Horses on Diets/Weight Watchers!!

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pottamus

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So has anyone got their horse on a diet at the moment? My Welshie D is on a diet and more exercise regime and trying to get more weight off him before the spring hits us. I have managed to get his weight down to 490kg which is pretty goog for him, but I think he could loose a bit more quite happily without looking like an RSPCA case!
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Anyone got cob types on diets and what do you do to get the weight off?
Also, can people please tell me what height, build and weight their cobs are so I can have an idea to compare with..particularly you Welshie owners out there?! Thanks
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Yes Jed is on a diet at the moment and more exercise. He's muscling up nicely now.

I have just cut down on his hay and hard feed intake and up'd his chaff in his dinner which doesnt have much in anyway. He was 565kg last week and i will weigh him again tonight.

He's not welsh but cob x tb and rather broardly (is that a word) built 15.3hh
 
My friends section D is never off one, he goes out in the day in a muzzle (even now as the grass hasn't stop growing this winter), then has a small haynet at night, plus is in light work, and still struggles to keep the weight off him.
 
The problem is that they just won't lose weight unless they have plenty of fibre. So giving them a small haynet will actually encourage them to hang on to the weight.

It is far better to increase the amount of hay, and soak it for 24 hours (and give a vit & min supplement - I use D&H Equibites) to take the calories out, then it's just fibre and keeps their guts moving and their metabolism going.

Reducing hay is really counter-productive.
 
He is out during the day on grass and in at night on year old hay ad lib. Other than that he gets two handfuls of Dengi Hi Fi to put a supplement into once a day. Currently I am managing to ride him 2 to 3 times per week and it is all hacking work up to an hour with plenty of hills and trot work. I am well into a routine of exercise as was bringing him back into work following a break for 6 months last year because I messed my back up and could not ride. So he has gone from about 530kg to his current 490kg over quite a few months and is gradually upping the work and fitness. Unfortunately we are all road hacking as a bit of canter work would do wonders for him but just not possible at the moment.
 
Fudge is a Welsh cob, he's 14.3hh and my vet and saddler recommended I get him down to 490kg which he is now
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at his heaviest I think he was 560kg, he could do being a bit lighter really. He is worked 3/4 times a week and fed ad-lib hay (usually about 4 sections) and a double handful of Happy Hoof with a calmer.

Lady who is a 13.2hh Welsh B x Arab weighed at her heaviest 380kg, she is now 351kg and still needs to loose another 21kg. She gets two large sections of hay, access to a dengie stable lick and a small handful of Happy Hoof when I feed Fudge. She is worked 2/3 times a week.

They are turned out for 15 hours a day and both wear muzzles during the spring/summer/autumn.
 
I am seriously starting to worry about my two as last spring/summer they became extremely fat, and don't appear to be losing much weight over the winter. They are currently out for up to 8 hours a day on a muddy paddock with next to no grass, and given 1 10kg net of haylage at night (one is allergic to hay) plus 1 scoop of spillers fibre cool each. My problem is that they are hardly in work at all as I don't have a school and my friend who i used to hack out with has just had a baby and so I've no one to ride with and they will not be separated to allow me to hack alone :-(
 
See Bex's post above. She is right, horses will not lose weight without using their gut to digest plenty of fibre. They need little and often. If one cannot have dry hay, could you not soak a bale at a time over say 12 hours, and feed that to them ad lib, with just a tiny feed to put their vits & mins in?
 
Daisy is on a constant diet. She's about 550 at the moment and is 15.2 mw cob. She's had more work than ever this winter because we've got a school with lights now but still isn't really dropping it. Her hay is soaked for 24 hours before feeding and she has minimal rugging to encourage her to wander about during the day. I'm still living in hope that she will drop more weight before spring hits because she has a lovely field with loads of grass but I'm not sure. My problem is that she can't wear a grass muzzle for more than a couple of days at a time because she gets pony eczema on her face. I can put her on a starvation paddock in summer with the electric tape but it makes her unrideable. She will quite literally cart you off to the nearest blade of grass and stand there stuffing her face whatever you do about it. Sounds funny and like I can't ride until you try riding her. it has been suggested that she has an equine version of prader willi syndrome. It's like there is a loose screw in her head screaming "EAT, EAT!"
 
My boy is on a permenant diet, he has early signs of peripheral cushings at 11 due to being seriously obese from a young age with his owner, (I now loan him but have known him forever). He is strip grazed and muzzled during the most dangerous months and fed adlib old hay and a kilo of hifi lite a day at the moment, he has lot his target 80kilos since I took him on in may 2007, he now has withers and you can see the muscle definition in his neck! Bearing i mind he is a 14.2 clydesdale X, we ar'nt doing too bad.
 
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