Poos....

J

Jericho

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Bit of a general pondering really because it niggles me every day when I poo pick.... I have a 15.1hh 16yr old mare. She is definitely overweight so she is on half acre of very bare grass, ridden once or twice a week and has no hard feed. So she is eating a small trickle of grass all the time with maybe a small armful of hay in a double net if we take the other pony out. She does about 18 small, moderate well formed poos in 24 hrs - it seems impossible that she is eating that amount of food to poo out!! The other pony is 14hh and 14yrs, good weight, ridden every day at the moment, on about an acre of shortish grass (more than the mare) and had a small hard feed of chaff with supplements. He does 4 or 5 large poos in 24hrs.

My mare lives for food, always seems hungry and will eat and eat and has no off button hence why she is so fat. We had her tested for cushings and all fine. I did buy her a trickle net and a muzzle but refuses to eat anything then because of the effort required. She isn't a typical cobby type either. Part TB, very forward going and quick on her feet and can be very nervous. The gelding is a sensible chap in all ways, with his food he eats when hungry and not just because it is there.

How can they be soooo different? Poo so differently? Have such different attitudes to food? Do you think she has something wrong with her? Just confusing how she can poo so much more on so less food and still be fat! I have 7 acres at home and am barely using 1 of them!!
 
I think that (aside from food intake) a horse tends to poo to reflect their personality and activity. Two of ours are fairly chilled characters, they poo less than the nervy hyper one. They rarely poo on a hack, whereas the nervy one does. My sons 17hh ID who was obese when we got her and had done little although she was 8yo only poos about 5-6 times in 24hrs (mind you each one fills the scoop twice!) and has remained much the same even though now fitter, thinner and doing more! My 15hh mare is much the same (just less quantity per poo!), our 16.2 Hanovarian however poos much more frequently. They are all fed the same diet. Ours have 24hr access to grazing and none of them are that food obsessive- ie will stand around in the shade for an hour, 15 mins snack, then the shade again. Often if you limit food it becomes almost an obsession to eat as much as possible as quickly as possible. Although not all horses are the same some really do just live to eat!
 
i have never worked this out, the 12hh pony on a very restricted forage diet poo enough to FILL a wheel barrow every day, the 16.3hh on ad lib good grazing and approx a bucket of feed in 24hrs did enough to half fill a wheel barrow in the same amount of time-both mares and both laid back and chilled out
 
Its REVENGE!!!!

- for keeping them on a diet - My Clydesdale does Muckheaps and several of them every day - can't believe that she can actually find enough grass to produce the amount she does
 
Its like people I suppose. My horse, stabled overnight and out for 10 hours a day minimum, plenty of hay and a feed in the evening, produced precisely 3 poos overnight. She was just over 15hh. Mind you she drank less than a Shetland pony during the night too, sometimes just a couple of pints. It was just her I suppose and in some ways I was grateful that while my friends had to change and refil or drag a huge rubber container, mine was just over a gallon and I could lift it full, one handed!
 
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