Lady, One Week After The Move

Please don't be riding her until she has more condition. The pictures I saw on the earlier thread made my heart pound for her

I agree with other posters that 20 is not old - my 19 year old came out of winter looking a little poor but it had been a really hard one plus she had a youngster weaned off her at Christmas so been out of work for 2 years and feeding 2, as a result lost her topline. She did not look like your girl and somewhat resembles an elephant now !

It has all been said before but you need to get extra palatable fiber into her diet all through the year fast fiber or fiber beet are both good for oldies with bad teeth. Also consider bogostandard shop bought oil - I went through a small bottle a week when really tryin to pick up her condition and she really improved for £1.30 a week !! & I have too keep her off the grass due to lami ! you can not blame lack of grass most of us horse owners actually fear the stuff at this time of year. Alot of horses on this forum wintered out in just light weight to rugs be careful not to rely on a rug for condition you might be better off keeping a spare to swap over if she gets sopping wet


One thing is for sure my girl is not wintering out this year - it's pipe and slippers time for her!
 
Last edited:
In the photo, she is hanging onto some winter coat, has she been wormed for tapeworm as they do not show up on worm counts?
 
she definately looks better and in just one week thats really good!! She seems less ribby and her bum looks less boney. Also not sure of her story.
Have to say i love the little patch of fluff on her belly though :p
 
Our 27yo looked poor 5 weeks ago and always looks bad between March and May.

She lives out with properly ad lib haylage and comes through winter looking good but drops at coat change. She has done this since she was about 20 or 21. She has mild cushings so holds onto her coat. Every year I worry but as soon as the coat is gone (think brushing twice a day when possible) and the grass is through she picks up. She is now just right and by September will be a little porky to go into winter.

Like the OPs horse she hates being stabled and I see no need to do this provided she is rugged adequately and fed ad lib haylage. She has a balancer and dengie hi fi light and speedie beet in the winter and just balancer and a pinch of hi fi light in the summer. She has this twice a day. I think the secret is enough forage and making sure teeth, wormer etc are up to date.

I wonder if the OPs horse will look better in her summer coat. Our old girlie is, however, retired and not ridden and has a stress free life nannying our youngster. She is not asked to share fields with any horse who might bully or harass her and I think this helps too. Jadey I know you love her but I really think from your past posts that you need to really get that forrage into her asap. I do not know how much support you get from your family but I know there are people on here who can and would help.
I would also agree that Lady should not be ridden at all at the moment and maybe it is time for her to have a quieter life.:)
 
What’s done is done. Horses live in the here and now and it’s up to you to make sure hers and her future is a healthy one.

Get into the habit of weigh taping her weekly all year round. This way you can tell if she’s dropping condition before it ever gets to this stage. Make a chart, stick it up somewhere and just keep on top of it. You can see as soon as she starts to drop off and address the situation immediately.

I know you’re expecting this new grass to make a huge difference – and it will, but don’t get complacent. Start building up to her winter feed regime now.

Is she your first horse? You’re quite young aren’t you? And doing this without help from your parents? I’m sorry for you both that you ended up with a horse like her - she is so hard to manage and whoever sold her to you must have known this. Where you warned? She certainly looks older than 20 but who knows - I hope you weren’t ripped off. But hey ho she’s yours now and there’s no reason now why she shouldn’t thrive.

If you need any advice then you can always pm me, I have a pony in her thirties and had an extremely poor doer in the past so I do understand how hard it is :-)

ETA - My ancient one lives out all winter so if this is your only option then it is do-able if you are prepared to put the effort in.
 
Last edited:
i have just read through the rest of this post as my first post was only reading page one *oops*.
I agree with some things you do need to pick up on weight loss much quicker. Agree pop a lw on her or one of these waterproof topped fly rugs to try and keep her dry as she is trying to put condition on you need her to be warm by other means rather than using her food to keep warm. My boy is 26 im lucky he has good teeth but he is a poor doer so over winter he is kept well rugged and has adlib haylage as well as two feeds a day. I went away when he was 14 for 2weeks and came back to finding him looking very poor YO didnt feed him as she felt he didnt need it. Needless to say the entire summer and winter he was hard to put weight on.
Here are a few things we used to get the weight on him quickly and i know of others who have used it to good success. Guiness in the feeds, also and the best we have found was to use foal/lambs milk powder which we mixed up and at first put into his feed and then he actually drank it. They were very good also try feeding 3 times a day if possible as smaller feeds are much better for her to digest. At the moment she may be prefering the grass but be aware of the need to put hay out once the spring richness is no longer. Also i wouldnt ride her if you want to build up muscle long rein or lunge her but only at a walk.
Good luck and do think carefully about putting her through next winter if she isnt at a very good level of condition before then. It is meant to be as tough as last year.
 
