For those with retired horses/horses in light work

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chaps89

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How do you keep them looking slim?!
Welsh D, out during the day on reasonable grazing, not a starvation paddock but definitely not luscious grazing.
2 small feeds a day of just plain chaff & small handful of nuts so he can have his bute/supplements, gets 3 pads soaked hay a night in a small holed haylage net. In a lightweight rug currently.
But since I've stopped riding him (he only goes out once or twice a week now) he's getting on the larger side and all that's changed is he's not being ridden as much, and it's obviously effecting him, fat pony!
Any ideas? Is there anything I can do to reduce the weight as I'm sure not all retired horses are roly poly puddings!? (Not that he's this bad at all but I don't want him heading in that direction)
 
No advice, we had this problem with our retired pony for a while.

Only helped by restricted grazing and not over rugging (so she burned off the calories keeping warm).

She is 35 now, and doesn't have many teeth left, so we now have the opposite problem.
 
at the moment I have 3 that arent ridden (not retired) 2 of them are pigs and will stuff themselves silly, they are also currently unrugged, the other i dont know yet as ive only had her 3 weeks.

I muzzle my welsh d as she suffers with laminitis and this does manage to keep her weight at bay. The other (IDxTB) is also a good doer. I strip graze my and let my poorer doers eat the grass off then let the welsh and IDxTB onto that part of the field, then they follow the others round.
 
Just PM'd you back, you could have written this about my horse!

Could you muzzle him? I will definitely have to do this with Angel in the summer, she's only a light hack and won't stand up to being ridden regularly because of her tendon injury. I also bought a haynet with tiny holes in it earlier this summer, its called a Wee Pony haynet and is bright orange. They definitely slow her down a bit. I think muzzling and restricted grazing is the only way, especially in summer.
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We followed the 'pasture paradise' method. Put electric fencing on the inside of the paddock so they have a narrow strip right round the edge. Water at one end and hay dotted round (if they need it) but it keeps them moving and walking round all day. If you want then you could let them graze in the middle for an hour or so
 
I have 2 non ridden native companions - very good dooers, one 21 yo who is only ridden 2 - 3 times per week and one over weight cob who is ridden by my daughter 4-5 times a week. The non ridden companions have just chaff with a feed balancer, hay, they live out wiith no rugs and very restricted grazing. They are now having hay as there is virtualy no grass. The other two have very lighweight rugs on just to keep them dry. They have chaff, sugarbeet and feed balancer along with hay, they also live out.

I would recomend you cut out the nuts and restrict the grazing and or take the rug off.
 
I would suggest Spillers Happy Hoof, it has some small nuts in it and some garlic I think, I use this as a base feed, then I add/increase depending on grass Spillers High Fibre cubes, my horse also has to have supplements, he is a fussy boy, but seems to enjoy this, in the winter I also give him speedybeet, but that depends on if he gets silly on it, although it may just be because they are kept in more in the winter, that or a combination of everything, he is 31 in January but thinks he is 3
 
Will do a general reply if ok.

I can't un-retire him as he's only in light work due to arthritis- the vet has said it's better for him to keep moving and he enjoy's going out but definitely feels it hence why he only gets ridden once or twice weekly.
Muzzles are a no go, doesn't matter how tight you do it up he can get his nose out of them! And the grass really isn't long enough to warrant a muzzle anyway.
Also his field is small (sectioned off with leccy tape already) so reducing his area isn't really an option otherwise he churns it up. Not heard of the paradise pasture method before- sounds like a good idea. If the other half of his field wasn't long grass I would try that!
Can't let him get cold as he is a miserable bu@@er if you under-rug him, but equally he's definitely not over-rugged atm (no shelter in the field hence why he's rugged) and feels on the cold side of just right in his no fill rain sheet and stable rugs.
Also reluctant to change his diet- he's on Simple Systems so there's no molasses etc, and it's reduced his cribbing to virtually non-existent.

Ho-hum, he's not porky by any means, I just don't want him to get that way- even tho he's never had lami, don't want to chance it now! I might try and reduce how much hay he gets at night- he doesn't like it anyway as we don't give the rich stuff so he turns his nose up at it (snob!
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) but can't see it would make much difference?
 
If he's out 24/7 I'd stop giving him the hay and night and re-introduce it when he's looking a better weight.
My retired chap has come through this Autumn extremely well so he's no having hay or hard feed as yet.
 
He comes in at night hence the hay- our mare is on box rest so he stresses being out on his own after dark (we rent our land/stables so it's just us. And getting a companion isn't really an option). Nuts wise he only gets a small handful for variety, definitely no hard feed as such.
 
I do sympathise, I have a semi-retired 17yo native type with Bone Spavin who could eat for England.. However, I'm guessing my grazing is poorer than yours and though mine now has a pot belly but virtually no topline due to the lack of exercise my vet said he looks fine and as expected, no excess fat on his neck, shoulders or bum.

Is there any chance at all he could be out 24/7, how much longer is your mare on box-rest - it would be good for his arthritis and he would burn up fat keeping warm? If not the only thing I can think of is the pen described earlier where he would have to walk around more?
 
take him off grazing to as poor/ none existant as you can find and give hay instead. you can try soaking it for upto 12hours too if you have time/facilities.
i would also cut out the nuts and give something like low cal with the chaff instead to up the minerals and vits.

my 19year old is the same!
its often easier in summer as the field can cope with being bare!
 
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