Horse too fat at retirement livery :-(

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Jango

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Earlier this year I retired my horse to a lovely retirement livery place in Cheshire, he lives out in a herd of 28 geldings and seems so happy! However he is now bordering on obese and I'm really worried about the risk of laminitis. He's a 13 year old Welsh D and he's out 24/7 with hay put out for them too, he's unclipped and unrugged. The weather has been so unseasonably warm the grass is still great.

He is actually sound, he had an annular ligament injury and so is now only suitable for light hacking. I have no interest in light hacking and I have a new 5 yo WB I have on full livery.

I'm going to give the retired chap a few months and pray for cold weather! but if he doesn't start losing weight coming into spring I just don't know what to do :-( would people want to loan a horse like him?? I can't afford to have him on stabled full livery (which I need for my job). I can't chuck him in a field near me as again I can't commit to getting down somewhere everyday. He would be super for someone who wants to go on sedate hacks, you can leave him for weeks/months and then hop back on, he's great with kids, no vices etc. He's not a totally beginners horse though as he is a cheeky Welsh and would just do his own thing (wander around eating trees!) if you let him! And he wouldn't be a good companion as he can't be left turned out alone in winter.

I was trying to do the best for him by letting him enjoy life as a retired chap, but I'm worrying about him loads now and I feel I've made the wrong decision :-( any advice appreciated!
 
Surely part of the service you are paying for is that the yard keeps a check on weight, weight loss as well as weight gain, so they can act appropriately for each individual otherwise it is just a grass livery not full retirement livery, I would ask and hope they have a smaller field where they can put any that require restricted grazing and not just have a one size fits all attitude, if they don't then look elsewhere for somewhere that is flexible and meets the needs of all the horses in their care.
 
I am amazed they'd don't have a fatty plan for those retirees who are good doers it's not an unusual problem with out of work horses .
It's been a very bad winter looking at it fat club terms .
Have you tried speaking to them you need to fix before spring .
Might you find him somewhere were he lives with another retired Fatty .
 
To mirror what the above poster has said, the retirement home should be able to keep tabs on him and amend his care. Have you spoken to them about his weight?

I have had two horses at retirement livery and both times the horse was put in a field and fed according to her/his needs ( for example the TB gelding needed extra food and rugging and the chunkier mare just needed ad-lib hay to keep condition) - and I know they had a 'fatties' field for those who were very good doers!

Hope the retirement home is helpful, and if not I'd probably move your boy to somewhere that will help. Retirement livery isn't cheap so it needs to work for you and your boy.
 
They offer stabled at night livery (which I can't afford) and tiny paddocks for those with laminitis. Unfortunately due to the huge amount of rain we'be had this year the lami paddocks are knee deep in mud. He doesn't have quality of life with no space and knee deep mud. I have spoken to them, problem is the weather this year which is very unusual. I looked at quite a few retirement places and this was by far the best.
 
This is my only concern with regard to my retirement plan for my mare. The horses look blissfully happy but even in winter they are very fat!

Yes, OP, there would be plenty of interest for a horse like yours. We have one on our yard that is exactly the same and he has had several dedicated full time 'loaners' over the years.
 
Retirement livery should be monitoring this and managing it better. Ok, Lami paddocks are knee deep in mud, so why haven't they fenced him and maybe a friend off (There must be others that could do with a bit of weight loss) of the drier land? I wouldn't be happy if he was obese and Laminitus was a real fear come spring.

But yes, there would be demand for something sane as a pet/happy hacker, especially if cost is an issue to you even a "sharer" to come ride him a few times a week lightly to cover the cost of maybe having him stabled at the retirement livery?
 
Muzzle? Not a route I would like to take personally but in absence of other options it's a possibility.

Retirement livery is surely more care than just chucking the horse out in a field and I would also think weight control would be part of it! Perhaps there are alternative retirement liveries that are better set up to cope with this so it's worth shopping around

Short term I would dip in to my pockets and pay for the stable at night livery with strict instructions to double net soaked hay, short term it has to be cheaper than what could happen the pony continues to gain weight.

I'd get through the immediate situation first then consider finding a loan home in the spring when your chances of finding somewhere will be higher
 
Give him a bib clip to help stop him gaining more weight and look for a full loan home with someone who just wants to hack - there are plenty of happy hackers out there.

In the meantime could you exercise him a couple of times a week?
 
I was going to suggest clipping him and a muzzle during the day or overnight for the short term.

Longer term try and find either another retirement yard or someone to take him on loan as a happy hacker.
 
Given the number of horses and the location, I wonder if this is one of the retirement liveries that I considered for my mare. In the end I was put off by the number of horses that they had, as I didn't see how they would be able to deal with the individual care needs of each horse. I'm sure they do their best, but weight management is an essential part of horse care and I wouldn't be happy in your shoes.
 
