how do you slim down your fatties?

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Megibo

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just asking as i have a welsh who at the moment, despite coming well into early summer, is now fat. during the summer holidays (which are soon) i'll be able to ride her almost everyday and hopefully get the weight off. however that isnt for 6 weeks and i can only ride her roughly once or twice a week.
her back is very well muscled due to us moving to a private yard where due to no manege i ride her in an area where she has to go up and down semi-steep hill. (there is a flatter paddock though i can ride in)

shes currently on a big field with v.short grass but still enough for her to nibble on throughout the day and in the evening she gets a tiny handful of happy hoof chaff and a very small hay ration.

what is the best way to get her weight down and any way to check she actually IS losing the weight? e.g. weight tape?
 
If she is not working at all i would not feed any hard feed at all as this is contributing to her weight gain, try sectioning a small part of the field so that she has limited grazing x If all else fails and she is on the verge on lami then stable with on small haynet in the morning and one at night x

edited as had to re read if you are still working her try to increase to 4 times a week x
 
Beckie65 said:
If she is not working at all i would not feed any hard feed at all as this is contributing to her weight gain, try sectioning a small part of the field so that she has limited grazing x If all else fails and she is on the verge on lami then stable with on small haynet in the morning and one at night x

edited as had to re read if you are still working her try to increase to 4 times a week x
Click to expand...

she isn't so fat she's on the risk of lami but her belly pokes out a bit, its round to say the least and i have to push a little hard to feel her ribs whereas before i could lightly run my fingers over her ribs and feel them easily.
i'll do my best to increase workload, if not i'll do some lunging with her :rolleyes:
 
My 3yo welsh a has been on a patch of very very short grass 1/4 acre with a minature shetland for 6 weeks. He has a cup of Blue Chip lami light daily and has lost a considerable amount of weight - put it this way on 2 May he was put last in a posh welsh showing class at a welshie show and last weekend we came 3rd out of a class of 22 in best conditioned!

The only way is to restrict grazing and cut out all hay and hard feed except for a conditioner like mentioned above.

Get some electric fencing and fence of a section of his field.
 
Both my boys are muzzled on turnout and are fed their overnight hay ration long soaked, double netted and tied in a hay bar. This is so that I can limit their intake but ensure, as far as possible, that they have a constant trickle feed. Letting them have full run of the fields also means they move around more. They both have very small feeds to get their vitamins and minerals in to them. They are exercised 5-6 days per week. This regime is working for them and their weight is coming down nicely. I weigh tape every Monday and plot it on a graph hung up outside their stables. I'm not sure how accurate the weigh tape is but I know where they both ought to be on the tape to be at a good weight for them and am aiming for that weight. Condition scoring regularly is a good practice too :)
 
My vet gave me the formula for weighing which they use when determining the amount of sedation for a horse.

It's measured in cm so here it is:

1. Measure around the horse in the usual way with a weight tape that shows cm.

2.Square this measurement eg: 168cmx168cm = 28224cm.

3. Measure in cm from the point of shoulder along the length of the horse to the point of quarters ie half way between the edge of the thigh and the tail. Lets say it was 166cm in lenght.

4 Then multiply this by the first total eg: 28224 x 166= 4685184.

5 Then divide by 11997, eg 4685184 / 11997 = 390.5

Phew hope that made sense. It's much easier to do than explain :)

Apparently this gives a more accurate reading of weight although it may be different from just the weight tape measurement.
 
Had fatness problem for years with my mare, she's now in a field on Dartmoor with really poor grass, she can eat as much as she likes now and I don't need to worry about laminitis, no more guilt, starvation paddocks and yo you dieting, brilliant

My friend's horse put on an alarming amount of weight very quickly, but he's been in at night and had at least an hours work a day and has started losing it an looking better

Neither of them have any hard feed
 
MORE WORK!!!!! Lunge if you can't ride!!!!

Mine is out 24/7 in a Greenguard muzzle - he is able to eat enough to survive but not enough to get too fat. He gets a handful of chaff and some Equibites for vits/mins. Over winter he was in at night on soaked hay, minimum fibre feed and minimum rugging.
You should soak your horses' hay. Also cut the feed out completely, you don't need all that in the summer.
Work is the only way to get weight off once it is on. Mine is still maintaining a few lardy lumps, that is with me riding him 5-6 times a week, 2 x seriously schooling/jumping and at least 2 x 2 or more-hour hacks including long canters and hillwork.
 
I make sure they are not on lush grazing buthave a sparse but big paddock so they get exercise. if they hold or get a bit fatter over the summer i think thats ok,in the winter i just feed hay and chaff with a little molassed water to make it interesting and also a vit and min supplement but not a balancer and dont over rug or rug at all. i let them slowly loose weight over the winter. its all more natural that way. they are ment to put weight on May to Sept then loose it Oct to April.
 
BonneMaman said:
cut out all hay
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Not if the horse is stabled at night, which is how I read it. If you do you run the risk of causing more problems!

OP soak your hay ration and then rinse it to remove any remaining sugars, up the work load and cut out any hard feed.
Remember short grass can be the worst as it it under stress and therefore sweeter. We are having another flush here after the rain we've had lately.

It might be worth swapping her so she is in during the day and out at night, when the grass has less sugar in it. If you are really worried you could try a grazing muzzle.

I have two ponies who get fat looking at a blade of grass and by doing all the above I have managed to get them down to a sensible weight from being rather fat after the winter and keep them there.
 
Get up at 5am 6 days a week to ride mine...lots of hill work included.
Stabled at night every day of the year on year old soaked and weighed hay.
Out during the day on a sparse paddock where he has plenty to 'nibble' on if he wanders around to find it. Never on decent length grass - in the winter he is strip grazed each day and weight monitored weekly.
Small amount of chaff to put all round supplement into, nothing else.
No treats, lickits, carrots, polos...nothing.
 
pottamus said:
Get up at 5am 6 days a week to ride mine...lots of hill work included.
Stabled at night every day of the year on year old soaked and weighed hay.
Out during the day on a sparse paddock where he has plenty to 'nibble' on if he wanders around to find it. Never on decent length grass - in the winter he is strip grazed each day and weight monitored weekly.
Small amount of chaff to put all round supplement into, nothing else.
No treats, lickits, carrots, polos...nothing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's more or less what I did with my fat Welsh Cob, he developed laminitis about three months ago. Vet told me to give him 2.5 % of his body weight, and soak all his hay. He only had a bit of chop to stick his supplement in. He was in a foul mood because he thought he was starving, and was liable to try to take chunks out of people when they walked past. However, he has now lost his fat pads, which he'd had for ages, goes for long long rides now the Derbyshire Peak Park have opened the tunnels on the old railway and has developed muscle where the fat was. I try to ride him every day but this is not always possible with work and family commitments, luckily there is always someone attached to our yard who will ride him if I can't. The yard owner says its a shame we didn' t take before and after photos. It's just a question of being cruel to be kind. No carrots or apples, etc. The one thing I have noticed, which is a bit strange, is that he now prefers old soaked hay to his chop, or unsoaked hay.
 
Muzzles are almost a permanent feature of my pony's life - in fact I have two natives muzzled at the moment and this will continue probably until about November.
They get a small feed to mix their vits and mins into which is fibre based and old or soaked hay if in.
 
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