Following on from horses weight thread

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kal40

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I was thinking of asking for advice today anyway but that thread prompted me into action.

My cob is looking far too well after the winter. He thrives on fresh air. I'm tearing my hair out as to what to do and TBH getting a little peeved at people telling me he needs to drop a few pounds.

So.... roughly, those of you who have 15.2 cobs, how much do they weigh (I know builds are different but I just want a general idea).

Also, any advice on how to speed the weight loss up.

He is in a paddock. Grass is poor anyway, sparse. Turned out from 8am until about 5.30pm. Ridden about 1.5/2 hours 5 times a week. Until last week he was getting 1/2 scoop of No Molasses chaff and 1 cup of Baileys low Cal balancer and 3 carrots. He was clipped out during the winter, summer coat nearly all in but I keep a light weight rug on him to keep him clean. He get 5 kgs of haylage at nights (its really dry haylage, almost hay).

Any advice welcome - I know how important it is to get this weight off.
 
Mine is a TB so a bit different but she expands like a cob :rolleyes:
She is on a new strict diet, she is on 1 scoop of Dengi Hifi Good doer (has less in than the lite) once a day for supplements, Hay she has 2 large sections (to be honest isn't much more than you would feed a 14hh pony but its for her own good so try not to feel bad) which is soaked for 12 hours and double netted (this has helped a HUGE amount) Being soaked and double netted means it takes her longer to eat! She also really likes it soaked strangely enough :confused:

She has also gone from a straw bed to a shavings bed. People say Straw has no calories in and she was eating loads of her bed but I wasn;t too concerned as it "has no calories" (just a gutsy kind of horse who eats anything) since being on shavings her weight has dropped loads!! So I beg to differ :o

You feel mean at first but mine has ringbone so her weight needs to stay down other wise it would unnessesary weight on her joints- I chose her being a little hungry over being in pain :)
She is also fantastic to ride now as she has so much more energy :) If she starts to get big when summer gets here she will be in during the day and out at night!

Good luck :D
 
My mare is 14.3 and she weighs approx 510kg (weigh taped her today). She's on a little corner of paddock, its almost bare and only 1/2 an acre. She has half of a loosely packed haynet soaked, just a token amount, so she doesn't starve and break through the fence to get to the nice grass! She literally lives on fresh air. She wintered on grass only, with a smidgen of fast fibre daily to get a joint supplement down her. Since it has warmed up recently, shes out naked (was clipped end of Nov., so coat is quite thick. I've found her sweating on a few mornings now, so am going to give her a tiny bib and belly clip - her guard hairs on her tummy make her look like she's in foal they're so long!)
Exercise wise, we hack 3 times a week, 1-2 hours, mostly walk and trot with 2 decent canter stretches. I'm going to add to this, a 2 hour hack to the beach to trot in the softer sand and add some gallop work to really make her work harder. When the fields dry up, I'm going to swap one of the shorter hacks for some schooling/jumping in the field (I don't have a school).
x
 
Don't feed him, apart from the balancer - and certainly no carrots. And increase the faster type work you do with him.

So lots of trotting, and cantering - i.e interval training type work.
 
Rug off, swap the haylege for hay and soak it :)

My (Welsh) cob was conditioned scored perfect 3 by Spillers weighing 556kg (510kg on a tape). He's currently 490kg on the tape but out of work so I wanted him a bit leaner.
 
Agree with AmyMay. If grass is poor or you can muzzle him it may help to leave him out for longer for more exercise. I have a 14.3 cob x tb who is narrower than the average cob so this may not help you much but she weigh tapes at 415 she is about right but probably close to the good side.
 
Thanks for the responses folks.

I'll cut the chaff and carrots out amymay and up the work. We have had a hell of a lot of rain over the past week so the ground is a bit better. It was like concrete for most of March.

We have a school at the farm so I'll get some extra work in on the lunge too.

