Feeding A Fatty??

3Beasties

3Beasties

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<font color="purple"> Millie My Section A is prone to putting on weight so just wondering what feed /quantities I should feed her.

She has a hunter clip, is well rugged, in at night and on OK'ish Grazing in the day.

At the Moment I have got Hi-Fi Lite for her and was going to mix i with some QuickBeet. Does this sound about right? How much should I give her? She will be getting two feeds a day.

Also I usually only give her a slice of Haylage at night but am worried she will eat her straw bed (last year she was on shavings so this wasn't a problem), should I give her more Haylage? </font>
 
I feed my little fatty hi fi lite and quarter scoop of pony nuts once a day, she does live out though. Wouldn't you be better off with hay and soak the sugars out of it?.
 
give her more haylage, haylage is fibre and roughage. i give my horses like 4/5 slices of haylage a night, but mine are 16.2.
hi-fi lites fine, that or happy hoof, which can be fed as a complete feed.
i always find speedibeet and other sugarbeets kind of pointless.
i just try and keep mine as natural as possible.
lots of haylage/hay and fibre!

hope this helps a bit.
 
Hifi lite is fine - you probably don't even need the beet unless she doesn't eat the hifi on its own. Does she have to be on haylage, because if you fed soaked hay, she could have that adlib so she has something to snack on. Unless she pigs herself on her bed, eating straw won't do her any harm if she just picks at it.
 
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could you give her meadow hay instead of haylege?

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<font color="purple"> I would rather give her Hay but find it hard to get good quality, plus I have to buy Haylage for Charlie as he coughs on anything else. I may speak to farmer I get my straw from and see if he has any small bales of hay. </font>
 
We have Native ponies only which are shown under saddle. A native is perfectly capable of not needing any hard feed thru the winter ...ours get ad-lib hay and a small feed inc a balancer so we know they getting all their vits and mins..ours do very well on this and they are in show condition we compete at Hoys &amp; Rihs level so they have to look right.

If you can get hay dont worry about the quality as much for a native especially one who prone to Lami or a good doer...if you soak it you can give much more so they have something to munch on when they are in. We fed haylage last year as couldnt get regular supply of hay and had terrible problems trying to keep the weight off them!

You dont even need to feed a balancer a small feed of hi-fi Lite with a Vit and Min supplement would be fine.

They also do well on Oat Straw mixed with some hay
 
Ours get a balancer to make sure they get their bits, but other than that no hard feed (unbless start riding 'every' day). I wouldn't worry about quality of hay as is a Native - we've found that too high a quality has a detrimental effect on our two and a half Natives. The biggies have soaked hay to keep down breathing probs. If we have very good quality hay we have to soak for the laminitic pone *the half Native), which makes it a waste anyway.

How much work is your pone in? Have you used a weight tape on him? Good idea to measure every couple of weeeks or so: we don't any more due to having had them for a while and knowing how they respond to work and feed, etc.

Ring some of the feed manufacturers, they are pretty helpful. I had one talking to the vet one day as they discussed molasses and laminitics.
 
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Hifi lite is fine - you probably don't even need the beet unless she doesn't eat the hifi on its own.

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<font color="purple"> She won't eat it on it's own, as I have to soak some beet for Charlie I thought I may as well mix some with Millie's feed, she doesn't get very much, most of it is just the liquid as I make it very sloppy.

How Much HiFi would you feed?</font>
 
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How much work is your pone in?

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<font color="purple"> She has only Just come home today (been up at the were I work for a couple of Months and hasn't had an awful lot done with her) but I will try and work her 4 times a week. This will consist of lunging, leading from charlie, and hopefully (if I'm brave enough
crazy.gif
) I will start driving her again. </font>
 
Our Sec A gets half a round feed scoop of Hi Fi Lite along with his balancer which is 1/2 a coffee cup..we dont feed sugar beet. D&amp;H Safe and Sound very good if you want to give them something so you can feed a vit and min supp, you can feed it at the higher amount so they getting everything they need without the extra supp if u prefer. I have one on it and he refused to eat Hi Fi Lite but likes safe and sound as it has nuts in which he loves as they are banned for him as he has had lami and other problems in the past
 
my horse was fit as a fiddle when i got him, but when i started to put him out to grass he piled on sooooooo much weight and now hes more like an elephant than a horse lol
&lt;&lt; i no its not funny im actually worried i really need to get the weight off him

at the minute hes in and all he is getting is hay morning and night, i still cant get the weight off him

ive got some dengie good doer for him but i dont want to use it until he looses quite a bit of weight.

im not lucky enough to have a sand arena or horse box so winter is a really a sickner for me because i cant do anything with him so hes not getting enough exercise to burn off his fat.

anyone any tips for me?
 
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my horse was fit as a fiddle when i got him, but when i started to put him out to grass he piled on sooooooo much weight and now hes more like an elephant than a horse lol
&lt;&lt; i no its not funny im actually worried i really need to get the weight off him

at the minute hes in and all he is getting is hay morning and night, i still cant get the weight off him

ive got some dengie good doer for him but i dont want to use it until he looses quite a bit of weight.

im not lucky enough to have a sand arena or horse box so winter is a really a sickner for me because i cant do anything with him so hes not getting enough exercise to burn off his fat.

anyone any tips for me?

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<font color="purple"> You could try a grazing mask, they work wonders!</font>
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the fields are too wet at the min to lunge him or id be riding him in them!

as for the grazing mask, i tried that when he was out during the summer, right enough it did work, the weight came off him (not a lot but it did) but it also cut the face of him so i thought it was 2 evil to have it on
 
Try another grazing muzzle and/or put padding on to protect his face. That has to be a better solution than laminitis I would have thought... I've seen two horses come down with lami in the last week, both of whom are fit, regularly exercised and not overweight. Which is worrying me to death as one of ours in particular is always hefty, it's a constant battle.

The other thing is to soak your haylage for a few hours to get rid of the sugars. One slice of haylage a night is not enough to keep the hindgut moving and could ultimately cause more problems long term. You need to feed it ad lib but only if it has been liberally soaked first.

Good luck with this, sometimes you do have to be cruel to be kind. Don't over rug either, moving around will help to keep your horse warm.
 
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