My obese horse

poiuytrewq

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Today for the first time is ages I managed to get to my horse and give him a good brush in the daylight (just!)
He's been on holiday due to lack of time for about 10 weeks and has been out with not much grass, not great hay and low cal chaff (unmolassed) and a d token teacup of maintinance nuts to put supplements in and it saves me traipsing through mud to check him.
He's unclipped and in a 150g rug so not over warm.
Oh god, he's absolutely massive! He's only a light hack and I'll start again now to try and shift a bit but any ideas would be appreciated!
 

laura_nash

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Hi

Had the same with my two in Oct, they are both out of work and had got a little overweight so I put them out in a rough field with (I thought) not much grass, no hay, a handful of fast fibre (with supplement in) daily and no rugs. They were supposed to be losing weight, instead when I put the tape around them in Nov they'd piled it on even more!

They are currently both in a small paddock with a shelter and no grass, it really is just bare mud and stone. They are getting half soaked hay and half barley straw (hay in tricklenets, straw in normal nets), no rugs whatever the weather. They are starting to lose the weight, though they do their best to persuade passers-by that they are being starved (I keep having to pop out to explain to people).
 

highlandponygirl

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Yep, get that rug off and get his bum moving :p Walk, walk and keep on walking, up hills if there are any. After a few hacks, at walk, keep him at his working pace then speed the walk up for 1 min, relax for 5 min etc and gradually increase the brisk walking. Sort of like interval training for people lol. Has had good results for an old native I used to look after :)
 

poiuytrewq

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I can't unrug him and work him realistically as we are on heavy clay and he is half bred hippo!
I'm going to clip him, not fully but a bit. I've also brought him in and am feeding well soaked hay- over night.
His field friend has a bad cough so Im trying to avoid hay in the field now. The mixing hay and straw is a great idea and one if not thought of!
The other change that just occurred to me is I've jumped on the turmeric bandwagon so have been adding a little oil to his feed!
Previously he was on Danilon so not sure which is the lesser of two evils there!
We have two convenient hills I will utilise ;)
This is a genuine shock to my system!!!
 

PollyP99

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Have you weigh taped him? If not I would now and then you've got something to go by to see what he's losing. I've got 30kg off my mare this winter (so far, still fighting the flab) by feeding 12 hour soaked hay and fast fibre (for supplements) and sticking to her summer work routine of 3 hacks (min 1 hour, max 3 hour) 1 hard schooling session, lunged in between (need to up this as. The grass kicks in).

Work is the main thing that shifts weight , having seen a companion on my yard stay pretty much round despite havig very little feed, not rugged etc. the only thing it doesn't get is excercise. It really has shown me its all about getting them moving.

On rugging, mines in a light weight 100g fill and has a blanket clip, she is fine heat wise, just off of cold at the lowest temperatures but never tucked up.
 
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Supertrooper

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Join the club! The only exercise I can do with mine is in hand walking, luckily I have a 1.6 mile circular route and 1/3 of it is up hill. Mine isn't rugged at all and the only feed he gets is.....

Am - 1 scoop of hifi mollasses free, 2 scoops of oat straw chaff (Honeychop) and rec amount of Topspec anti lam balancer

Pm - one 1kg hay block (when field mate is fed)

This is the first winter I've owned him and I was too soft with him and let him have high fibre haylage which bloated him and he just didn't need it. It's amazing how he can graze even with the sparse amount of grass he has. He is out 24/7 on one acre.

I weigh tape him weekly on a Saturday afternoon and I also photograph him side on weekly too.

He's lost 74kg since start of winter.
 

flirtygerty

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Having 3 good doers and 1 TB poor doer, life gets difficult at this time of year, I feed restricted hay to the good doers and bring the poor doer in for a feed and ad lib hay, field has no grass, so hand graze daily, with the TB being out longest
 

AngieandBen

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Yep, get that rug off and get his bum moving :p Walk, walk and keep on walking, up hills if there are any. After a few hacks, at walk, keep him at his working pace then speed the walk up for 1 min, relax for 5 min etc and gradually increase the brisk walking. Sort of like interval training for people lol. Has had good results for an old native I used to look after :)


This, I'm a great believer in exercise, works for humans too :) all mine are on a 5 acre field with lots of grass, they are underugged and although not in much work they have all lost weight because they move around so much. All are veterans hence the rugging, but only just started to rug them in the last two years
 
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