Getting Saffe into shape - help

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Lill

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Got Saffe at the end of January as a WB/TB 14yo bay mare who had had a few months off work (had previously been hunted) who had rainscald.
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Wormed her, weight fell off her
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and you could see her ribs within a few days,
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almost 2 months down the line she is still pretty skinny, but her rainscald is VERY nearly gone, just a few scabs left now.
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I was riding her twice a week for the first 3/4 weeks but have given her the last 3/4 off as i was hoping she'd gain some weight and get rid of the rainscald.
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She comes in at night and is fed as much hay as she can eat (big bale in the field too) and gets 2 feeds a day with, large scoop of alfa oil, small scoop speedibeet, small scoop calm and condition, medium scoop of pony nuts and build up mix.

She has put on a little but not much.
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Will start working her again as from next week, will be both days at the weekends, and 3-4 evenings a week.

What is the best kind of work to help build her muscles up again?
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Lots of slow hacking work including hill work wherever possible to help improve her muscles. Do this for the first two weeks (start off with a half an hour walk and progress to an hour) and then introduce some short bursts of trot.

Hope this helps
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Lots of slow hacking work including hill work wherever possible to help improve her muscles. Do this for the first two weeks (start off with a half an hour walk and progress to an hour) and then introduce some short bursts of trot.

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Yep, absolutely agree with this.

It would also be interesting to look at your feeding regime. I'm not a fan of mixing different type of feeds together ( as you're doing with the calm and condition, pony nuts and build up mix) - and it would appear that what you're feeding at the moment is not working.

Have you thought about simplifying the whole thing? Feeding her a fibre based diet - so something like Hi Fibre Cubes, Alfa A, Sugar Beet - split in to three feeds a day - or even four if possible.
 
Well we've only added the build up mix and the pony nuts recently as the other feed wasn't making too much difference.

Can only feed her twice a day unfortunately
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The thing is, feeds like Build Up are designed to be fed as the main feedstuff (along side hay) rather than just adding a bit to the existing feed. The simplest thing would be to feed the recommended amount of Build Up (or a similar conditioning feed) with Alfa A Oil as the chaff. Ring Dodson & Horrell for advice of how much she needs for her size and workload.

As she only gets two feeds a day, you need to make sure the food she gets is quite high calorie, so feeding pony nuts is a bit pointless.

I would also get her teeth checked to make sure she is getting the most out of her hay intake.
 
Earliest i will be able to get out hacking in the evenings is 6.30pm - will it still be light enough at that time next week?
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PS We have no hills around here other than the hump back bridges
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The thing is, feeds like Build Up are designed to be fed as the main feedstuff (along side hay) rather than just adding a bit to the existing feed. The simplest thing would be to feed the recommended amount of Build Up (or a similar conditioning feed) with Alfa A Oil as the chaff. Ring Dodson & Horrell for advice of how much she needs for her size and workload.

As she only gets two feeds a day, you need to make sure the food she gets is quite high calorie, so feeding pony nuts is a bit pointless.

I would also get her teeth checked to make sure she is getting the most out of her hay intake.

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She's had teeth checked beginning of March so all fine there
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It does say on the back of the sack, but i didn't have any scales to hand sooooo any idea how much a medium scoop is?
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I will happily admit i'm not too hot on feeds, so its a case of trial and error for me
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So maybe stick to large scoop and a bit of alfa oil, 2 medium of build up and 2 small of speedibeet?
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The trouble is - if you try and ram as much in to her as possible in just two feeds she won't benefit - as half the quantity will just pass straight through her without the nutrients being absorbed.

Is there no possibility of giveing her a lunch time feed or a late night one?
 
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The trouble is - if you try and ram as much in to her as possible in just two feeds she won't benefit - as half the quantity will just pass straight through her without the nutrients being absorbed.

Is there no possibility of giveing her a lunch time feed or a late night one?

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Ummmm i can do 3 feeds at the weekends probably a bit easier than during the week, during the week most i could manage would be a possible late night one before i go home but then i worry that it would only be a couple of hours after her normal 'dinner' one?
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No one said keeping horses was easy LOL.....

I have to say in your shoes (in anyone's shoes) if I was that concerned about the weight then I would be making time in the week to get an extra feed in to her. Go to the yard in your lunch hour - or ask YO to put a late night feed in at around 10.00pm or 11.00pm at night.

Sorry, I just don't 'get it' when people say they can't do things. Where there's a will there's a way.......
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No one said keeping horses was easy LOL.....

I have to say in your shoes (in anyone's shoes) if I was that concerned about the weight then I would be making time in the week to get an extra feed in to her. Go to the yard in your lunch hour - or ask YO to put a late night feed in at around 10.00pm or 11.00pm at night.

Sorry, I just don't 'get it' when people say they can't do things. Where there's a will there's a way.......
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Will speak to B later to see if he can maybe put a late night one in for her
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Can't get to yard in lunch hour as for one i don't have a lunch hour and for two it'd take me 45 mins just to get there lol!
 
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Will speak to B later to see if he can maybe put a late night one in for her

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You certainly do enough for him
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Of course it could well be that she is in foal and thats why she's not putting any weight on?

Remember she was the one who was running with the shire stallion for 2 months before we got her.

Whats the earliest you could scan for a foal?

Asked B's daughter(works for vet) a month or so ago and she said it would not be worth scanning then as possible foal would be too tiny.
 
Mmm possibility - even more important then to find out - especially if she is too light.

She's not too early to scan speak with your vet.
 
Would 'it' not be so tiny now then?

