keeping weight on

StormyMoments

StormyMoments

Well-Known Member
Joined
18 March 2011
Messages
2,214
Visit site
Well as many of you may know Rio arrived from spain 5 weeks ago now and hes been doing well.

Im struggling with one thing though.. Hes dropping weight. It must be around 75kg now since i got him and hes now the perfect weight to go into the winter (he was overweight now is perfect) but hes still dropping and i cant stop it! Vet said nothing is wrong, he was wormed before he got here and was wormed again on monday.

For the first 3 weeks i struggled to find anything he would eat as he wouldnt eat hay or haylage but i hve finally found some hay he will eat. He has 5 sections at night (its this years hay) he eats it all. He refuses to eat hay in the field but has grass so is not starving even though he thinks he is!

He is on 1 scoop of fast fibre and 3/4 of a cup of topspec cool balancer and half a scoop of non mollased chaff

hes in a medium rug without a neck, he isnt molting and isnt getting a thicker coat. Hes warm under his rug not toastie though..

The only reason im concerned is because of how quickly he has dropped off because last week you couldnt feel his ribs and this week they are visable when he moves. Apparently he dropped like this in spain too except they kept him obese so when he dropped he just went back to the correct weight. As i said the vet has checked him and said that everything is normal so its not a health issue as such...

So any feed suggestions? Nothing that gives him energy though as hes sharp and full of beans and i cant deal with him being anymore explosive then he already is! Also it would be good if it worked for taz as well as he drops weight too and if i can keep them on a simular feed its easier :)

thank you!
 
He has 5 sections at night (its this years hay) he eats it all.
Click to expand...

So the first thing to do is increase this until he does have some left in the mornings.

He is on 1 scoop of fast fibre and 3/4 of a cup of topspec cool balancer and half a scoop of non mollased chaff
Click to expand...

Once or twice a day?
 
Well, it can be fed as a complete ration - so personally I'd increase it to at least two dry scoops per meal, as you're feeding hay.
 
Veggie/Sunflower oil in with feed or you could try Linseed, I don't feed it but I don't believe it's a heating feed. My boy struggled a lot with weight but is looking fab now on D&H build up cubes - may just be a case of trial and error to see what works for him, but I would definitely recommend adding oil to his feed :)
 
I have used calm and condition with great sucess. Adding micronised linseed can add a lot of calories and is meant to be non heating. If you have lots of money then outshine or equi jewel are amazing and non heating. Equi jewel was used a lot when I worked with the racehorses. Hope this helps a little bit.
 
Agree with amymay, for now I'd just try ad lib hay & fast fibre, & review in two weeks. The fact he was fat before would put me off going overboard on feeding him up.
 
Loads of the hay if he is eating it must always have access to some. I know you said he has been health checked fine, but do always double check the worming. I personally swear by calm and condition for weight gain, but some people find it does nothing. Ensure that there is a good pre/probiotic so the gut is getting as much as possible yield. Feeding in smaller mnore frequent rations helps some horses. Oil content can also help and if the C&C had not worked well on our poor doer I would have tried micronised linseed next as I heard great things about it. My 17.2 ISH poor doer has ad lib haylage, 1 1/4 scoops C&C and 2 scoops dengie molasses free morning and night and is in medium-hard work.

Also ensure you rug up if the horse is cold as they burn calories keeping warm - my poor doer has a winter coat as thin as his summer and has to be rugged up well or the weight falls off very rapidly.
 
It's 30 degrees out in spain this week so he is probably feeling this horrid damp weather. It's dropping to minus 4 at the weekend as well. He also won't be used to grass like we have here and his poor digestive system is probably struggling not too mention the aftershock of the journey.
Id' rug him up more, our english horses might get too hot but his metabolism and coat change isn't used to having to keep him warm yet. I would put a digestive supplement in his feed, brewers yeast to help his stomach cope and like the others have said up the hay. He would have lived on mostly a hay diet in spain with grains. It might even have been alfalfa hay which is rich.
Good luck
 
Unless a horse is over weight I would want it to be fed enough hay that it never completely ran out. Only if it won't keep weight on with ad lib hay/haylage would I be looking at conditioning feeds/adding oil etc.

Last Autumn mine was eating 40lbs haylage, plus going out on grass for a few hours, and having two feeds of conditioning cubes, plus sugar beet, plus chaff and wasn't maintaining weight so we started adding oil. Then we changed the feed completely. But always best (and cheapest) to increase the forage first.

The hay/haylage helps them to keep occupied and warm and helps with ulcers and stress too so definitely the best first option.
 
Linseed linseed linseed! Its amazing! The fast fibre isnt really high in anything other than fibre but add linseed and it becomes something totoally amazing! The combination isnt heating either.

The other thing to say is that moving is highly stressful for horses. My girl just stopped eating when I got her and I did absolutely everything to get her to eat. It was the middle of winter, she didnt much like being stabled and she was stressed so just stopped eating. Eventually we sorted it out but yeah linseed and loads of hay like others have said.

You can get 20kg bags delivered from charnwood milling online and that will last you ages. Costs about £27 delivered.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top