Rug off too xRobyn - can I ask how you managed to get your welshie down 20kg?

I'll make his paddock a bit smaller and go back to double netting haylage.

He is already on shavings baker so I can't swap that. I would hate to think what he would be like if he had access to straw!

After a really dry spell we are having serious April showers and his paddock is bogging, once the weather dries out a bit I will be turning out 24/7 Cocorules, our grass is poor which is a small mercy.
 
kal40 said:
We have a school at the farm so I'll get some extra work in on the lunge too.
Click to expand...

If the horse is doing as much work as you say - then you don't need to give him extra (not sure what lunging will contribute tbh), you just need to improve the type of work you do.

In order to loose weight it has to be aerobic - the heart and lungs need to be pumping. So make the work you do do count.
 
I have just started my cob on a diet, as his small paddock has suddenly gone very green and lush with all the rain showers and warm sun. He is now in at night with 4kg of well soaked hay
split into two double netted hay-nets. He has no other feed. Hopefully we'll see an improvement soon.
 
amymay said:
If the horse is doing as much work as you say - then you don't need to give him extra (not sure what lunging will contribute tbh), you just need to improve the type of work you do.

In order to loose weight it has to be aerobic - the heart and lungs need to be pumping. So make the work you do do count.
Click to expand...

I am limited physically as to how much hard/fast work I can do (me personally) so I could probably get more out of his exercise if I did the odd lunge session here and there.
 
Ah I know just how you feel!! My porky boy was huge when I bought him despite living on very poor grazing!
When I was competing him I gave him Bailey's Lo-cal thinking I was doing the right thing by his vits and mins but I found that as soon as he was doing less work he started to put weight on. I am utterly convinced that Lo-cal isn't as Lo-cal as you'd think! I switched my boy to Dengie Lite and a powdered vit and min supplement like NAF General Purpose Supplement. This meant I knew he was getting vits and mins and there was nothing else!
This combined with some longer spells of steady trot on our hacks meant the weight dropped off. I also had him on less hay and small-holed double nets to slow him down.

Good luck! Lets have a pic now and maybe another when the crash diet is over!! Lol
 
Mines a 15.1 HW traditional that weightapes at 600kg at the moment. Same as yours, he has a cup of Bailey's lo cal and a scoop of plain chaff, split over 2 feeds. He's out 24/7 at the moment in a 5 acre field, shared with 2 warmbloods. Between them, at night, they have 12 kg of hay (probably mostly eaten by the biggest WB who is the boss). Markie's about right, weight wise, although he's now upping his canter work to burn fat and hill trotting to build muscle.
Like Amymay said, it's not the amount of work, it's the type of work. I've always gone by walk and trot to build fitness, and canter work to burn fat. I've got arthiritis, and can't manage sustained periods of fast work, so, have a friend who's more than happy to take him for long canters a few times a week.
 
Mine is a 15.2 heavy weight and weighes 608kg. He was a lot heavier when I came as he was just kept in and fed. It's coming down nice and slowly and his fitness is impoving. He is only out about 6 hours and hacked most days and farm rides. He is fed haylage in a trickle net and has baileys lo cal.
 
kal40 said:
Rug off too xRobyn - can I ask how you managed to get your welshie down 20kg?
Click to expand...

Minimal rugging and through winter he was fed rough hay and straw (mixed), approx 10-12kg a day (on box rest). Feed consisted of a plastic pint glass scoop of high fibre cubes and NAF general supplement and nothing else! Now it's warmed up he's rugless and getting less hay. I'd love to feed ad lib, but have to weight up the balance of ad lib food vs obesity. He was over 700kg at one time on the weigh tape, looked like this today;

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.ne...6260497327_633522326_9921333_1480513812_n.jpg

ETA this was him in January https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.ne...74289592327_633522326_9337863_482241381_n.jpg

Been on box rest for 2 months, been out of work for 6 hence the lack of muscle!
 
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