Feeding advice please - trickle net

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margaretb

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Poppy is a 14.1 welsh cob x traditional cob. She is an extremely good doer and currently is off all grass recovering from laminitis. She is overweight, weigh taped at 550kg. For the past three weeks she has been on a diet of 1.4% of her body weight (7.7kg/day) and I am giving her a feed of 0.6kg safe and sound am and pm, and a net of hay 6lb am at 7 am and 8 lb pm, around 6 pm, and I can see an improvement in her appearance. I bought a trickle net to help the hay last longer; I have just been out (9pm) and she has finished the trickle net!! TBH as I work I didn't know what time she finishes the net during the day! But I thought it would last more than three hours!! If I feed her around 9 pm she is going to be without for longer during the day, although I could split the am ration and get oh to give it to her mid day!!
She doesn't appear to be suffering so to speak but it can't be doing her any good being without anything for such a long period surely!! I thought the trickle net would make the hay last longer!!
 
I have a trickle net and although it is definitely better than a regular net, my lad has dexterous lips and gets through it relatively quickly. Next idea is to try a simple systems timothy brick in the trickle net, just to make sure he has something to keep him busy. However I don't know if it will work as I haven't tried it yet! My lad was about a quarter through his trickle net in around an hour this evening.
 
Why don't you get some oat straw and feed it along side the hay if you can't get good baled oat straw get some honeychop plain chopped oat straw which is what I use for my fatty so he always got something to nibble on its made a big difference to him.
He does not love it but eats it if he needs to.
 
I use straw mixed in my net I feed a 4kg net 3kg is hay and 1kg is straw. He eats the hay within 2 hours but then picks on the straw as and when during the night. I don't use a trickle net but have popped up in the night to see what he does with his nets
 
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