Feeding an ulcer horse - not what you're expecting...

weob

weob

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Hi guys, thought I'd put this in competition as it has a greater throughput than the feeding forum.

Right, my question is, how do you get weight off a horse that has suffered with ulcers and is also quite an allergic horse?

He stopped eating completely last year (unheard of for him, he lives to eat) so we had him scoped to try and find out why. He did have ulcers, some grade 4 and some grade 1 but the vet wasn't sure if they caused him to stop eating or they happened because he'd stopped eating.
He had a course of Gastroguard and was turned off for 10 months as he had lost so much weight.

Fast forward to this year, he's been back in work since April and is back to his usual self of trying to eat as much as possible and is looking in "show condition" and I need to get weight off him!

His current regime is: double netted soaked hay in the morning and at tea time (about one and a half pleats of a small bale at each feed) and about two soaked pleats in a trickle net overnight. He has it soaked to (a) get rid if the sugars (b) he coughs if it isn't soaked. He has a handful of hi-fi lite before work (dampened because otherwise he coughs). He is quite a lazy horse so he has baileys topline cubes to try and increase his energy levels but not fed at the recommended rates so has lo-cal to give him all the vitamins and minerals and a handful of hi-fi in it to try and slow his eating down. He has a lot of vegetable oil aswell for slow release energy.

He immediately gets lymphangitis if fed oats or any kind of haylage. He has quite bad sweet-itch and is quite allergic to grass pollens. (Eg on a hot day he'd sweated quite a bit so I washed him off and let him have a roll with no rug on, the next day he was covered in hives!)
He doesn't really like being turned out because of the irritation caused by his itching from sweet-itch/allergies and actually prefers to stay in (his stable is 18x20 foot and very airy).

His workload is schooling twice a week, hacking 2/3 times a week, jumping once a week and canter work once a week, ground permitting. On days off he gets grazed in hand as he won't settle in the field.

So, how would you get weight off him, whilst maintaining his energy levels but not affecting/causing ulcers?
Any help or ideas much appreciated. Thanks.
 
How about something like A&P Power and Performance or Spillers Instant Response energy mix?

Princess Sparkle on here has had good results with Slobbermash I think? How about red cell/propel plus?

I would try ringing feed companies tbh.
 
Been there done this got the tee shirt .
The only answer is work .
Twice a day if possible .
It's hard work I have had two ulcery fatties it is extremely difficult to manage, the only answer I found was more exercise .
Once you get them slim it's easier to keep their energy levels up.
I did lots of different types of work to try to keep them interested .
 
Have the ulcers healed?

Cereals should be avoided with his ulcers as I am sure you are aware...

Re the baileys topline and low cal, neither will be doing you great favours in the waistline dept and from the way you said 'try to give him more energy' I assume you don't have much success in this department either!! I would cut the two out and feed him a mollasses free chaff / fast fibre with a powder supplement added for all his vits and mins. Much less callorific than balancers etc. re the laziness issue, could it be that his ulcers are still a problem and he is far too polite to tell you so? is he fed a supplement to heklp his digestive problems? re the oil, you're better off feeding him a mug of micronised linseed for slow release energy than 'lots of' vegetable oil.

A&P Power and Performance is meant to be good but it does contain cereals. Might be worth caling / emailing them for advice - I found them very helpful when I emailed them last week.
 
As you are doing I would double-net soaked hay - how long are you soaking for?

WRT to hard feed, I would scrap the balancer and cubes and instead go for a broad-spectrum powdered supplement given in a handful of low cal chaff or fast fibre. I would recommend speaking to Sarah at Forage Plus as they do balanced minerals and they say this can also help with sweet itch.

Then work twice a day as already mentioned. It might help you to work out a fitness plan so that you are doing a bit more each day and that way don't lose track of how much you're doing.

I personally would not feed a conditioning or energy feed to a horse that needs to lose weight. If you get the fitness levels up the energy levels should increase. If they don't then I'd want to have a chat with the vet about that.

Echo micronised linseed also, and this too is good for ulcers.
 
I'm with the crowd - more work, less fat. You'd be surprised how little work it takes to start to see a difference.

When you say he 'lacks energy' what do you mean? If it's simply that he doesn't put out then that's something that comes from training, not out of a bag. Even if he does feel more like working when he's getting buzzier food, too bad, he'll just have to lump it until the weight loss makes him feel perkier. :)
 
Thanks for the replies!
Think I'm going to have to totally review his feeding and get phoning around the feed companies....

With regards to micronized linseed, is Charnwood Milling the best place to get it from?

Will also be stricter with his exercise and tell him to man up and get on with it! ~
toddles off to find both schooling whips and sharper spurs ~

Thanks all.
 
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