Feeding for energy without weight gain

[Firehorse]

Any ideas pls?

 

[Carlosmum]

Micronised Linseed

 

[Firehorse]

Thx he’s already on that.

 

[Leo Walker]

What sort of horse/pony is it for? Feed will jut turn into weight unless enough work is being done to burn it off. Personally I've always opted for high fat things like rice bran oil products for slow release energy, but then I've also worked the horse hard to keep any silliness to a minimum and keep them super fit.

 

[Firehorse]

He’s a welsh cob type. Lives out 24:7. 9 years old. I hack him 3 times a week a couple of hours each time. Sometimes I stay in the paddock and school for an hour. His weight is good but does drop off easily. He shares with a fat Dartmoor so I hve sectioned the field off and put him in the grass area by day while Dartmoor has very little. At the moment he gets micronised linseed. A large scoop of happy hoof chaff and a section or two of hay in the evening when he goes back into the main paddock.

 

[Bob notacob]

How fat is he ?Every welsh cob I know puts on weight merely by seeing a bag of feed ,let alone micronised linseed. If you want energy (activity) excersise is the way forward. Short bursts of cardiovascular stuff with a walk in between.A hay balancer is a great idea.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

I would suggest rather than feeding, you get him fit, 6 hrs work per week isn't enough to do that.

 

[Leo Walker]

If he drops off over winter you could look at starting to feed small amounts of feed now, upping it as the weather draws in. I have used build and glo and Keyflows rice bran oil product for my HW cob who needed calories but went loopy with starch and sugar. Lot of people rate ERS pellets so thats another option to look at. You could replace it with grass chaff or nuts and then look to add oats for energy and calories if you wanted to avoid overly processed feeds. I'd drop the happy hoof regardless. Its got no nutritional value at all really.

 

[JillA]

Carbs for energy, generally speaking but carbs are mostly sugars so can he tolerate sugars (as in not laminitic, prone to ulcers or sweetitch to name but a few)? And if you feed carbs as cereals you do need to be prepared to use up that energy by work or you will get the metabolic issues above.

 

[Firehorse]

I would suggest rather than feeding, you get him fit, 6 hrs work per week isn't enough to do that.

Sadly I hve to work full time and that’s all the time I hve available for riding.

 

[Firehorse]

How fat is he ?Every welsh cob I know puts on weight merely by seeing a bag of feed ,let alone micronised linseed. If you want energy (activity) excersise is the way forward. Short bursts of cardiovascular stuff with a walk in between.A hay balancer is a great idea.

He’s not fat at all. And drops off quite quickly with changes in weather or grazing.

 

[SEL]

Grass pellets before you ride might be worth a try.

 

[sashawonderpony]

Any ideas pls?

Fast fibre, lots of fibre lots of energy minimal sugar and cheap

 

[KautoStar1]

More work. He doesn't have much energy because he's not fit. If you only have 6 hours, maybe look at how you use those 6 hours. If its just slopping along on a long rein in walk then that's not going to help with fitness. Incorporate hill work, trotting and cantering where you can. Lunge, school work to include lateral work, short bursts of work to get his heart rate up. Fitness is key to energy. You can't feed energy into them. You get them fit and then feed accordingly.

 

[ester]

welsh cob owner here, more work, less grass, more oats (do also feed linseed),

He never put on any weight eating oats as he put more effort into his work. The work was always increased first though and he never looked in anyway poor as a result but after a few years I did find that feeding him for the work he was doing made for a much nicer experience for both of us. He spent all his working life being worked 6 days a week with plenty of fast work (moving somewhere with hills was revolutionary ) even when I was working full time+ a couple of evenings as I figured that was what I had signed up for buying a native (who was very fat when purchased having had 4 weeks of light work).