Help me get weight off my pony

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BigRed

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I have a 12 year old shetland. I have owned him since he was 6 months old. I keep his weight under control using a muzzle and sometimes a diet field. He is rarely ridden as his job is to be a companion. This autumn he became footy. The vet took some blood and he is diagnosed with EMS. He has 14 x Metformin tabs a day. I still have to get some weight off him and it seems impossible to shift.

He is out all day in a diet field. He gets 1.5kg dry weight of hay at night, which is soaked all day. He gets 100g of hi fi lite for breakfast with his tablets, plus a mug of speedibeat un molassed sugar beet to get him to eat the bitter (ground up) tablets. He gets the same for his tea, with a formula 4Feet supplement. I have given him a trace clip to try and make his metabolism work harder. He is on hemp bedding, so he's not eating that.

I walk him briskly for 2 x 20 minutes sessions. He is still fat as a pig and not seemingly losing weight. I check with a weight tape and visually I think his neck has gone down a bit, but the tape can't lie and he is still way too fat.

Do you think he is better out in a field with long, coarse grass and a muzzle, or a diet field.

Any tips on getting his weight down ?
 
A tip I got off here is to use cinnamon powder for footy horses. I'm using it on my cob with amazing results and a happy side effect seems to be that he is losing weight with no other changes to his routine.

I'd check with your vet first but it probably wouldn't do him any harm to try it. You wouldn't need very much for your boy, I'm giving my 500kg boy 20ml per day. Good luck.
 
Rather than a diet 'field' can you fence a long thin strip with his water at one end and gate at the other so that he has to walk up and down rather than just mooching round about a paddock?

There are plenty of supplements that might help his metabolism. Magnesium and brewers yeast being two but you might want to check with your vet first.
 
Could you substitute half his hay ration for good clean oat straw? There is practically no feed value (calories) in straw, but it weighs lighter so although it looks as though he is getting more quantity-wise he's actually getting a lot less feed-wise.

If you do a grazing strip as suggested by CBFan, you could scatter little piles around so he keeps moving.
 
Over the last year, five of my gang have each lost around 120kg (and should be around 500kg), so quite a significant weight loss. It hasn't been easy. But these are the things that have worked for me:

Weighbanding every week, and recording the weight, and drawing a graph of it. If weight goes up from one week to the next, I know I need to change part of the routine to avoid a small increase in weight becoming a big increase in weight.

I do muzzle them, and they are mainly out overnight for summer, and yarded during the day. Over winter they are yarded the whole time, and this is my best chance to get on top of their weights when I know exactly what they are eating.

I think I'm going to have to cut access to grass a it more next summer, so my plan is to have them on less grazing (currently they have about half an acre each during the summer, and eat about 2kg hay a day in addition to that), so I'm going to try them on a quarter acre each so there isn't as much grass for them to eat but they can still be out for as long a time.

With the fattest ones, I introduce a bit of oat straw as it's less palatable than my hay and quite bulky, so rather than reducing volume of food, it slows them down and helps them trickle feed more. Plus it has less calories in it weight for weight, so really helps. But like with any diet change, you have to introduce it gradually. Barley straw can also be used, but not wheat straw. Wheat straw has too much lignin (woody stuff) apparently so is unsuitable for horses/ponies to eat.

Exercise definitely a key and I try to prioritise exercise for my fattest ones. Can you save a bit of time on other jobs to free up more time for walking (or running) him out, or lungeing/long reining him around you so he does more work and you don't end up exhausted. longer term how about breaking him to drive so you could both have fun and he'd lose weight too. Could you lead him from the other horse, ie ride and lead? Can be fun and good exercise too.

Did you have him tested for Cushing's? Just thinking agewise and time of year, that might be a possibility, and in which case being prescribed pergolide (Prascend) can help reduce the risks of future laminitis attacks, although obviously controlling weight is critical too.

World Horse Welfare and Dodson & Horrell both have good advice on their websites for managing good doers and/or laminitics.

Sarah
 
Photos each week and condition scoring is the best way I've found.

And a bare track as others have suggested... Or an incredibly annoying companion which chases him about!
 
well i would hunter clip the shetland and buy some runing shoes! dont feed any bucket food unless for medication purposes, and change his 20 mins walk x2 per day for 20 mins per day jogging!!!! calories in versus calories out! you will get fit and the pony will benefit too.
 
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