Keeping weight off in winter - I cant get it off him !! :(

Toffee_monster

Toffee_monster

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My pony is a barrell and i need to do something about it !.

He is just 4, 13.2hh and was 405kg when last weighed by Spillers lady back in November. He has lost about 100kg since i bought him in september, through restristed grazing and exercise but we seem to have hit a plateau ? He is still very large (see this thread http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=588683 )

There is no grass in his field after all the rain, and lots of mud so they have a large round bale of hay in there, and in fact he is horrible and bolshy when hungry.

However 2 weeks ago his mud fever got bad so he came in 24/7, large small holed net at night and a smaller elim-a-net during the day. He is fed once a day - small mug of spillers lite balancer, magnesium, seaweed and a tiny 1/2 cup of micronised linseed for his skin.

He was broken to drive 8 weeks ago and is driven 5 miles twice a week when the weather is ok but in this snow i cant do anything with him, we dont have a school and i get there when dark and struggle keeping my 4yr old child occupied at the same time :(

I find it much easier to keep weight off horses in summer with starvation paddocks, muzzles and lots of exercise in the evenings, am i the only one who struggles with the winter ?
 
What weight of hay are you giving him per day? Cut that down to no more than 1.5% of his correct (slim) weight.

If he's on haylage switch him to hay.

If he's on hay substitute a third of his hay ration with straw well mixed in.


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Just spotted that he's on ad lib hay when he can be out during the day. Fence him off from it, weigh his hay to above recommended rate and feed him his ration in a haynet in his section.
 
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Ad lib hay in a round bale in the field I wouldn't have thought would be helpful. Can he be in during the day all the time so you limit his access.

Can you soak hay to get calories out and I totally second swapping some forage to straw to cut the calories.
 
If its just him in the field swap the hay bale for straw and cut his hay down and let him have ad lib straw when in.
Are you soaking his hay? If not when it's not frozen soak for a minimum of 12 hours, preferably 24.
 
Thanks, he is in a herd of 5 in his field when he is out.

He is in 24/7 most of the time at the moment (apart from the last 2 days to stretch his legs as the snow is not affecting his horrid mud fever) and i think he will be ow until it dries up enough for them to go onto their spring paddocks (much easier to manage then)

He is on a straw bed so i guess he eats some of that anyway LOL. I shall look to soak his hay, it isnt the best quality stuff. I must get a scale tonight as well as i have never weighed out what he gets as we've done so well up to now.

Does his dinner sound ok ? Sometimes i use some of the water form the yard speedibeet to mix in, but nothing in that is there?


We were doing so well and now feel a bit useless :(
 
No it's not just you.

My horse is an enormous apple bummed barrel due to being kept in due to the bad weather we have had recently and stuffing her face with haylage 23 hours a day, plus hardly any exercise. I'm going to have to switch her to hay mixed with straw, plus feed her some molasses free chaff to try and fill her up I think.

I have found the Elimanets to be pretty useless tho. Shires haylage nets (the ones coloured black and red or black and blue) have much smaller holes and are much more robust than Elimanets. Cheaper too. :D
 
Natch said:
Is he rugged? Clipped?
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Yes to both, fully clipped and his hair isnt growing back very much at all, he has a HW on at the moment but he is a hot pony so probably doesnt need that on. I only have a no neck MW or a full neck rain sheet which i could use instead ?

In stable i have a full neck LW which i could use?
 
I would take him off the balancer, seaweed and linseed - and soak the hay for 12 hours to get as much of the nutrients out of it as possible, but keep his need to feed satisfied :)
Feed him one good quality powdered supplement and add the magnesium if he needs it in a small amount of chopped oat straw. And as much excercise as you can manage!

- balancers have pre and pro biotics which help the horse to get more out of his food.
- seaweed is full of protein which will put weight on
- linseed is full of oil which will put weight on (a good all round supplement will be good for his skin and coat)

Well done for recognising you need to do something though :) It's a never-ending battle with the fatties ;)
 
I certainly wouldn't be having him in a HW rug. He will be using his food to put weight on rather than stay warm. I would just put a LW on him, or a MW if it gets really cold (like -5).
 
I agree with the straw, but try to get ahold of barley or oat straw if feeding any significant amount. There are very mixed reviews about feeding wheat straw to horses, it is possible that it could cause colic. I would personnally reduce his intake to the 5.25 kg of hay+straw and skip the hay soaking but that's because I am not too keen on soaking if the horse does not have a sugar problem since you might also be soaking the minerals out of the hay.

