Ideas to help my mare loose weight quickly!

[Jericho]

I am having a nightmare keeping the weight off my mare and after coming home today after a few days away and seeing her with fresh eyes she really has become obese much to my disgust. She is fed a handful of nonmollassed straw and grass chaff and a mug of very watery kwikbeet beet as a carrier for her vits and mins, mag ox and biotin (which have been balanced against our grazing), is in stable from about 8 - 12 in the morning with half a slice of hay and out in a starvation paddock with another half a slice of hay from 12 - 6pm ish. She is then out at night on a track about 10 - 25 m wide around a 4 acre paddock with another pony who is older. The grass isn't great - about 3-4 inches but very weedy particularly with buttercups.

This is probably the least amount of food that she has ever had and yet she looks the fattest! I do wonder whether the mineral balancing has worked rather too well and made her very efficient at digesting her food. She is also barefoot and the extra weight isn't helping as she is quite footy

Sadly I know that exercise would help a lot but because of family and other commitments I can only manage a couple of sedentary hacks a week with 1 or 2 lunging sessions and I can't increase that. I also don't want a sharer as the horses are kept at home and I don't want people coming in.

I have a muzzle so I should be muzzling her at night shouldn't I? And soaking her hay will help as well won't it? Or should I cut the hay out completely in the time she is in starvation paddock? It has a tiny amount if grass which they pick at occasionally. But what else can I do? Should I bring her off the grass completely? Please help...

 

[mollymum]

My cob is as fat as a pig, so I've recently taken her off the grass overnight and put her in the sand menage with just water and the tiniest slie of hay; no hard feed at all. I've been advised to muzzle her whilst grazing, so that's what I'll do. It's better to turn them out at night and bring them off the grass during the day, but for various reasons this isn't parctical for us.
Hope some of this helps!

 

[Mongoose11]

Why do your hacks have to be sedentry? My mare is the best weight she has ever been but is eating the most food she has ever eaten! The quality of her is improving every day because her feed is balanced to suit her and her work has increased.

Can't you introduce hill work, steady trotting, some canter? Even one faster hack per week will make a difference. Exchange one of your lunge sessions for ridden schooling?

Muzzle is the right place to start here - could you consider feeding her more low cal fibre with some hind gut supporting supplements so that she is making the right use of her feed?

 

[weeanne]

My boy has EMS so I have to be really strict with him. Your doing right by stabling however id change the time if poss as you r keeping her in from 8-12 the sugar in the grass is lower at this time of day so she would be better out then and in from 12-6 when the sugars in grass are higher also I feed straw but you have to introduce it gradually. Id keep her in starvation paddock with a soaked small haylage net of hay (takes them longer to eat) and some straw. Remember when the ground temperature is 6 degrees and above the grass is growing so even though your paddock looks bare she will be getting something as it grows through. I am less strict when its cold and wet as lower sugars and he uses energy to keep warm. Lots of troting if you can. Good luck Oh and cinnamon and fenugreek speed up there metabolisim so can help to loose weight. And allan and paige fast fibre might be better than kwikbeet. Look for feeds with low MJDE of around 7.0 or 8.0 i.e. hifi good doer