pony " living off fresh air"

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ellis9905

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we've owned my daughters pony for 6 months through the warmer summer months, he is currently overweight and an increadible good doer- typical welsh sec a ( hoping the winter will encourage weight lose by keeping him warm!), currently he lives out 24/7 and will continue to do so unless the weather turns truely horrid.

my question is weather i should be feeding him anything? he gets grazing 24/7 - though grass is short and hes kept in a paddock thats kept well grazed- then if he comes in for any reason he gets a haynet.

should i be feeding him any mix/chaff or vit or minerals??

feel ever so mean when its feed time on the yard and everyone is getting the bucket of tea!

thank you for any advice
 
can you get him a lick for his paddock? or for his stable when you bring him in, a mineral one should be ideal for him through winter! I would only say when he has no grass e.g when it snows, give him some hay but he sounds like he should cope well. I wouldnt give him any chaff as that will only aggrevate the problem.
Just monitor his weight and if he looses to much then give him some chaff
 
my cob is like this. No need for any bucket feed or hay at the moment. When he looses weight and/or it snows then feed hay. Probably wont need anything else all winter. if you are worried about vitamins then a handful of Happy hoof with a small dose of vit-min powder will do with out adding extra calories.
 
I would give him either a vit/min block out in the field (tho watch as a lot are v molassey and sugary which isnt great for ponies) or else once a day given him a vit/min supp in a handful of Happy Hoof/Healthy Hooves or similar.

If the field is used permanently and grazed hard it is unlikely to provide everything they need; but even as he is, he is better off with your approach than giving him a big field of grass as it sounds like that would be the last thing he would need!

I do this with my lami prone pony.


Edited to add - great minds think alike horsesforever!
 
Overweight or not, no horse or pony should be starved in an effort to reduce their waist line. As said before on similar posts. Weigh tape your pony and then he must have approx 1.5% of his body weight in fibre every day ( this includes any grass intake) Split it into 2 or 3 feeds a day in small holed haynets. If you soak the hay to remove the calories then you must nake sure he has a broad spectrum vitamin supplement. you can give this in a small chaff feed but that must count towards his weight of feed per day.

You can leave him un rugged as it will help him to use up the calories or put a lightweight on to keep clean for riding. Up the excercise. brisk walking is the best. Horses are designed to eat for 19 hours a day and must have adequete fibre to keep the hind gut working properly!

Reducing the weight of a horse/pony should be done gradually just as with humans. Weigh tape every 2 weeks. He is more likely to hold onto the weight if he has nothing to eat.
 
TicTac said:
Overweight or not, no horse or pony should be starved in an effort to reduce their waist line. As said before on similar posts. Weigh tape your pony and then he must have approx 1.5% of his body weight in fibre every day ( this includes any grass intake) Split it into 2 or 3 feeds a day in small holed haynets. If you soak the hay to remove the calories then you must nake sure he has a broad spectrum vitamin supplement. you can give this in a small chaff feed but that must count towards his weight of feed per day.

You can leave him un rugged as it will help him to use up the calories or put a lightweight on to keep clean for riding. Up the excercise. brisk walking is the best. Horses are designed to eat for 19 hours a day and must have adequete fibre to keep the hind gut working properly!

Reducing the weight of a horse/pony should be done gradually just as with humans. Weigh tape every 2 weeks. He is more likely to hold onto the weight if he has nothing to eat.
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he lives out 24/7 therefore he is not starved!
 
tishtashtosh, I didn't say he was starved!!! But it does say that he is kept on a paddock that is well grazed. I was offering my advice like the OP asked!
 
Hiya, I have similar trouble with our native ponies, I tend to top them up with straw which gives them something to pick over, lots of fibre and low calories. If I put licks in with mine they demolish them within a day so unless they are in hard work then they have grass , and straw when that runs out. They have the odd carrot and apple but seem to be getting plenty from the grass that they pick over.
 
thank you for all the advice- i should clarify that he has several small paddocks that are kept short, though there is a constant supply of grass he has to find it!- his heads usually down finding grass, though its by no means overly plentiful, he wonders quite a bit as he grazes for his next mouthful!

:)
 
I've got a little pony who does well on poor pickings. Therefore his grass intake is severely restricted. He spends quite a lot of time shut in the yard and is fed timothy haylage so he doesn't starve. Also I feed a balancer to give him vitamins etc. as his diet is so restricted.

Last year when he was dieting hard he got straw mixed with soaked hay so he could have fibre without calories. This year he has kept the weight off so is not on such a strict diet.

It's hard when I see his cute little face begging for treats but it's so worth all the hard work because those little ponies look so fantastic when they are slim!