Can he may be wear his muzzle in the field to slow him from eating from the round bale? or have a straw bale instead next time?

If he doesn't need the HW, then go for MW or a LW with some fill (rainsheet might be a bit too cold for a fully clipped pony, but then it's up to you to see).
 
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Toffee_monster said:
Yes to both, fully clipped and his hair isnt growing back very much at all, he has a HW on at the moment but he is a hot pony so probably doesnt need that on. I only have a no neck MW or a full neck rain sheet which i could use instead ?

In stable i have a full neck LW which i could use?
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Does he need to be clipped? I'd be lightening rugs as others have said, but next year round (unless being worked enough to warrant it) would leave unclipped and without/light rugs. Not so much for him, but as a mental thing for you to have less rugs on and let him use his food to keep warm (obviously not shivering away) but rather than using to put weight on.
 
PandorasJar said:
Does he need to be clipped? I'd be lightening rugs as others have said, but next year round (unless being worked enough to warrant it) would leave unclipped and without/light rugs. Not so much for him, but as a mental thing for you to have less rugs on and let him use his food to keep warm (obviously not shivering away) but rather than using to put weight on.
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Yes he needs to be clipped really as when he is working he sweats up and when the weather is good we trot for 10 miles a week, next year will be a lot more i hope as we shall be competing in indor trials.


I also clipped to help him lose weight and it has helps a lot since i got him ? I think ive just got a bit too soft with the rugging. In fact when he went through ean electric fence trashing stage we turned him out rugless for a couple of hours and he wasnt cold !! I think fleece and full neck rainsheet might be whats needed now, aswell as weighing his hay :)

Thanks
 
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Having had a fatty that put on weight last winter, fully clipped also and it being a total nightmare I can definitely relate! :rolleyes:
Would have to agree with not so much rugging, you want him to use the food to keep warm, so he isn't just storing it.
A lot of suggestion's for straw but for me this honestly didn't work. My TB was rationed on soaked hay in a small holed net last winter, she wasn't rugged an awful lot, was clipped and was on a straw bed. I moved yards in March and she went onto a shavings bed and guess what? Finally lost weight!! So obviously the straw idea did not work with her.
Now she is on a shavings bed she can have more hay and not soaked. She is on 2 dry nets a night (double neeted to slow her down), and 2 feeds a day in winter (1 in summer) and I have managed to maintain a perfect weight since we moved.
So maybe look at changing the bed?? Just an idea :)
 
My thoughts would be:

- cut out all hard feed

- change to a non edible bed

- weigh hay and feed it soaked

- minimal rugging

- excercise more when the weather improves

Then when turned out, muzzle for a min 12hrs out of 24.

Good luck!
 
Well I have clipped S out, she gets one slice if hay in a small trickle net in the AM and two slices in a bigger tricklenet at night, she is being fed when in work but wasn't (except for balancer) when roughed off. She hasn't been ridden since last week so hasn't been fed two feeds a day only once and the usual feed halfed.

Try clipping him out it works for her, I clipped her out all summer and didn't rug except for nofill rainsheet and it kept her a trim but healthy size :)
 
to be honest if he has access to and is eating hay out in the field I think their lies your problem!! You could starve him overnight but he will scoff all day... This is the problem with supplying hay in the field like this...

I would reduce his hay down to no more than 4kg per day (two small bale sections) preferably feed it soaked.

Rug him thinnly

Exercise more

Feed less bucket feed

Non- edible bedding.

to be honest with the hay issue and lack of school I would be wondering whether this yard is right for you...
 
Seaweed is probably the lesser of the evils so I'll give u that one ;) didnt realise it was for bumps - thought u meant condition x
 
Lol thats ok, he had a reaction to something and the seaweed really helped :)

As for the yard, its just right for us. Its not the yards fault that he is a podge! The hay bale in the field once a month doesnt help moo granted, but better that than not being bothered about horses having no food. The field is mud :(
As for a lack of school, it really doesn't affect us, he is a driving pony and not ridden so would only use it for occasional lunging . Exercise isnt a problem when the weather is better, and im sure im not the only one struggling to exercise my horse at the moment.

