How to keep weight on?

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fisher1

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I have a 16.2 warmblood and im struggling to keep his weight on, he has a nice thick neck but the rest of him isn't like that. He is fed ab lib hay, 2 meals a day, he is exercised and does everything from hacking to show jumping. He's not a stressy horse so i know he's not worried about anything but i just can't seem to build him up. Any suggestions??
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What are you feeding him? How old is he? Assume you've teeth checked?
The ONLY way I can keep weight on mine, and believe it or not an aged shetland, in winter is by feeding Dodson and Horrell Build Up. I tried oil alone but that didn't help. In the end after all sorts of different attemps with different things, I rang the D and H helpline.They have proper nutrionalists there,a nd I found them very helpful. We tried a couple of diffferent things, but this worked well.. The shetland looses weight as she is old, but this keeps her weight on nicely. Touch wood, she isn;t prone to laminitis,otherwise we may have to rethink.
 
What are you feeding him at the moment? Have you ever tried him on haylage? Are you sure he is actually underweight? Are you able to see his ribs?
 
After checking his teeth and worming, i would make sure he is warm enougth, it dosnt take long to loose condition if the horse is cold. Maybe it would be worth having the vet out and have some bloods done to make sure he is ok.
 
I have a 16yr old TB who I struggle to keep weight on too - but this year alfabeet rather than sugar beet is really helping.

I've used Baileys No1 in the past too - and found a feed balancer like pink powder helps. Something to do with absorbing nutrients more efefctively I think?
 
He is 7 this year and has been wormed and had teeth checked. You can't see he ribs, so he isn't that underweight but you can see that he not up to full weight as well, if that makes sense?

Sorry meant to say that he gets haylage and as much as he can eat. When he was vetted they said that he needed to put weight on behind but he doesn't seem to be able too.... will look at a supplement or something like that at the weekend.
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when you say weight on behind, what exactly do you mean?

If you mean he needs to build his back end up, then that will only come with correct work. Working in an outline and engaging his hocks.
 
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