Feeding on a diet?

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Ranyhyn

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Ed is three weeks into his diet, after his bout of suspected lami (though my farrier thinks he never had it) vet said he may have had low grade lami - so we're erring on the side of caution and getting him looking sublimely svelte again!

He is fed two full nets of soaked (12hrs) hay twice a day. Now that I am able to ride I am concerned its not giving him the energy he needs (he's lacklustre and behind the leg, which he usually isnt) so I have been feeding him two handfuls of safe and sound to try and give him a little lift.

Do you think this is ok and is there anything I can safely give him ,like perhaps oils, to help him retain energy but not calories?

Or will his soaked hay provide him with what he needs and am I being soft? lol

Kitty
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How much exercise is he getting? Does he feel lazy to ride?

Tbh, if he's just a little flat in his work then I wouldn't change his feed; he needs to get the weight off more than he needs more oomph (I assume?) so I'd carry on with his diet until he's slim again and then moderately increase from there, as appropriate.

You might want to have him on a basic vit+min supplement, to help his feet recover (the healing will be helped by the correct nutrients).

PS, She-ra rocks.
 
He is back into his normal workload, say 30mins schooling/30mins jumping/1hr hack in walk (if roadwork)/1hr hack inc walk trot and fast canter.

He just feels lazy, but then I would too if I were a little overweight lol I guess he needs to switch into work mode rather than slop mode!

And yes, she does rock lol x
 
Sounds as if he probably needs to loose a touch more, although I would say - are you sure 2 handfuls of safe & sound is providing the required nutrients. If he were mine I'd probably swap that to the reccomended amount of TopSpec AntiLam.
 
I'm not sure at all, well in fact lets face it with zero nutrition hay he's not going to be getting what he needs - is blue chip lami light the same principle?

Kitty
 
There is no such thing as energy for work but not for weight gain. Basically, if the horse gets more energy (calories) from its diet than it is using for living and exercise then it will put on weight. If it uses up more energy for living and exercise than it is getting then it will lose weight.

Having said that, energy is released from different feeds at different rates. Energy from cereals (starch) is released quicker following digestion than energy from fibre and oils. With a laminitic/laminitis prone horse you should avoid starch and sugar and the diet should be fibre and oil based, which will provide slow release energy.

2 handfuls of safe and sound will do very little! The unusual lack of forward movement may be due to being overweight but it is also worth considering if the horse may be feeling a bit uncomfortable on his feet still, so is reluctant to work forwards. Unfortunately, if your horse needs to lose weight it is not adviseable to feed more energy/calories to try and get more oomph because it is very likely the horse will not lose weight, or may even gain it. Laminitis is an illness and as such it is a good idea to feed a broad spectrum vit/min supplement so the horse has eveything it needs to recover. In fact it is thought laminitics have a higher requirement for vits/mins than healthy horses.

You either need to feed the recomended amount of safe and sound or feed an additional source of vits/mins from a supplement or balancer. Supplements are much cheaper than balancers !
 
I would recommend a good all round vit/min supplement rather than feed as such. Loosing weight will help the energy situation too.
 
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I'm not sure at all, well in fact lets face it with zero nutrition hay he's not going to be getting what he needs - is blue chip lami light the same principle?

Kitty

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I,m really not sure what you mean by zero nutrition hay. Many years ago I used to look after a connemara called Pluto.Plutos CV would have read Racehorse trainers wifes hack(sacked for thugish behaviour),Training horse for apprentice jockeys(sacked for putting too many in hospital),Lead horse for yearlings(sacked for teaching them too many bad tricks),Mikes pony club horse,long distance hacking, tetrathlons and hunting , to order,retained post for 5 yeARS UNTIL THE UNGRATEFUL b+++++++ BOUGHT HIS OWN HORSE.
Pluto did this all on hay (the leavings and tail ends of racehorse hay admittedly)He was given no hard feed or supliments ,only the feed room sweepings(I tried to be as messy as possible).Pluto basicly worked a three hour day,and the standing joke was that he was the fittest horse in the yard.
Please excuse my ramblings but it does sometimes depress me reading what people THINK a horse needs.
 
The more weight he looses and the fitter he gets, the more omph he will get back.

When my large horse lost 95 kg, he thought he was a race horse!

Keep as you are doing and perhaps add in a general purpose supplement at half dose as he is already on safe and sound and getting some vits/mins.

Seems like you are doing fine. Its a long hard battle to get a fatty to a slimmy. It feels like a up hill struggle, but it is worth it.

Hang in there.
 
I would say you are doing fine and the omph will come back as the weight comes off. Try adding a vit/min supplement and see if that chnages anything. Might also be worth you ringing the laminitis trust and having a chat
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I'm not sure at all, well in fact lets face it with zero nutrition hay he's not going to be getting what he needs - is blue chip lami light the same principle?

Kitty

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I,m really not sure what you mean by zero nutrition hay.

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I think the point was that having soaked the hay for 12 hours, most of the nutrients have been leached out (the recommended way to feed laminitics these days is ad-lib well-soaked hay - it did wonders for my fat mare's diet!)

Sorry I don't have much to add to the above though, regarding the original question!
 
Thanks S, you said what i was just about to! The hay is next to zero nutrition as its being soaked for 12 hours plus, I am well aware that hay is not zero nutrition as my horse GOT fat from hay and no hard feed!

Ok so we reckon hang in there for a few more weeks and see if a little pizazz comes back? He is still capable of doing everything he needs to, I was just worried his stuffyness was down to the fact the hay wasn't giving him anything good to work with!

I am very happy to do nothing and just feed a supplement for a few weeks and see how we go, he is already showing a difference which I am pleased about!
 
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Sounds as if he probably needs to loose a touch more, although I would say - are you sure 2 handfuls of safe & sound is providing the required nutrients. If he were mine I'd probably swap that to the reccomended amount of TopSpec AntiLam.

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This is exactly what I was going to say & recommend.
 
I'm hardly the best one to offer advice, I've got a revovering lami at the moment too, and I'm trying to peel some weight off her while box resting.

However, when I contacted Laminitis Clinic their advice never included ad lib soaked hay. They recommended very small amounts of hay (in my 530kg horse, they recommend 1.75% of bodyweight in total feed, so she's getting about 7kg of hay per day) and 2 kg of chaff/speedi beet combined per day. I told them I was giving TopSpec AntiLam, they advised coming OFF that and going on to Formula 4 Feet as its' got all the micronutrients you'll need.

Re being lackluster just now -- if your horse is fully recovered, it may still take some time to regain original fitness and energy. I reckon that when my mare comes back in to work, she's going to find it a real struggle to come back to fitness - I will expect it'll be like starting from scratch, despite the fact that she's less weight. I can only say that from personal experience (I used to do a lot of weight training on myself, with help from a professional trainer) that even one week off would set me back at least two weeks. So for my horse, I can only expect 5/6 weeks of box rest that she's going to take at least 10 or 12 weeks of build up time.
 
Re is TopSpec Antilam the same as BlueChip Lami lite - in theory yes, but they do affect horses differently. Mine are on TopSpec as BlueChip sends my mare absolulty bonkers.

You can just feed a vit & min supplement, but then you have to find soemthing to mix it in that the horse will eat - mine will eat TopSpec balancer alone without anything added.
 
While I shall be happy to be proved wrong,I dont think soaking the hay removes very much ,except for some soluble sugars(Linked with laminitis admittedly).And even then this would depend greatly on the grass species and the method of haymaking.
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