Feeding with lami

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Maxwell83

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Hi,
Need some advice about my daughters pony, hes 10.1 and has been coming back into work for the past three months after being out of action for ninemonths with laminitis. He has had the all clear by the vet and farrier and all is going really well. He currently has an hours turn out with a muzzle on every other day and gets lunged for five mins and then my daughter rides the other days. He has his hay soaked and has 1 1/2 slices morning and night. He is at a perfect weight now and looks really well, but i think if he loses anymore he'll look poor. So i wonder what all you guys with ponies who have had or still got lami are feeding to maintain their weight. Also, i feel he needs a bit more umph when daughter rides as after hes done a few mins trotting with her hes completely jiggered, is there anything i can feed him to help him out a little or is this too risky.
Thanks in advance
 
I'm feeding alfalfa at the moment, used to use happy hoof but changed due to low iron

He's on Alfa A lite, or you could give the unmollassed Alfa A but watch how much you feed as although the sugar is low the oil content is higher, why they couldn't just leave it as unmollassed and not add oil I don't know, I like the option of adding my own if need be. Dengie have told me that thier Alfalfa pellets are good too if you didn't want to feed a chop, or I use Spillers High fibre cubes, I soak them into a mash he loves them
 
In a not to dis-similar position as yourself.

I spoke with my vet about various feed options.

She said to me that normally she wouldn't advocate any type/brand of feed but one of her clients who has had tremendous problems with a lminitic horse started feeding simple systems and it does seem to be extrememly good.

However I am not feeding it as curently the feed regime I ahve smes to be working for us so I am not inlcined to change it.

Back to your questions though...if you feel to much weight is being lossed I would up the amount of hay. For more energy then oil is better than anything else and is far better than adding any type of grain food
 
Well done for getting the little trooper back in work for a start!! :D

As ever, it has to be case dependent - but I have been able to get away with feeding HiFi Lite, Fast Fibre, Fibre Pencils, unmolassed sugar beet and Equilibra, etc over the years, depending on requirements! Of course - not all at once!!!!!

I actually find it easier to increase feeds like this a tad when you need a little more weight or energy, because you know (more or less) exactly what you are adding in to the mix. Two things that would make me think twice before just increasing the hay - firstly and maybe more importantly, feed values of hay can vary wildly and you may actually add in more than you wish for! Secondly, and just to contradict myself :) if you soak your hay for ages like I do, you may not get enough energy from an increase in hay to make it worthwhile!

Final thing I would bare in mind would be that you dont neccessarily have to be afraid of feeding the right type of feeds to a laminitic. There are plenty of laminitics out and about competing, etc -leading a happy healthy life, as long as they are fed sensibly! You sound like you have done an ace job so far, so try one thing at once ( its easier to monitor that way) and I hope he continues to blossom! You may even find that he appreciates the extra nutrition enough to make him sparkle without even needing to feed him much at all! :D
 
I would suggest feeding a balancer (such as Baileys Lo-Cal) which is approved by The Laminitis Trust. We have a little 11 hands mare who is a very good doer and she is fed Baileys Lo-Cal Balancer and does very well on it. :)
 
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