Feeding to build up muscle/condition

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gem2buc

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Hi just wondered if anyone has any good feeding tips to build up top line and muscle. I have been gradually bringing on my 4 year old 3/4tb x wb this year and although he is now fairly fit and does a variety of schooling, polework, jumping and hacking 5 x week and regular dressgage and SJ competitions, he is still quite weak along his neck and back and could do with having a little more condition. He is currently fed allen and page 'sustain', naked oats, alfa a, garlic and codlivine. He is quite laid back in temperment. Any other suggestions - what about blue chip balancers, I've heard they can be good for top line development.
 
Horses dont start to develop their muscles until they are 6 years old. All you can do is correct work with adequate good quality protein in the diet.
 
teddyt, how do they cope up till 6 without muscles?!
Budgie, if the horse isn't getting enough protein it can't build muscle regardless of the work!

Baileys No. 4 has always worked for me gem.
 
Fallonio,

Agree about the protein in the diet but in a lot of cases the horse is getting adequate for its age/level of work and owners then give them too much in the vain hope of developing CORRECT topline. Also when Teddyt said develop muscle I am presuming that they meant developing the muscles that are already there not developing them from scratch which would be a silly thought ;-)
 
Agree with Budgie - you need to do the WORK to build up muscle and condition.

Nuff said.........me thinks?
 
I found with my horse who when I got him he looked like a bag of bones that going up and down tons and tons of hills at walk, trot and canter (trot and canter only uphill because he was too unbalanced to go that fast downhill!!) made a huge difference. He also got (and still does) get Hickstead conditioning mix and cubes which has helped too - I think the trick is not to think you can rush these things. It takes a lot of time. Schooling also helps...!!!
 
Personally, I would say thats a lot of work for a 4 year old. He wont be fully developed mentally or physically yet.
 
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Also when Teddyt said develop muscle I am presuming that they meant developing the muscles that are already there not developing them from scratch which would be a silly thought ;-)

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You presumed right!
 
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Horses dont start to develop their muscles until they are 6 years old. All you can do is correct work with adequate good quality protein in the diet.

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Have you seen the Little Cigar's arse??
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Work builds topline, you could feed all the conditioning mix you wanted but would simply end up with a fat horse. alternatively you could feed your horse, work it incorrectly and end up with muscle on the underside of the neck to die for if it was so desired...
if horses didn't start developing their muscle until 6 then it's miraculous that events such as burghley young event horse goes ahead
 
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