How would you manage him?

Can you feed oat straw chaff? I give my fatty a bucket of it with a half scoop of Thunderbrooks Healthy Herbal chaff mixed in to make it taste nice, it gives her something to chomp on and she seems to like it.

Re the hay soaking, could you set up something like a hay cube? I'm thinking a bucket with a tap in it, or a cut down water butt, so you can soak a slice of hay then let the water out but don't have to lift out a big heavy haynet. In the summer I use a cheap round plastic washing basket and cram as much hay in as possible, then put it in a big bucket, weigh it down and fill it with water. I can then lift the washing basket out (it has baling twine handles to make it easier) and carry it to the field to empty the hay out. It's not too heavy and if you could drain the water out first it would be easier.
 
Just re-read your description, if I am right in thinking the slip rails are in the centre-ish of your turnout, with the pen at the top, then you could do 2 lines of fencing down the middle, put water at the top end of one outside strip, put any forage/salt lick etc at the top of the other strip, then he has to walk up and down the length of the field every time he wants water. If it doesn't freak him out you could even make these tracks loop back up to divide each strip in half again, putting the water at the bottom corner so he has to walk the length of the field three times to get water (for example).
 
My management would be
1 make sure the straw is clean and preferaby oat but if not barley straw
2 feed a stubbs scoop of oat straw chaff with salt and lots of it, vitamins and minerals added + a dessert spoonful of magnesium oxide
3 give small amounts of haylage well scattered round the pen or in small holed haynets around the biggest area possible so he has to walk to eat
4 Work as much as possible and always get him puffed and if feasible sweating although that will depend on his fitess levels
5 set up a track system so he has to walk around more as others have said. I wouldnt put him in a stable at all as he needs to have something to nibble all the time and shut in the only thing available will be haylage as not many can leave a horse without anything but their bed to eat. If you are worried about the amount of straw he eats and he still doesnt lose weight then you will need to change his bedding to something inedible and feed nets of straw or buckeets of chaff to resrict the straw intake too
 
Pay sparkles to ride him in her lamfelle pad?

I don't understand how he has got so fat if he was in hard work. Was he definitely in hard work ie did you see him being worked? I honestly keep my natives on fairly rich unrestricted grazing with adlib hay and they are never fat when worked at least 5 days a week for a couple of hours a day.
 
I've just had a fatty come to me on loan, albeit an Irish Sports Horse one and not a cob. I'm managing him like my laminitis prone Connemara. They have the winter all weather track at night. With double netted suspended Haynets. In during the day with double netted suspended nets. The hay is weighed so they get 1.5% of their body weight. If it wasn't lasting they would get it treble/quadruple netted. If ones at lami risk then I would be soaking it. I have a large garden water bowser with a tap at the bottom, which allows you to drain the water without the heavy lifting. They do get allowed out on a pretty bare bit that was used over winter for an hour or so in the evening, but if I thought there was any risk that wouldn't happen. The Connemara won't be going near proper grass at all, it's a factor that previous years have shown is too much a risk. The new boy will be allowed out once the current weight has been stripped off.

They are both worked. The new boy is dreadfully unfit so we're currently doing lots of walking up hills. If I couldn't ride I'd be long lining, leading, riding and leading or lunging.

Feed wise the Connemara gets a bit of fast fibre and plain straw to get his balancer into him. The ISH is getting a bit of balancer and some plain straw. This is stripping the weight off the ISH gradually and it maintains the Connemara. If he was getting grass I'd be fighting an uphill battle.

Yes I feel mean doing it. But they're sound and healthy which is most important to me. My other two are merrily out stuffing themselves and one of them gets three conditioning feeds a day as well - horses for courses!

With your boy I'd be keeping him in the pen with a restricted diet of hay, soaked if possible, whilst trying to make it last as long as possible. Horses especially of the native variety have evolved very well to live on very little. Ad lib is great but in the very fat sort it's not really practical, if they're eating constantly you will never get the weight off. If you can space out the feedings, so he can have little and often and not go more than 2 hours with something to line his tummy that would be ideal. Ad lib soaked hay is what gave my Connemara laminitis in the first place, my dear mother feeling sorry for him.