Ask them to give him a bib clip and keep him unrugged. Unless he's a very unusual Welshie, he will still be plenty warm enough in this weather! If he still doesn't start losing weight, consider muzzling him. It sounds like you will have to do that spring/summer anyway. Are they feeding hay in the field? If so, do you know how much? If they're feeding him like a tb he will be very porky.
 
aperchristmastree said:
Ask them to give him a bib clip and keep him unrugged. Unless he's a very unusual Welshie, he will still be plenty warm enough in this weather! If he still doesn't start losing weight, consider muzzling him. It sounds like you will have to do that spring/summer anyway. Are they feeding hay in the field? If so, do you know how much? If they're feeding him like a tb he will be very porky.
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I am a fan of the bib clip and use it on fat ponies. They still have hair on exposed bits but they have to expend a bit more energy. I have been mucking out in a shirt today its so warm.
Try not to panic until the end of January, Feb and March now seem to be colder months and see it they will swop some of his forage for straw.
 
If he's going to be spending the winter living out I wouldn't worry too much at the moment. See how he is by March and then get a weight loss plan ready for the spring if he needs it. It's been so warm and the grass is still growing and when the nasty weather comes they need food inside them to keep warm.
 
I'd say something early :) the sooner the better. Don't wait for winter before you start making changes.

I learned with my hippo that a good doer can pile on weight in a matter of weeks and it takes 4x longer for them to lose it as it took for them to put it on. I don't think people appreciate just how severely a horse's diet has to be controlled in order for them to lose weight without the benefit of hard exercise; it means a dry paddock, isolation from the herd, hay being weighed out in advance and given 5-6 times a day so that they don't go hungry and a very grumpy, unhappy horse.

Just my tuppence but don't risk your boy gaining unnecessary weight in the first place.
 
I definitely think a bib clip is a good first step and a chat with the retirement place.

The bib clip will also give you chance to see how much fluff he has- I was shocked when I clipped my living out unrugged Warmblood to see that actually he had a good 2+ inches of fluff and wasn't carrying as much weight as i'd thought.
 
On the subject of loaning him. Does he hack nicely? There are lots of people who just want a horse they can potter about on but pretty much all of them will want him to be easy to hack and well mannered. There are always lots of people looking for low maintenance happy hackers in the spring so I would imagine that could be an option for him longer term.
 
Shame your not in the north east as he is exactly what I have been looking for but they are hard to find so if I was in your shoes I would definately consider a happy hacker loan home- they do exist!
 
This is going to get me flamed and I understand why.

I had 2 horses at retirement livery, living out mainly with elderly TBs. Funnily enough while the Welsh would get a bit chubby in summer he dropped weight nicely every winter as he has done all his life and so wasn't a laminitis worry.

However the pony had always been a fatty - the type that was on restricted grazing and worked hard 6 days a week from April - November to try and keep him shape. He was also bib clipped, unrugged and only on forage in winter when I could only ride weekends. This regime kept him on just the right side of obese. He never had laminitis. Anyway he managed to do his DDFT and the investigations also found the signs of navicular so he had a winter of mainly box rest and very limited turnout = an hour a day in a pen with various other treatments to try and get him sound. Obviously his weight had to be kept under control to give him the best chance so he was on a very strict diet. By the following spring when he came sound he the slimmest I had ever got him but he was miserable, absolutely miserable. My well mannered cheeky but fun pony was obsessed with food to the extent that he would climb doors to try and get it, was a sod to lead as would tow anybody anywhere and was fence jumping if he got half a chance - just what you want as you rehab them isn't it?

Anyway he didn't stand up to work so I decided to retire - he was well into his 20's at that point and had worked hard from a 3yo - and sent him to the RL that my other horse was at. As he was arthritic anyway stabling for any amount of time had caused problems so that wasn't an option for weight control. After much thought and despite knowing the risks I decided that he could go out with herd onto fabulous water meadows and take his chances with laminitis. I'd already decided that he wouldn't be getting any more huge vet treatment - stitches yes but ops and boxrest no after the previous winter. It was all about quality over quantity of life and the minute he started looking footy or sore he would be PTS

Not an easy decision after all the years I'd spent battling his weight and it made me cringe when I saw him looking like a beef cow with fat pads on fat pads. But he had a very happy and healthy two and half years of retirement before he came down with atypical myopathy and was put down. Not saying that I would recommend this route without being very aware of the risks but I did take into account that they were on old untouched grazing which was managed buy running sheep after the horses, no chemicals, was soft ground even in height of summer due to being water meadows and that while there were some horrendously fat horses I've never seen anything there looking footy. Hoof care was also very good which I'm sure helped but it was a calculated risk.
 
cbmcts said:
This is going to get me flamed and I understand why.

