How to get horse to lose weight

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Emma1703

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My horse has recently suffered with a bad case of gastric ulcers. She's now finished her course of medication but following the vets advice to give her adlib hay and grazing so she's producing loads of saliva she is huge! Being a cob, weight loss is proving very difficult. Has anyone got any tips on how to get her to lose her cow like belly! She is currently being schooled 5 days a week and hacked once a week, living out 24/7 but in fairly bald field with 2 small secs of hay a day. Tiniest bit of hard feed once a day just to get supplements in her.
Thanks
 
You could soak your hay to reduce the water soluble carbs and sugars further and double bag the haynet (i.e. a net inside a net) to increase the time it takes her to eat it. I wouldn't personally mix with straw although I know people do sometimes.

Your field might look bare but think how often you have to mow your lawn at this time of year and you will appreciate how quickly the grass grows, we are cutting our back lawn every ten days and that barely keeps on top of it. I know a lawn isn't quite the same as a field, but I would be tempted to strip graze it. The hard feed you give her I would reduce to just chaff. Cut out or reduce any carrots and apples (if fed) as they contain a lot of sugar and go for a chaff like 'Good Doer' or similar.

Hacking, make sure your hacks are purposeful, with her walking on and not slopping along.

Sometimes a horse will look 'fat' but this is gas from the grass, my horse can look like this and pushes his belly to the side also, although you can clearly see his ribs at a certain angle so I know his not 'fat' just full of gas from the grass fermenting. I have him on Pink Powder to help with this also.

Also before you ride give her a small amount of chaff (this stops the acid splashing the stomach lining) - a handful is enough - again good doer. You might also like to try her on slippery elm - its a powder you mix into the feed and it forms a mucilage when it meets water so it coats the stomach lining and again prevents splashing. It won't cure ulcers but it helps with the side effects and may stop any other ulcers from forming. Ask your vet if he thinks this is okay - I can't see any reason why not unless the horse is having a drug which is absorbed by the stomach lining. Slippery elm will stop this drug being effective as the stomach lining will be coated and so drugs will not be absorbed this way.
 
I would swap from schooling 5 days and hacking 1 day to hacking 5 days and schooling 1 day. Or at least hack a lot more than once a week. Lots of hill work and really make her work hard on the hacks. When you are schooling I would also use raised poles to make her work harder. If you don't have hills where you are can you box to some hills? I am on the South Downs and going hacking on those hills is brilliant for fittening them up.

I had the fattest cob in the world - saddler wouldn't even fit a saddle on him for 4 months - and it was hacking that really got him fit. Before I could get a saddle I long lined and hacked him out in hand. Then once on board, tonnes of hacking with plenty of hill work. He soon dropped the weight and his metabolism changed so much that he has never had to have his feed restricted since.
 
tiga71 said:
I would swap from schooling 5 days and hacking 1 day to hacking 5 days and schooling 1 day. Or at least hack a lot more than once a week. Lots of hill work and really make her work hard on the hacks. When you are schooling I would also use raised poles to make her work harder. If you don't have hills where you are can you box to some hills? I am on the South Downs and going hacking on those hills is brilliant for fittening them up.

I had the fattest cob in the world - saddler wouldn't even fit a saddle on him for 4 months - and it was hacking that really got him fit. Before I could get a saddle I long lined and hacked him out in hand. Then once on board, tonnes of hacking with plenty of hill work. He soon dropped the weight and his metabolism changed so much that he has never had to have his feed restricted since.
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Agree with the above. Hacking gets a horse fitter quicker than school work imho especially up hills but after a stretch down you then need to make them walk on a bit. I take mine out once at the weekend for about an hour and a half (around a 6.5 mile hack) and in the week we normally do two half an hour to 45 min hacks (two or three miles) with two sessions of schooling - I rarely lunge.
 
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I managed to keep my horse chewing whilst !losing weight by giving her access to adlib oatstraw chaff as well as her minimal hay ration. I fe!t that she was showing signs of possible ulcers (she had been stressed in her previous home and fed a high sugar and starch diet), so really wanted to avoid making that worse by starving her.
I would swap most of your schooling sessions for hill work, if possible to get the horse working harder.
 
Simple answer - work the horse harder.
Mine regularly does a schooling session for approx 45 minutes of real work then goes for a hack afterwards.
Very few horses are really worked these days.
 
Supertrooper said:
Applecart14 - do you think the pink powder helps with this? My pony gets awful bloated belly.
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At the risk of antagonising the OP, which is not my intention. Pink Powder is a load of old rubbish with minimal active ingredients, and loads of filler/additives. There are far better supplements that you can buy if ou are worried about your horses gastric function. Personally unless it's causing health issues, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
Auslander said:
At the risk of antagonising the OP, which is not my intention. Pink Powder is a load of old rubbish with minimal active ingredients, and loads of filler/additives. There are far better supplements that you can buy if ou are worried about your horses gastric function. Personally unless it's causing health issues, I wouldn't worry about it.
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I absolutely agree with this. We had 3 mares on PP for a while until we realised that their deterioration in behaviour coincided and that their feet had become very sensitive.
 
PaddyMonty said:
Simple answer - work the horse harder.
Mine regularly does a schooling session for approx 45 minutes of real work then goes for a hack afterwards.
Very few horses are really worked these days.
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As above. Agree totally that very few horses are worked sufficiently nowadays. People say they school/hack for x hours but the intensity/quality of the work is rarely there.
 
I'd go with soaked hay, a plain chaff such as Top Chop Zero and lots of hacking with plenty of trot and canter. It's difficult at this time of year when the ground is so hard though.
 
I can only go by what i know and feel that pink powder has helped my horse who was at one time very colic prone. yes he's had two colon displacements but like the vet said, they may have been life threatening if it were not for the pink powder. i hardly think it would get the rave reviews it does if it were a crap product but each to their own i guess
 
Up the work. No horse in proper work is fat. It's quite simple! I've got 5 natives and a cob and when in full work they can eat anything and are on adlib hay and or grass (and indeed need bucket feeds to keep weight ON).
 
I bring mine in during the day to eat 12 hour soaked hay.

Change the schooling to hacking, mine are doing 6 miles as a minimum 2-3 x per week. Try to get them out for 10 miles plus at the weekend (it's less than two hours when they have to get a move on!).

My fatty has to break a sweat!! That's my rule, she has to have broken out, then she's worked!!!!
 
You need to work the horse more I would be cautious about doing things like feeding straw until you have the horse well settled in its tummy .
I would give soaked hay and work more .
Twice a day always works well .
Here flat work minute for minute makes the horse lose more weight but I work the horse hard on the flat .
I would ride in the school or lunge and hack out daily .
After ulcers you need to get the horse moving and be patient about the flab the winter will be you friend it's a long job .
I also agree with the others who said if you want to give an tummy supplement there are far better ones than pink powder .
 
I would work the horse harder. One of mine would naturally be a big porker and he does at least 45 minutes of trot and canter work a day. Having a nice amble out on a two hour hack isn't really working.
 
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