Linseed - Shetland and weight gain

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PStarfish

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Have been reading the posts on here regarding linseed being a good addition for weight gain. I previously posted about my elderly Shetland who had lost a fair amount of weight recently. She is now on a diet of Veteran Vitality and Baileys Alfalfa with Oil and she is gradually putting weight back on. She has as-lib hay but struggles with this due to lack of & wear on teeth so Dengie suggested the Alpha Oil as a fibre replacer (but I bought the Baileys as assumed the same but is slightly cheaper) which she manages but will leave the coarser parts in her bowl.
Would linseed be of any benefit to her? Being a Shetland I have to assume she's lami prone (only had her 6 months) so am trying to keep her diet fibre based but with a higher calorie input. If so, how much would you recommend feeding? Does it have any harmful properties?
Any advice much appreciated.
Also while I'm at it (cheeky!) re the above about Alpha Oil - does this have any rather coarse stemmy pieces? The Baileys type does (not a huge amount but always some pieces left in her feed) which she can't manage. Or does anybody know of an alternative hay replacer chaff that is high in calories without the sugar and is softer and short stemmed?
Thanks in advance.
 
Could you give her bagged haylage instead of her hay? My Shetland is 22 and has liver damage so has a very restricted diet and looks great on haylage and Baileys high fibre complete cubes. He was on Silvermoor lite until I had to switch my other pony to haylage so now has big bale haylage. The Silvermoor is softer and very palatable, hope you get her sorted out :)
 
I feed mine on unmolassed sugarbeet, dengie molasses free chaff (contains a lot of oil, fenugreek which is good for lammy and mint to make it palatable) and micronised linseed. I also feed her mag ox which is supposed to help them metabolise sugar better, and she's put on weight without any signs of the lammy for a long time. She has adlib hay too, and is the healthiest I've seen her since she came to us. In the summer I was feeding her soaked hay and a handful of complete feed twice a day on a bare paddock but she was ribbier than I'd have liked, but since changing her diet she seems so much healthier, she's even shiny and not the least bit footy in the wet.

I did reduce the linseed when she started to get a little fatter than I'd like, but she seems to be coping just fine now.

The Dengie stuff if short, oil coated and dry as a bone, so no sticky chewy mess to chomp through. It does contain pellets but I make her two feeds at a time and put hot water in both so it softens the pellets and she wolfs it down.
 
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putasocinit she has been seen by a vet and had teeth attended to under sedation so we know what we are dealing with there and will be seen frequently going forwards (I've only had her 6 months so the problem only became apparent when we started putting hay out as she was fine through summer on the grass).
Haylage is a possibility but it would mean she would have to spend a lot of time on her own as she is in a herd of 5 shetlands. She is taken out for her feed twice a day which takes her a good couple of hours to slowly chomp through then she goes back with the others who have hay out. She does manage some hay, it just takes her a while so she won’t be getting much nutritional benefit from it hence we are making this up in bucket feeds – but she is at least able to ‘graze’ on the hay and keep something moving through her tummy.
Mollasses free may be a good option, especially as she is now gaining weight, I will do a comparison with the Baileys Oil.
I should also point out she is a fussy Shetland! We have tried feeding fast fibre but she didn’t want to know! She would eat it if mixed with the VV but this created such a huge volume of feed I was worried about overloading her (although it is a hay replacer so maybe I shouldn’t have worried?) She’s just such a small wee thing it feels wrong feeding her huge buckets of anything unless its a hay type substance (chaff etc)
Which is why I thought maybe linseed as I think you feed it in small volumes but it has a big impact??
 
I would feed a trug of alfabeet well soaked with a mug of micronised linseed as hay replacer probably three times a day. mash so easy to eat and sugar free low carb high oil so ok for laminitics
 
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