On the way home i bought some small haylage nets and a weigh scale and weighed out 2.5kg ..... And it was tiny !! Oops i fear i have been overfeeding my fat pony since he has been in, and we were doing so well in the summer :( anyway so he is now in with a small haynet of unsoaked poor hay (i popped in for a chat at the vets in the way home and was told that in fact there is no definitive proof that soaking helps weight loss ?!?!) and i gave small tea of half cup balancer , seaweed and magnesium, nothing else. I also reduced his rugs down after feeling the others on the yard to see how warm they were, moo was far too toasty so off came the HW and on went a LW full neck stable rug and rain sheet over the top. Checked an hour later and he was warm but not toasty, much better i think.

So, we shall see how we get in from now. I will muzzle him in the field for half the time he is out to start with and then he will be in his stable when the thaw happens due to his mud fever and i will continue hay rations :)

Thanks for all our suggestions, i feel a right idiot now. Killing with kindness !!
 
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Toffee_monster said:
L
As for the yard, its just right for us. Its not the yards fault that he is a podge! The hay bale in the field once a month doesnt help moo granted, but better that than not being bothered about horses having no food. The field is mud :(
As for a lack of school, it really doesn't affect us, he is a driving pony and not ridden so would only use it for occasional lunging . Exercise isnt a problem when the weather is better, and im sure im not the only one struggling to exercise my horse at the moment.

!
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I wasn't suggesting it was the yard's fault, just that the yard might not be right for you... but come to think of it, if they have so many horses that the field is turned to mud, one does have to question whether it is in fact kind of the yard's fault... All I was saying is that by giving him free access to hay every day, you're really going to struggle to get the weight off.

No, you're not the only one struggling to exercise at the moment but having a floodlit school would mean that you would be able to lunge a couple of times a week as you have said yourself (albeit perhaps not at this moment in time with snow on the ground, but for the rest of the winter...)

Soaking hay DOES remove the goodness from hay and DOES encourage weightloss - otherwise why would vets reccomend it for laminitics? I have seen the results first hand on numerous occasions so don't write it off as an option...
 
Toffee_monster said:
On the way home i bought some small haylage nets and a weigh scale and weighed out 2.5kg ..... And it was tiny !! Oops i fear i have been overfeeding my fat pony since he has been in,
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I suspected that might be part of the issue:D Trouble is we're told that horses "Must never be left without food" and made to feel awful if they haven't got some left by morning but for some horses that's just not practicable. My big mare will just eat solidly if allowed, going through two bales of hay overnight.
 
The bale in the field... ah, he can stand all day and gorge on possibly high sugar hay. :D I realize you need the bale in the field but agree with others about switching to soaked hay (fresh water each soak and for up to 12 hours) when he's in if possible. You can actually feed more and get weight loss which is good for his gut. One of the Marksway high fibre haylages might be an option as they have a tested low sugar starch content.
I personally wouldn't stop your supplements if they have proved helpful and just reduce the linseed perhaps.

Re rugging (not something I know much about tbh) if he is clipped and it's a big clip I would be hesitant about allowing him to get cold myself.
 
My girl 16.1hh Dutch warmblood x welsh d was weighed on a weigh bridge in August 484kgs, spot on. However, this past month I think she has put on a little and I'm feeding the same, just no exercise. i feed her 1.5% of her body weight so I can't feed her any less, think its just lack of exercise at the moment.
 
Thank you everyone, this has all been very helpful and the kick up the a.r.s.e i needed :)

The winter field at the yard is mud due to the terrible weather weve had, i moved here due to knee deep mud already in september at my old yard and at the new place we had not mud at all until we had the flooding.
However i will admit that it wasnt my first choice but i do have a stable here which is a bonus. My 1st choice was one up the road with a walker and school but no spaces and waiting list as long as your arm ! :(

I am sticking with his supplements but taken out the linseed, i used it to put condition on my last pony so doubt he needs it at all.

Just for anyone who thinks i am useless (and probably more for myself who is doubting myself at the moment) we have come a long way since September, but i need to keep on top of it now as spring will soon be here ! :(

September
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Last week
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amandap said:
Re rugging (not something I know much about tbh) if he is clipped and it's a big clip I would be hesitant about allowing him to get cold myself.
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I don't think anyone has said to let him get cold? Not radiating heat, doesn't mean the horse is cold, rather a good temperature. I'm not sure how a small or full clip (or unclipped) makes any odds in what temperature you keep your horse either?

He sounds over-rugged if he is toasty compared to the other warm horses on site (As Toffee Monster has said).

TM - In regards to my comment about not clipping earlier, I hadn't realised he was working - so agree clipped. I only mention not clipping from a human point of view - I worry far more on temeratures if something is clipped, all my furries are out naked and don't worry as always warm.
 
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