I had 2 horses at retirement livery, living out mainly with elderly TBs. Funnily enough while the Welsh would get a bit chubby in summer he dropped weight nicely every winter as he has done all his life and so wasn't a laminitis worry.

However the pony had always been a fatty - the type that was on restricted grazing and worked hard 6 days a week from April - November to try and keep him shape. He was also bib clipped, unrugged and only on forage in winter when I could only ride weekends. This regime kept him on just the right side of obese. He never had laminitis. Anyway he managed to do his DDFT and the investigations also found the signs of navicular so he had a winter of mainly box rest and very limited turnout = an hour a day in a pen with various other treatments to try and get him sound. Obviously his weight had to be kept under control to give him the best chance so he was on a very strict diet. By the following spring when he came sound he the slimmest I had ever got him but he was miserable, absolutely miserable. My well mannered cheeky but fun pony was obsessed with food to the extent that he would climb doors to try and get it, was a sod to lead as would tow anybody anywhere and was fence jumping if he got half a chance - just what you want as you rehab them isn't it?

Anyway he didn't stand up to work so I decided to retire - he was well into his 20's at that point and had worked hard from a 3yo - and sent him to the RL that my other horse was at. As he was arthritic anyway stabling for any amount of time had caused problems so that wasn't an option for weight control. After much thought and despite knowing the risks I decided that he could go out with herd onto fabulous water meadows and take his chances with laminitis. I'd already decided that he wouldn't be getting any more huge vet treatment - stitches yes but ops and boxrest no after the previous winter. It was all about quality over quantity of life and the minute he started looking footy or sore he would be PTS

Not an easy decision after all the years I'd spent battling his weight and it made me cringe when I saw him looking like a beef cow with fat pads on fat pads. But he had a very happy and healthy two and half years of retirement before he came down with atypical myopathy and was put down. Not saying that I would recommend this route without being very aware of the risks but I did take into account that they were on old untouched grazing which was managed buy running sheep after the horses, no chemicals, was soft ground even in height of summer due to being water meadows and that while there were some horrendously fat horses I've never seen anything there looking footy. Hoof care was also very good which I'm sure helped but it was a calculated risk.
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You'll certainly not get flamed by me, I'm doing something very similar with my oldest, he's happy in the herd being a horse, I want him to enjoy his final months/years with the minimum of box rest which stiffens him up/fills him up with so much fluid his legs look like tree trunks and his chest like he had moobs.
 
It is something I have given a bit of thought over recently having always had one requiring restricted grazing when in work that arrived with me very obese 10 years ago. I think I come down on the side of if retired just letting him be a horse and ensuring that retirement however long that be is spent being social (so not on small restricted paddocks) and happy and essentially if he couldn't cope with that and went down with lami then he would be PTS asap. Though I might consider if muzzling during the worst periods might be an option. - he has never had a lami episode.

Same as you then cbmcts.
 
ester said:
It is something I have given a bit of thought over recently having always had one requiring restricted grazing when in work that arrived with me very obese 10 years ago. I think I come down on the side of if retired just letting him be a horse and ensuring that retirement however long that be is spent being social (so not on small restricted paddocks) and happy and essentially if he couldn't cope with that and went down with lami then he would be PTS asap. Though I might consider if muzzling during the worst periods might be an option. - he has never had a lami episode.

Same as you then cbmcts.
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I will have to struggle with this decision when Fatties time comes he will be very difficult to manage and give quality of life too when he can't work .
 
It is a tricky one, especially when you are used to micromanaging them a bit and when you promised them they wouldn't get that fat again :p. I also hope he will stay in work for a good few years yet!
The only advantage I think I will have is that now (22) he has seemed to reach the stage that in winter at least I do have to feed him, and that I probably did leave him muzzled too long this summer so he isn't like he used to be when younger. It has also been an education that the grass on the chalk in wiltshire is nothing like the rich stuff we had on our clay on the somerset levels! At 13 like the OPs welshie I wouldn't have had that advantage of age.

In 3 months from March to June under new ownership he went from fit to this, out 24/7 in a large gang of geldings on not amazingly lush turnout but with limited work (and probably 4 weeks of nothing as he had scared the new owner).
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I can't say that it wouldn't be problematic for me if he started to look like that again.
 
ester said:
It is something I have given a bit of thought over recently having always had one requiring restricted grazing when in work that arrived with me very obese 10 years ago. I think I come down on the side of if retired just letting him be a horse and ensuring that retirement however long that be is spent being social (so not on small restricted paddocks) and happy and essentially if he couldn't cope with that and went down with lami then he would be PTS asap. Though I might consider if muzzling during the worst periods might be an option. - he has never had a lami episode.

Same as you then cbmcts.
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This ^
 
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