Overweight Horses!!

[Elf On A Shelf]

He's so yummy
I think that's a problem with a lot of the lighter, sportier connemara and Welsh lines, in that people think native, therefore stocky, when they're just not built like that. And allowing more weight to pile on them will not make it so.

Or taking an Irish Draft Hunter and feeding it so much it looked like a cob on top... And then somehow wining with it. But it must have been the distinctive brown boots 😉

 

[DabDab]

Or taking an Irish Draft Hunter and feeding it so much it looked like a cob on top... And then somehow wining with it. But it must have been the distinctive brown boots ��

What?! You mean a fat ID does not a cob make? How very odd...

 

[Tiddlypom]

Or taking an Irish Draft Hunter and feeding it so much it looked like a cob on top... And then somehow wining with it. But it must have been the distinctive brown boots 😉

Sadly I believe that the fattened up ID is now dead.

 

[Goldenstar]

Fatty had been masquerading as a maxi cob at one point the disguise was 200 kilos of fat .

 

[Floofball]

Sadly I believe that the fattened up ID is now dead.

I feel quite sad about that news. I was joking last year that I should hog my lad and try my luck in cob classes, it was a joke but I have seen similar. A very nice middleweight hunter - always placed but never won or qualified - fattened up, hogged and heyho better placings - that was years ago but last year shows it still goes on :-(

 

[honetpot]

Got told my fit, healthy horse was too thin “for a native” the other day ��

Yup my connies looked like that. They did really well in sports pony classes. Even my Highland was not fat enough to win.

 

[claret09]

lovely horse

Got told my fit, healthy horse was too thin “for a native” the other day ��

 

[pansymouse]

Hell, isn't weight management hard work? After spending most of the winter trying to get weight onto my mare I've now got her in a grazing muzzle. I'm now trying to covert the fat back into muscle with miles and miles of trotting which we both find exceptionally dull. I've stopped all hard food (which refused to eat anyway), good grass is plenty for what we do.

 

[Goldenstar]

Hell, isn't weight management hard work? After spending most of the winter trying to get weight onto my mare I've now got her in a grazing muzzle. I'm now trying to covert the fat back into muscle with miles and miles of trotting which we both find exceptionally dull. I've stopped all hard food (which refused to eat anyway), good grass is plenty for what we do.

Now you know that happens don’t try to get weight on her in the winter .
Yes it is hard with some horses and it’s effortless with others I never fully understood this issue until I got Fatty and tbh I will never take on another obese horse it’s just too hard work now he’s retired it’s going to very very hard to give a decent quality of life .

 

[Cortez]

I agree with GS: give me an emaciated horse to fatten up over an obese one any day! Is it really so hard to keep horses at the right weight? I have 3 (well 3.5 - one's a mule, who would dearly love to be a fat mule ), and they're all pretty much in the right zone, the hardest one has been the chap I got from the UK who arrived ENORMOUS and took a couple of years to get down to the sleek beast he is now.

 

[milliepops]

I think for the average horse without health issues it's not *too* difficult but I do think it takes a while to get to know a new horse and find out how their body responds to temperature/exercise/feed etc. I find my oldies easy to manage (no feed and no work), the welsh easy (loads of feed and lots of work) but the WB hasn't been here long enough to get properly fit and I haven't quite got the measure of her yet

 

[DabDab]

Now you know that happens don’t try to get weight on her in the winter .
Yes it is hard with some horses and it’s effortless with others I never fully understood this issue until I got Fatty and tbh I will never take on another obese horse it’s just too hard work now he’s retired it’s going to very very hard to give a decent quality of life .

A horse being significantly overweight is my top of the list reason for not viewing/buying

 

[windand rain]

I did buy a very very fat baby she is still a well covered pony but looks so much better and has now a wonderful length of rein baring in mind she is only 11.3 she has shed 100 kgs which shows just how blobby she was. I struggled at first but used the winter and I think she will look like a young pony this summer

 

[milliepops]

When I got Kira she was the fattest horse I'd ever seen She is really easy to keep now though. But I agree I wouldn't have chosen her if the circumstances had been different.

 

[ester]

Kira was even fatter than Frank was!

The thing with Frank was that we knew it was short term fat as we had seen what he looked like when he arrived with his previous owner in the march, a spring with little work especially once she decided she was scared of him meant a very fat though not hugely unfit pony come June and we cracked on quite smartly.

 

[Sophstar]

My clydie was naked all winter even in -9 and came out of winter looking a tad skinny because he kept having the occasional growth spurt . The grass is so good on our grazing he has filled out to a good weight in the spring flush whereas nearly every other horse in the field is overweight already! Once he's turned 3 next week and the weather is consistently good on my days off, he shall be out long lining across the common to keep the gut off. I used to have an overweight cob and i think you become blind to the size they should be. I managed to strip his weight off with a strict diet and only then I realised how huge he had been!

 

[pansymouse]

Now you know that happens don’t try to get weight on her in the winter .
Yes it is hard with some horses and it’s effortless with others I never fully understood this issue until I got Fatty and tbh I will never take on another obese horse it’s just too hard work now he’s retired it’s going to very very hard to give a decent quality of life .

She dropped 60kgs when was ill, the vet told me to get weight on her. Normally she drops a bit in winter which is totally acceptable.

 

[DabDab]

Kira was even fatter than Frank was!

The thing with Frank was that we knew it was short term fat as we had seen what he looked like when he arrived with his previous owner in the march, a spring with little work especially once she decided she was scared of him meant a very fat though not hugely unfit pony come June and we cracked on quite smartly.

Multi quote still won't work :rolleyes3:

I think Kira and Frank are both a bit of an inspiration in terms of getting a fatty pony fit and sound and breaking out a really useful horse from deep inside the flab. However, as much as I admire others being able to do it, it just isn't for me - grazing muzzles, soaked hay and dirt paddocks I just couldn't cope with. Give me a quirky temperament, the odd sarcoid or badly trained any day over a good doer

 

[ester]

haha, see in his younger years he never had a muzzle just occasional strip grazing- the muzzle only came out because I was on livery somewhere they liked fertilised 'pretty' fields and didn't allow strip grazing and it meant he could stay with his best mate, his major excess actually came off quite easily and quickly (he was vetted vet said not too unfit please crack on asap!). Without the work (and the query over his metabolism) he is not how I would like him to look or am used to him looking but I've had to adjust my expectations! I think it's tricky because at 23 he looked as good as he did 10 years previously, at 25 and dossing he definitely doesn't!

I keep changing my mind on what I want out of the next one!