Have you tried a grazing muzzle? Doesn't stop mine eating but slows him down a bit.
 
suestowford said:
I've got a little pony who does well on poor pickings. Therefore his grass intake is severely restricted. He spends quite a lot of time shut in the yard and is fed timothy haylage so he doesn't starve. Also I feed a balancer to give him vitamins etc. as his diet is so restricted.

Last year when he was dieting hard he got straw mixed with soaked hay so he could have fibre without calories. This year he has kept the weight off so is not on such a strict diet.

It's hard when I see his cute little face begging for treats but it's so worth all the hard work because those little ponies look so fantastic when they are slim!

Have you tried a grazing muzzle? Doesn't stop mine eating but slows him down a bit.
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Very good advice.
 
I have a good doer fat on fresh air BUT I do provide one of those old fashioned £2 salt or mineral bricks that I throw on the ground(they last weeks ..it would be nicer to put it in a holder but even they end up falling out). Sometimes he has trampled it into a few bits but it lasts in the rain etc Dont give one of those Horselyxx molases things as mine eats those in about 2 days. So greedy..I put it on the ground too as he is within electric fence otherwise you could tie one on the string types but they are £££

I usually know if he is getting enough by the amount of poos (9 is max) 24hours. Anymore ie it can go up to 12 then he is getting too much. Mine is on restricted grazing at the moment(he is not being starved and is on about 1.5acres) BUT I am watching for frost too as I know this will up the sugar content on the short grass baldes. However once the bitter weather comes and he lives out 24/7 I will give him some hay ie third large bale split twice day, but not much just to keep him ticking over. I did use to give one scoop pony nuts if he had been worked. I wouldnt even think to starve its the wrong thing to do even for a laminitic. Keep the gut going but less calories! I use to weigh tape but I now know him well by looking etc.

Actually sounds like the kind of diet I should go on!
 
I have a welsh A gelding - I bought him last October as a 2yo and he was pretty large. He lived out day in at night on good grazing all last winter with a very small slice of hay at night and a handful of lami type feed (literally a handful) only at night all winter - no rug day or night through all that snow. He hardly lost a thing!

So, took him to a posh welshie show in May and the judge put us right down the line and said he was way too fat! So, put him in a very very bare paddock with NOTHING else except a measured portion of blue chip lami light for his vits and mins. It was the only way of losing the weight and he did lose it. We qualified for the Any Age Any Sex Small Breeds NPS home produced championship against a ring full of stallions and mares!

They survive on NOTHING trust me!
 
Ponies are just not ridden enough these day; I know its hard with school, dark nights etc : Some good suggestions though, muzzle if the grass isn't too short. Bringing them in onto hard ground for a while or in a school. Doing a track system around the paddock so they are walking more.

My daughters pony was getting too chubby for my liking so I decided to ride him ( I do get some funny looks, a 50 year old on a 12.3hh NF! :D ) but in three months he has lost 60 kilos and is looking really good. He gets hacked out for about 2 hours 4 times a week, most of this is at speed eek!

He is on restricted grazing while its still so dry, but as soon as it gets really wet he will join my other pony on 4 acres; he is fed a small amount of Fast Fibre, no hay unless they come in for farrier etc and are unclipped and never rugged!
 
My good doer is on poor grazing and she gets bailey's lo cal balancer (I feel this ups her nutrients to an acceptable level). She always looks healthy. Lives out 24/7 and is usually ridden four times a week (min of an hour). Lightweight rug unless clipped then a medium.
 
definitely a cheap mineral lick for the field / stable and I wouldn't worry about any sort of bucket feed. I feed my highlands straw rather than hay so they can have more for their calorie intake - they actually prefer it to hay, oddly enough. They will mug me for the old boy's haylage though if they get the chance!
 
Good question, I have the same problem withmy sec A.

I have changed his feed to a handful of fast fibre and haynet at night.

He is stabled at night, and we had our first frost this week, I kept his stable rug off, when I checked him at about 10pm he was freezing cold , shivering and under his ' arm pits' were icy.

So I put his stable rug on tonight, should I suck it up and leave it off?
 
Daisydo said:
He is stabled at night, and we had our first frost this week, I kept his stable rug off, when I checked him at about 10pm he was freezing cold , shivering and under his ' arm pits' were icy.

So I put his stable rug on tonight, should I suck it up and leave it off?
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Leaving rugs off works well in the field because if the horse is cold it can move about to warm up. Obviously as it can't do that in a stable I would rug :)
 
My daughters pony is exactly the same, to keep him at a level I'm happy with he has a grazing muzzle on over night, is exercised as much as possible (although until she's up to doing a lot of really hard work with him it'll never be enough!) and has never been rugged. He does come in at night though when the others do cause I cant leave a pony out on his own and actually with a small hay net with tiny holes he will usually drop weight then. As regards to feeding he has the same all year round a handful of Dengie hi-fi lite and a mug of Bluechip lami-lite so I know he's getting everything and he thinks he's not being left out.
 
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