help with horses weight please???

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tuppence's fortune

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my filly is underweight and has been since i bought her (not through anything i did) and up until the cold weather had started to put on a little bit of weight. however she decided to have a growth spurt last month and stopped putting the weight on and grew instead! shes 2 yrs old. i put the warmest rug on she has (heavy weight turn out) as she doesnt like being stabled. she is fed 2 times a day on alfalfa oil (2 scoops) d&h mare and young stock (1.5 scoops) weight feed (1 scoop) and sugar beet(hallf a scoop) per feed watered down too. she also has 2 sections of hay per day and 2 wheel barrow fulls of starw (for bulk).... however she still is not putting weight on. she has been wormed and her teeth are fine, does anybody have any ideas on how to get her weight up? i no winter is not the best time to try and do this but she needs to put it on??? advice greatly appreciated and needed x
 
That is way too much food for just one feed. Horses have very small stomachs in comparison to their body size and anything more than 1 1/2 scoops per food will not be absorped effeciently as it will pass through the stomach too quickly.
Equivite body builder is very good and def worth a try. Also maybe worth having the vet come to see her too make sure there isnt anything else going on. Good luck!
 
hi thanks i will try that. horse vet has been out last week and said she is totally fine and was the one that advised i up'd her feed to that and told me to add the sugar beet. she has not had loose poos or excess feed stuffs in them or anything like that nor colic or any sign of it. should i feed her less ? or should i keep feeding her what vet said and call her back out to see what she thinks again?
 
Not sure why you are giving straw? Ideally to put on weight she will be getting enough quality roughage, with bucket feed being given if needed to top the cals up. I would switch to sd lib hay or haylege (some tummys struggle with haylege though!). Then give her feeds if needed. As recommended above she needs much smaller feeds. If you want her to get more then feed the same amount but split over several meals. Soaked sugar beet is not v calorific when compared soaked weight to weight with other feeds as such a little dry beet goes such a long way. I would have her on the youngstock feed with molasses free alpha a. Am a total fan of linseed to put on weight, great value, only need to feed a little to add alot of cals, and a very bioavailable source of both the oil and omega 3 and 6 which is great for them. Microionized is the easiest to feed as it needs no prep, ours think it is the most gorgeous thing ever too so no probs with fussy eaters!
 
I would be agreeing with everybody else feed more hay or ideally haylage, and remove the straw, again she is having a lot of hard feed, equivite is great aswell. However it is a hard time to put on weight and as she grew and the vet is happy with her aslong as you keep her warm and plenty of roughage then I wouldnt be too worried its not an easy time to add weight and what she eats will just be used to get her through winter i would have thought.
 
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