Good luck with it and don't feel mean, he's better off not having sore feet!
 
I do think the track system has to be the way forward but combined with a really plain diet as it's clear that work alone is not the answer

If you need plain oat straw chaff let me know, I can get you large 25kg bags for under a tenner and an collecting an order on Tuesday
 
my TB shares a 4 acre field witha highland cob. both need exercise and to keep moving as they are now both 17, my TB can eat all the grass he wants and never gets fat, the highland eats a tiny bit of grass and becomes a hippo. Our solution is to muzzle the highland 24/7 and leave him out. weve dont it for 4 years and as a result he has been at a perfect weight for those 4 years. Previous management had failed to keep on top of his weight, restricting his field simply resulted in a very fed up stiff horse. This way he has a large field to roam around, keeps himself moving and has his best friend with him. For 2 days he was refusing to graze, but after that he settled down and now its normal for him to wear it. I would far far rather muzzle a horse and let it out to roam, than restrict and strip graze. Also even tho your grass is very short, it is now at the best stage for growth so hugely fattening
 
JFTD said:
I'd do a 3/4 edge strip as BP suggests, and probably ditch the haylage in favour of straw (which he has anyway) and ditch the linseed. I'd also consider only allowing him out of the pen overnight, if the grass comes through / he isn't losing it.
Click to expand...

This ^^^
 
It may take him a long time to get down to a good weight and you need to be careful not to starve him otherwise he might get ulcers.

My pony got fat when he kept escaping from his field and it took a good 6 weeks to get him down to a healthy weight again this is what I did

1) Grazing muzzle on in field
2) Exercise 6 days a week
3) Water tread mill once a week
4) In with soaked hay at night.

The problem with being in pen is he will be spending most of his time standing in active which will mean he won't be using up much energy. If you can set up a track system in the field that would be good just fence off a square in the middle and then the track will be round the edge. Ideally it would better if he had a companion in the field so they might play or be more active as well.

I know you are on DIY but is there someone who you could pay to help you with the soaked hay - even just lifting it and taking it to the stable for or put it in in smaller batches so it would not be so heavy.

The problem with a lot of full livery yards is that they are not used to managing a cob or native as these don't tend to be their normal customers so even if the cob is in hard work they end up feeding them in a similar way to they feed the hunters or competition horses as they may not have the lower calorie feeds or do soaked hay and muzzles and the grazing may be very good. This can easily lead to weight gain. I am on part livery but lucky enough to be on a yard where YO has cobs herself so understand how it feed and manage a good doer so they don't become too fat. They have a big vat for soaking hay and all the high fibre molasses free feeds as well and suggest for the dieters that we buy the greedy nets so help slow down their consumption so they don't have to have so much hay over night as it last longer.

Cobs and natives are becoming more popular so may be over time more yards will cater for their particular needs.
 
This is his new setup. You can just see his stable in the left corner, and the slip rails are open on the post and rail fencing

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I'm going to change the set up of the electric fencing in his field bit and run a track round some of it. I've got some wooden posts I can use for the outer edge, so I'm just waiting for my OH to come up with a big hammer and put them in for me. For the time being hes out on a 20 x 20 bit of it for about 5/6 hours a day.

He gets pro hoof+, and 40gms salt in a handful of speedi beet so hes getting a decent dose of magnesium. Welsh D is going to get me some chopped straw. He hates it, so I know he only eats it when hes genuinely hungry. His bed diminishes overnight so hes definitely eating that anyway.

I'm very, very lucky to have found somewhere that allows him to live like this and not be muzzled or stuck in his stable all the time. I'm just wanting to make sure that I'm doing it in the most optimal way :)

He appears very content on the whole and seems to spend most of his time mooching about, picking at the grass in his pen, then he takes himself for a nap in his stable every afternoon like a small child :lol:
 
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