JadeyyAndLadyy said:
4, with one on 24/7 muzzling.
She will have ad lib hay this winter
Click to expand...

Hi Jade , looks like your getting some good advice here now , but i do worry when you say she's out with 4 others with one on 24/7 muzzling - no horse should be muzzled 24/7 , especially through the night when accidents can occur. If you are taking advice from the owner who muzzles 24/7 and thinks this is correct , i do think you need to spend more time with experienced people to help you and your mare get through what only seems a management crisis.
 
Ladylina83 said:
Also consider bogostandard shop bought oil - I went through a small bottle a week when really tryin to pick up her condition and she really improved for £1.30 a week !!
Click to expand...

A tip for anyone considering the above........
If you have access to a cash and carry, such as Costco, you can get large barrels (about 4/5gallons) of oil like this for about £5, which makes it even cheaper! :D
 
JadeyyAndLadyy said:
I contacted farmkey and they confirmed her real age and breed
Click to expand...


Sorry then you really have no excuse Jade, she is ONLY 20, I have a 32yo who looks better than she does, even in the depths of winter with no grass to speak of you could not see her ribs and hip bones! At the moment she is as fat as butter on very little grass, as what grass there is is very nutritious.

Lady is very long in the back and this does make her look worse, but there is no getting away from the fact that she is very very underweight and not for the first time.
 
*FACEPALM*

Feed it.

Feed it, Feed it, Feed it.

Alfa A oil, vegetable oil, veteran/buildup mix and ad lib HAYLAGE.

Over the winter our grass was covered in snow and then ice for 11 WEEKS. None of them looked as poor as this.

Weight tapes cost a couple of quid, buy one and use it EVERY week

I look forward to seeing some pics of her in the summer up to weight and looking healthy

PS. there are so many contradictions on this thread I have gone cross eyed :eek:
 
OP, I am echoing what the others have said.

I find the pictures of Lady very distressing indeed :(, something is clearly very wrong be it in her management or her health (I suspect both) and I really hope you have the vet out sooner rather than later...like tomorrow.

I can see from your posts you love your horse, but love is not enough to make her healthy and well.

I have my fingers crossed your follow the advice given on this thread and that Lady picks up soon.

But please....dont ever let her get into this state again, she deserves so much better than this.

Good luck and please let us know how you get on
 
I've only skimmed this thread, read the first page and the last couple so I think most people are saying the same thing...

I'm sorry to be harsh but to me, Lady doesn't look any better than a couple of weeks ago. Having a poor doer is difficult. My YO's older (21 I think, maybe 20) TB who only has 3 teeth is looking far better and even in summer, she has to give him hard feed. He is currently out on reasonable grass (he gets first dibs on the fields to eat them down before the fatties go on them!), gets hard feed and has a big pile of haylage overnight. Feed-wise I think he's getting Alfa A, nuts and maybe a build-up mix. His feeds are usually split into at least 2 a day so that he has a chance to digest each one properly.

OP- would it be possible for you to section off part of the field for Lady to go in for part of the day where she can have haylage and hard feed? If you can keep her away from the other horses for a while each day, you can give adlib haylage and some hard feed easily. FWIW, my very good doer is separated from the other horses during the day - he goes onto what is basically a dust patch for soaked hay then out muzzled overnight. It is possible to separate horses to make it easier to manage them.
 
