bigger haynet and hung up every few hours for her to play with in her stable. She could have limited grazing for an hour or two, no more, but only on a pocket-handkerchief sized paddock with what was practically bare earth.

Two months on, she's lost the weight and is much better for it. Sound now! Yes it was hard, but I've got my mare back now!

Please note: this regime should only be undertaken on the advise of a vet.

Sorry to appear harsh, but I've had to learn the hard way that equine obesity is a very real risk. People tried to tell me my horse(s) were obese - and the risks involved in this - but because I was seeing them every day, I just wasn't able to stand back and look at their body-shape objectively.

 

[Red-1]

Mine was doing BS, dressage etc and on only grass and hay. They don't need a feed if they are carrying weight.

I will occasionally give a handful of chaff if they need salts, but, for example, that has been 5 feeds so far this year, on the days we have worked hard in +25 degree heat. She has a salt lick all of the time (not a molassed one).

Soaking the hay is a faff, but it may help. I resume she is on hay as she is in overnight? If out 24/7 I would cut the hay too until the weight stabilises.

I would always separate horses at feed time anyway. Too much risk of kicking.

 

[Cortez]

He’s on brewers yeast as I believe it helps his scurfy chestnut coat and it’s good for his gut. He is also on magnesium, this is a trial as he went a bit crazy, his behaviour is much better, whether that is due to the magnesium or not I dont know. He is also on electrolytes as he is a sweaty beast

Interesting reply: you "believe" and it's a trial. OK.

Electrolytes can seriously screw up the balance if given unnecessarily and are best added to water anyway. Unless you're doing something like endurance or racing in hot weather it's highly unlikely that any normal horse will require added electrolytes.

My vet friends (several of) tell me they have NEVER seen a serious case of vitamin/mineral deficiency in horses, but they have had to put horses down as a result of over supplementation.

If your horse is fat it doesn't need feed, it needs considerably less food and more work.

 

[Nari]

Cortez can you tell me what was over supplemented to mean a horse had to be pts?

 

[Cortez]

Cortez can you tell me what was over supplemented to mean a horse had to be pts?

Selenium in more than one case (contained in a multi vit & mineral supplement), cod liver oil caused liver failure in another.

 

[Nari]

Thank you.

 

[TPO]

Just to counter the "death by supplements" I know of two horses that were pts with a selenium deficiency years (decades!) ago. The soil was tested by the owner of a third ill horse at the same yard, after thr first two were pts, and they started feeding a vit/min supp (with vet advice as it is possible to over supplement selenium) and her horse made a full recovery.