Will try get her scanned as soon as.
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Our interfering useless liveries tried to stick their nose in and tell me that i shouldn't have been riding her to begin with - they can bug off its nothing to do with them grrrr!
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I am afraid that I agree with your liveries. If she is still poor and possibly in foal I would not be thinking about working her until after she has had several weeks on the spring grass and you have, as other people suggested, upped her feeds to three or possibly 4 feeds a day and you can see a visible weight gain.

By nature horses are trickle feeders and their digestive systems are designed to cope with a continual stream of food. Feeding two large feeds a day is simply a waster of money as their systems cannont cope.

You should as someone else has suggested loking at feeding a high calorie feed, something like Outshine or Baileys cooked cereal meal to ensure that the calorie intake is maximised in the smallest amount of feed.

There is no point working a horse that is poor, they will simply burn off the calories as expendible energy, instead of storing it as fat. You also need to consider saddle fitting for a 'poor' horse as this can lead to problems such as pressure sores.

If you are adamant that you want to work the horse then I would do some in-hand work, such as long reining up gentle hills.
 
So would it maybe be best to mix up on LARGE feed and split it in to 3 feeds? For morning, evening and late ?

Thats the reason i stopped riding her weeks ago, she's put on a little weight but she's not fat
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What i find it hard to get over is the change in her after we wormed her, it was quite sad really that what looked like a fat horse when she came was obviously really a horse full of worms
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I suppose i could long rein/lead her around the arena on foot for a bit? I'd lose weight and be a bit fitter then too!

This is her just before i stopped riding her

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And when she first came

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I think moving yards seems to have stressed her out a bit, she's obviously not completely settled in just yet.
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I am afraid that I agree with your liveries. If she is still poor and possibly in foal I would not be thinking about working her until after she has had several weeks on the spring grass and you have, as other people suggested, upped her feeds to three or possibly 4 feeds a day and you can see a visible weight gain.


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Ditto 100%
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I'd probably be inclined to agree with them........
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Really?
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I think she looks ok in the ridden photo above, not fantastic but ok.

But i stopped riding her soon after, that must have been middle of February i think the ridden photo was taken?
 
Am debating whether to take some photos this weekend of her and put them on here or whether its worth the abuse i'll probably get for having a thin horse!
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She's dropped in condition since those photos
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She's dropped in condition since those photos
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You have your answer, you know she has dropped weight so I wouldn't progress with any work until you have sorted the weight issues out.

Also a winter coat can give the impression of a horse actually carrying more weight than it really is.

Have you had her teeth checked? If her teeth are sharp, long or unevenly worn this could be preventing her from grinding her feed and so may not be able to break it down in the gut effectively.

Since worming have you had a worm count done? You need to worm accoridng to the seasons so it may be several months before you can be sure that you have removed the majority of the worm burden.

We rescued a 2-y-o colt several years ago and it was several months before he was well enough and strong enough to start being educated.
 
Right ok, so keep with feeding etc but no work, what about still bringing her in at night or not?
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After worming her, having her teeth checked was the next thing that was arranged and she had them done at the beginning of March so she's fine there.
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No, not had a worm count done.

One of the other horses was in a similar state when we first got him - very thin and totally lacking in condition, he's the total opposite now though, we have to ration his food so he's not too fat!
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But i remember it did take ages for him to come right
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And the dales mare was skin and bone too but she's fat and retired now....

Have you still got the colt? Any photos of him?
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I would defintely bring her in at night with adlib hay - literally as much as she will eat. All the while there is none left in the morning I would keep upping the quantity. If she is not a great hay eater try a hay replacer to ensure she is getting all the benefit of hay but in a smaller portion.

The colt was called Jack, he is now a gelding with one eye and was gifted to another HHO user after she loaned him for two years.

You should look out for him in Horse Magazine or H&H as I used him quite a bit in photshoots and he often pops up from time to time in library shots. He was in last month's horse twice, once in a leading picture and once in a plaiting feature!
I do have some photos of him looking very emaciated and small but they are in storage as we are waiting to move.

He was so bad when I got him home we had a visit from an RSPCA officer who had been called by a member of the public. He was condition scored as a 0.

When the vet first saw him he was not even sure he would pull through. When we first wormed him he was full of redworm, tapeworm and whiteworm.

It was hardwork and expensive to get him fit and well, I spent a fortune on feed and vetereniary treatment, I split his meals into 4 a day which consisted of topline cubes, bluechip and sugarbeet supplemented with milk replacer and adlib hay He was put onto excellent grazing and strip grazed him as he was still a little wild.

It took a long time for him to recover physically and mentally and he is now very fat, happy and stands a rspectable 16.2hh!
 
She currently gets through about 3 sections of hay a night, usually a little bit left in the morning but not much.

What colour was he? What happened to his other eye? Aw makes you wonder what happened to them and why to get them in such a state. How long did it take for him to come around? Bet you are happy he is well and in a good home now though.

Is bluechip the mega expensive but effective weight gain feed?

I keep regular contact with Saffe's previous owner, she put Saffe on loan for 8 months and it was in these 8 months she got in that state sadly.
 
I think Outshine is a better alternative these days.

It is about £33 a sack. You could also try feeding 2 cupfuls of vegtable oil in each feed, it is a really good way to increase calories and is generally well tolerated by horse.

He is a chestnut and he had uveitis so had to have it removed as we could no longer control it. Realitically it took him about 8 months.
 
Vegetable oil... i think we've been giving them soya oil? I shall double check this evening though i think thats what it says on the label!

If we don't have any will try go get some, she'll probably pull funny faces at me to begin with!

Hmm so i shall have my realistic aim for her to come right for September/October then... that seems so long!

I need to be more patient
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Thanks for that
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