Laminitics and overweight horse owners!

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Rachael42

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Hi,
I have two native ponies. Both on a diet.
My Cob is laminitic and my Shetland is an extreme good doer(swear they can live on air!). Both have been put on a diet as they put weight on when we moved yards.
They are stabled during the day and out at night. Recently I’ve been starting to soak their hay for two reasons 1. The Shetland has respiratory issues and 2. For the calories.
Do people weigh soaked hay and feed or do you give Ad-lib soaked hay?
I would like to give them AdLib but I don’t what them to put weight on with it?
can anyone help with this?
 
I weigh mine. my mare is out 8 til 4 and then comes into 6kgs of soaked hay and a high fibre, low calorie mash feed with extra chop to see her through. She is 15.1 and weighs 565kgs. I'd like her down to 525 but the wet warm weather has not helped with the grass flushing.
 
Mine is a cob, as per my avatar. He is 15.1 and was weighed recently on a weighbridge at 450kg, when he was at what the vet said was his ideal weight, although I think it is a bit skinny. You can see 7 ribs, but he still is covered over his spine, with a tiny fat pad over the shoulder.

He has 8kg soaked hay to lose weight, 10kg soaked hay to maintain. He also has a net of straw over night to keep him going, plus straw chaff and sugar beet for his vitamins.

If he is also at grass, the vet said to take 1kg of hay off for each hour he was out.

This is a VERY strict regime as his bloodworm was previously shocking, and he had laminitis. With this feeding, he does not. His bloods were re-done and he is clear. No sign of lami.
 
Mine gets weighed soaked hay overnight and goes out in the day in the muzzle. On this regime he is *touch wood* laminitis free and a good weight. If he had ad-lib he would be enormous! I’m able to give him a little more hay when he has the muzzle on which keeps him a bit happier
 
The cob is the worst. He just seems so hungry. He finishes his large weighed net in a few hours so is standing all night without. I really don’t know what to do! I use greedy feeder nets or double the nets up and he still eats it so quickly.
 
Rachael42 said:
The cob is the worst. He just seems so hungry. He finishes his large weighed net in a few hours so is standing all night without. I really don’t know what to do! I use greedy feeder nets or double the nets up and he still eats it so quickly.
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I spent the last few years double and triple netting and my horse just exhaled it all in no time??
Anyway I had physio for one reason or another and she told me to stop netting hsy, as my horse had some damage to her neck and shoulder, with much trepidation I started ground feeding, although contained hay to a wooden box and low and behold she now paces herself.
I don't know why, maybe she just doesn't feel as panicked about being able to get to food ?‍♀️
She is by no means a slow eater now but will nibble, snooze, nibble, have a nosey over her door etc rather than just inhaling it til it's gone.
 
Rachael42 said:
The cob is the worst. He just seems so hungry. He finishes his large weighed net in a few hours so is standing all night without. I really don’t know what to do! I use greedy feeder nets or double the nets up and he still eats it so quickly.
Click to expand...

at my yard we had a couple of laminitic ponies and they were given their hay at about 6pm and YO would go out and give another net at 10.30 ish....could you do similar, split the large net into 2 smaller nets so they are staggered and he wont have such a long time without hay.....or split it into a few nets and hang them round the stable so he has to move a bit more, trouble is that trashes the bed. or maybe replace some of the hay with straw to slow him down..
 
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are they shod? floor nets unattached to anything are good for slowing them down/not generating muscles issues from tugging but obv only if no shoes.
 
Not a chance of mine having ad lib - she has no off button.

Muzzled on the grass (& I put piles of soaked hay out so there's always something to try and eat through it, but she has to share) and then if she's in at night its 1.5% very soaked in small holed nets.

If she's out at night then its on grass pickings with a bit more soaked hay to share with the other 2. I do see her expanding on even the muddy grass pickings though
 
Am i the only one who read the title as laminitis horses and overweight owners? ?

I don’t routinely soak hay, but i do feed ir in teeny holed nets or spread it out on the field as far as i can if the ground is dry. If i only had one I’d soak and use small holes nets, so that it could be almost as lib. A couple of hours without won’t hurt, but i wouldn’t want them to be left with nothing for too many hours. Mine are out 24/7 on track now so i can see how much grass they have eaten round the track as the middle is ankle high.
 
meleeka said:
Am i the only one who read the title as laminitis horses and overweight owners? ?

I don’t routinely soak hay, but i do feed ir in teeny holed nets or spread it out on the field as far as i can if the ground is dry. If i only had one I’d soak and use small holes nets, so that it could be almost as lib. A couple of hours without won’t hurt, but i wouldn’t want them to be left with nothing for too many hours. Mine are out 24/7 on track now so i can see how much grass they have eaten round the track as the middle is ankle high.
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I did, I thought they were looking for a link between owners who were overweight and the ponies they owned who were also overweight!
 
There is also a balance to be had that they are not 'starving' when they go out.
A combination of muzzling, or track system over night on grass and then feeding hay in floor nets in the day worked well for us.
 
Mine lives out 24/7 365 days a year he is on a grass track about 15 ft wide stopped at one end in total the field is 3/4 of an acre the track opens up at the end away from the water into strip grazing they are fed daily near the water and gallop the full track from the food to grass or vice versa He hasnt had laminitis for 5 years on this system Oat straw chaff fills him up so he is happier nothing worse than a hangry horse unless its a laminitic one
 
We weigh hay before soaking for our EMS mini and his companion. They are out 24/7 on an area with very little grass, just enough to pick at, and get a small-holed net of well-soaked hay each morning and night. They also have a light balancer, small amount of linseed and a little molasses-free chaff twice a day.
 
I have Arabs they are far too fat for my liking I have been trying to really ride them and lunge, but not in tight circles the exercise is good for all of us to run around the school so a few times a week that's what we do.
 
ester said:
There is also a balance to be had that they are not 'starving' when they go out.
A combination of muzzling, or track system over night on grass and then feeding hay in floor nets in the day worked well for us.
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Completely agree about finding the right balance.
A track system worked for us, luckily with that she could have adlib hay (no nets) while in at night. She lost just over 60kg
 
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