Help To Get Weight On

TheresaW

TheresaW

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I need a bit of feeding help please. All 3 of mine lived out for the summer together. Because it was so dry, grass wasn't brilliant, and Mac and Bren dropped weight, which in itself was good as they are both very good doers, and have been muzzled in previous years. Mac was moved into another field back in September, and he has thrived. (Have kept the weight down with exercise), and at the moment he is still out and happy. Dolly started dropping weight towards the end of October, so I left her and Bren out until bonfire night, and they have been in overnight ever since.

Now, both look healthy enough, shiny coats, bright eyes, but neither seems to be putting on much weight. They aren't losing any more either. They have breakfast, scoop of hi-fi, scoop of 16 plus, and some cubes, same for tea, and hay overnight. They are still out during the day and we aren't allowed to hay the fields. Bren normally has some hay left in the mornings, Dolly doesn't, but to be honest, I could leave her with 2 full bales overnight and it would all be gone in the morning.

Any suggestions as to how to fatten them up? Bren has colicked a couple of times over the last few years, so don't want to make drastic changes straight away, and when I bought Doll 10 years ago, was told she had a sugar intolerance, although have seen no signs to suggest this over the years.
 
Well Dolly should be easy as she obviously has a good appetite for hay, so just increase her overnight hay until she is the weight you want.

However, if Bren won't eat any more hay (presume his teeth have been recently checked) then you need to up the calorific value of his bucket feed. You don't say what cubes you are feeding, but if they are lower in calories than the sixteen plus, then I would drop the cubes and up the sixteen plus to compensate. This way you are not introducing anything new to his diet if you are worried about that.

There are other options, like changing to conditioning cubes, swapping the HiFi to a higher calorie chaff, adding some beet etc., giving a balancer, but that will entail introducing new feedstuffs.

This is obviously assuming he is genuinely underweight - can you actually see his ribs?
 
Thankyou! I was hoping you would see this and reply.

Yes, am increasing the hay I am giving Dolly so will see how she fairs. My friend is coming up tonight and she hasn't seen them for 2 weeks, so she may think they have put on weight anyway. It is harder to see things sometimes when you see them every day.

Bren is definitely underweight, his ribs are all obvious. He has had his teeth done twice this year as we had them re-checked. I did think about gradually changing his hi-fi for something like Alpha-A. What do you think?
 
Changing his chaff would help - best choice from the Alfa A range would be Alfa A Oil as this has as many calories per kilo as many conditioning cubes. Another alternative chaff would be Readigrass which has a similar calorie content to Alfa A Oil. You could also feed a tub of Readigrass alongside his evening haynet to up his forage intake as he will probably find it tastier than hay.
 
Hi T

As you know, Stinky does not keep weight on easily despite being a cob, and Farra will also drop weight at this time of year.

If they drop more than I would like, I change the high fibre cubes to Spillars conditioning cubes. I also increase the amount of Just Grass but not the Green Gold Alfa as this gives them a bit too much energy, and also the micronised linseed and speedibeet.

I have also found feeding Equilbra 500 with conditioning cubes really helps to get topline back on.

As you know I only feed fibre and have done this for the past ten years, but I find it works far better than mixes.

I can up hay for Farra but not Stinky as he will only eat a certain amount. Personally for Dolly, I would give her a bit more hay and see how she goes.
 
Hi Theresa with Dolly i lost your private e mail address when we moved house could you pm me please. Fons is so big now gone so quickly.

Hope you are well

Lauren x
 
Def change the Hi-Fi to Alfa oil. If you look at the ingredients of Hi-Fi it's really only chopped hay and straw - designed for fatties not skinnies! Alfa oil has the oil added (of course!) and is much higher calorie.

I'd also add sugar beet and a cup full of Equilibra (feed balancer - has picked up a couple of my poorer doers brilliantly), personally I'd leave out the nuts but you can leave them in if you want. They again, are mostly fibre, and a conditioning mix would be better for skinnies... however you wouldn't normally need this for cobs, so maybe try without for a month or so and if they arn't picking up add a mix to the alfa oil/ sugar beet and equilibra.
 
My most successful combination so far has been alfa a oil speedi beet and bluechip (expensive...and I resisted for so long, but it does work). Also when the grass is crap I sometimes add redigrass too.
 
hi i found the alfa a oil fab for putting weight we put our cob on this when we got him( he was under weight) but now 6 months later had to change to the dengie good doer:) but he did very well on the alfa a oil maybe to well..
 
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