Pony losing weight

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I recently took on a 14.2 21 year old mare who starts to drop a bit of weight at the end of the winter but puts it all back on in the summer via the grass - she hasn't done this with me. She is dropping weight and is not far off from being skin and bones. She's healthy, full of life and nothing wrong with her teeth although will be having them checked again next week just to be absolutely sure.

I have recently started to bring her in on a night. She is being fed bucket feed twice a day - Spillers Senior Conditioning Mix, Fast Fibre, Linseed Meal, Seaweed and Cortaflex. She gets haylage. Also two feed buckets of readigrass twice a day. She coming in around 6pm and will go back into field for grass around 12pm.

Any suggestions to get the weight back on her gratefully received.
 
Lady on my yard feeds her 34yr old mare Readimash (thinks thats its name) and as she has few teeth she finds it easier to eat. Shes kept her weight on really well, she struggles to eat any hay atall. She gets bucketloads of Mollichaff chop and Graze on grass. If yours is dropping weight and your worried Id speak to your vet too. There may be other reasons for it.
 
The grazing isn't too bad. The rest of the mares in her field look great. Been a couple of weeks on the Spillers conditioning mix.

Dentists coming next week who is also the vet.

I was thinking of adding baileys outshine to her feed - is this a good idea?

Re the readigrass - can she eat as much as she wants?

I did say she was getting haylage but this is recent. She was being fed hay and I have only just changed this over to haylage.

I actually feel quite upset about her. I feel I have not done right by her - I have 5 other ponies who I have to watch they don't put too much weight on so I feel I have been way too lax with this mare. She is such a lovely girl and the lack of weight just doesn't look right at all. I honestly believe she is healthy and my only problem is I haven't fed her correctly. She does have a nice shiney coat. She in fact does look healthy but too skinny - if that makes sense.
 
Dont know anything about Baileys outshine so I would have a chat with your Feed Merchant, they will be able to advise you better than anyone else.

Readigrass, I think they can eat as much as they like, have a look at the packaging for advice, or give their feed helpline a ring.

Hope she is ok.
 
If she is fit and healthy then you don't need to feel any guilt. 21 isn't that old for a pony so she shouldn't need proper veteran feeds yet IMO.

Mine once lost a ton of weight about this time of year without me really noticing until it became really noticeable if you know what I mean! Then I felt awful for letting it happen but it just happens so slowly that it creeps up unawares. Looking back I think the weight loss was caused by the stress of the move to a new yard plus poor grazing; although all the field mates looked just fine!

I put mine on Dodson and Horrell Build Up mix - the full recommended amounts and also as much hay as he could eat when I brought him in at night. Obviously introducing the new regime over a couple of weeks. It took at least 3 months of this diet until he started to look something like he should (October). Then I moved to a yard that suited him better and we are still there.

So I would keep up a good bucket feed, as you are, and maybe introduce some sugar beet to it. Perhaps split the feeds into 3, say one in the morning, one when she comes in and one before turnout as she will metabolise them better.
 
My 24-yr-old veteran does the same thing - loses weight by the end of the winter and puts it all back on again through the summer. That's what nature intends happens to horses, especially natives. But if your pony has suddenly started to show dramatic and unexplained weight loss, especially if she's normally a good doer, and the other ponies in the field are doing great, then without wishing to appear alarmist, she may very well have something serious going on. Just out of interest, is she a grey? If you're having to almost force feed her the sort of rations you'd feed to a stressy TB then something's wrong. I'd suggest weigh taping her for maybe max 2 weeks and keeping a daily diary of weight/feed. At the end of the 2 weeks, or earlier if she deteriorates more, you should be able to see roughly where this is all going, ie if more food is going in but she's still losing weight (or not gaining weight) then you need to get the vet out for a work up and bloods.
 
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