When I first saw this thread I thought OP had rescued the horse but on reading the replies it seems that was not the case, poor horse, I hope she recieves the care she needs :/
 
RuthnMeg said:
Oh, for christs sake! Some people are being unnecessarily harsh. Lady looks fine, and far from 'poor' in reality. So, we can see her ribs, she is short of muscles/lack of fitness and her coat hasn't come through properly in the first pic, but thats not nearing deaths door! Jade works hard at this mare, yet she is proud of her too and some of you are the sort of people who puts real dampeners on horse ownership.
My elderly mare, in comparisson to Lady, at one point looked very thin coming out of winter in mid march time. She had been fine all through the worst of the winter and suddenly dropped off like no tomorrow. Yet, when I posted a pic of her, I had comments of her being 'fat'! It doesn't add up, and Lady being the type of horse she is, is never going to be 'well covered'. Also, have to note, why are people questioning the first photo, when clearly the horse has improved? Should you not be applauding Jade on the right choices she has made for the horse in order to get her looking better?
Jade, you are doing a fab job and Lady IS looking well.
Click to expand...

:confused: She doesn't look poor in the pics? Sheesh! Should've gone to specsavers. :D
 
Im sorry but that horse does not look WELL at all.

Blimey does a horse literally have to be on deaths door before people get real with the owner. I dont give a feck if it upsets jadey, if it does at least she can go and have a burger!
 
I have to agree with Amymay. There is never an excuse for a horse to get this poor. There is no such thing as wintering badly if a horse is well fed and rugged. Most the horses I have cared for and owned have been TBs. Some have been in their late twenties. All of them come through winter with a good covering over their ribs and rump. Yes, it costs me a fortune. On average £21 per week per horse in haylage alone. Some eat around £30 of the stuff. If she drops weight this winter despite ad lib hay, then you could try some Allen and Page Fast Fibre. It is excellent.
 
There is some small improvement, but if this horse is not sorted and properly looked after this winter, with sufficient feed, rugs and access to shelter, I doubt she will make next spring.

J&L, you need to step up to the plate from this point forwards - no more excuses, no more 'my friend let me down': she's your horse and if you don't sort her out, it's no one's fault but yours.
 
FGS!, How on EARTH can you say that horse looks "well" :eek: I agree you need a trip to Spec Savers lady and make it pronto for the sake of this poor horse.

She is skin and bone and clearly NOT well condition nor I suspect health wise :mad:

I dont know what your loyalty/relationship is to OP but it is blinding your judgement grossly and that is very concerning indeed if you have direct contact with the OP who sounds very young and impressionable with regards to management of this poor mare. It makes me so angry, it really does.

My horse is 24 years old and looks a picture of health due to correct feeding/healthcare and general management so there is no excuse at all for Lady to look this way.

Jade, I am afraid you are doing NOT doing a fab job and Lady is NOT looking well at ALL. This is not an attack to you personally, its a FACT sadly :(
 
Last edited:
The horse doesn’t look any better which is sad to see.

An old equine with very bad teeth will eventually struggle even on the best of yards, sometimes you have to know when to call it a day for the animals sake.

It really is this simple, keep the horse on a yard where his needs are catered for….good grazing all year through, ample hay available at all times, a place to feed him individually so others are not taking his rations, if the horse still doesn’t pick up then (given 6 months), well that’s a sign to say good bye in my view.

I don't mean any of the above in a harsh way and obviously you do care about your horse and love him very much, I don't think anyone doubts that, also I don't think his conformation helps matters when looking at photos but you can only do what you can do (or afford) you have to face facts and see what is before your eyes, which is starved horse, be it just because he's old and can't eat properly because of his teeth or because he's not got the food there to eat.

People are only telling you this because they want to help you and your horse. :)
 
rosiefronfelen said:
OKthen,does she have a shelter in her field?
Click to expand...

I know Jadine well, we live in the same area and went to school together etc. I know she'd been trying hard to move Lady and I myself helped her as soon as she said that her friends were neglecting her horse.

Also reply from Jadine: Lady has a lot of natural shelter like trees and bushes, but not an actual shelter. Even if she did she wouldn't use it.
 
equestrianabbie said:
I know Jadine well, we live in the same area and went to school together etc. I know she'd been trying hard to move Lady and I myself helped her as soon as she said that her friends were neglecting her horse.

Also reply from Jadine: Lady has a lot of natural shelter like trees and bushes, but not an actual shelter. Even if she did she wouldn't use it.
Click to expand...

Nothing was done fast enough though, to let the horse get into that state before she did anything is awful, it's good that she did do something but something should have been done the minute Lady looked like she'd lost a single pound, especially with her history.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top