Re: My mare looks like a hat rack....

Just a couple of thoughts. Last year was the first winter with my TB. He dropped loads of weight in Feb-Mch. I think it was a combination of things. He hadnt really settled at the yard and was a bit stressy which didnt help. Also I hadnt really worked him out and what I needed to feed for the level of work he was doing and to keep him sane. He is now on a high fibre, low starch, low sugar diet and touch wood, looks so much better this year. I think it takes a while to get to know what suits your horse and there is so much choice these days its hardly surprising we get it wrong sometimes. Dont beat yourself up, at least you have noticed and are doing something about it. I look back at pics I took last year and am embarassed by them so I know how you feel.
 
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Last question. Are nuts better digested than mix? Would is be better to change from mix to nut?

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I would lay off all hard feed at the moment except for Alfa A oil and max dose Pink powder.

I would be wondering about possible ulcers as suggested by TE.

Certainly worth getting bloods done.
 
I think you are right to be concerned but don't panic. This is obviously a horse that will never hold alot of weight or be food orientated but once all the relevant checks have been done just to be on the safe side, then I would say fibre fibre and more fibre. You can get away with stuffing a bit more in of this without seeing a change in character. Baileys outshine (or equivlant) is very good as are milk pellets but these actually work out more expensive than Outshine. You can also try adding sugarbeet or speedibeet. It's also little things that can make a hell of a lot of difference - like making sure they never get cold, rug up well, stick an extra duvet on if you need to.
The thing I noticed the most in the photo's though, and something that would play on my mind more, is the lack of muscle. If you step back and take a look and imagine if she had a nicely muscled bum and neck then actually the weight of her isn't that much of an issue and she has a fab coat on her so can't be to unhealty. I do think you need to start making a concerted effort with making sure she is working correctly to build that muscle up. Hills are good for the bum. Lots of walking but making sure they are walking out and working rather than slopping along and long and low work in an outline working from behind. I reckon once you get that muscle we will see a different horse
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I think you are right to be concerned but don't panic. This is obviously a horse that will never hold alot of weight or be food orientated but once all the relevant checks have been done just to be on the safe side, then I would say fibre fibre and more fibre. You can get away with stuffing a bit more in of this without seeing a change in character. Baileys outshine (or equivlant) is very good as are milk pellets but these actually work out more expensive than Outshine. You can also try adding sugarbeet or speedibeet. It's also little things that can make a hell of a lot of difference - like making sure they never get cold, rug up well, stick an extra duvet on if you need to.
The thing I noticed the most in the photo's though, and something that would play on my mind more, is the lack of muscle. If you step back and take a look and imagine if she had a nicely muscled bum and neck then actually the weight of her isn't that much of an issue and she has a fab coat on her so can't be to unhealty. I do think you need to start making a concerted effort with making sure she is working correctly to build that muscle up. Hills are good for the bum. Lots of walking but making sure they are walking out and working rather than slopping along and long and low work in an outline working from behind. I reckon once you get that muscle we will see a different horse
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Thanks for that. She has just had most of december and Jan off due to the weather. I have a fab instructor who up until the freeze helped immensley and living at the foot of the downs is a huge plus for hill work.

I wish I had some piccies of her 6 weeks ago as I'm sure we'd be looking at a very different horse!!

Yet another piece of conflictng advice though. Had her well rugged and she was toasty warm and I get told to take some off as she is probably loosing weight from being too warm!!!!

I have owned horses for nearly 30 years and fortunatly have never really had one that needs feeding like this one does hence why I asked for advice on here.

I am a fibre nut and chaff knd of person which is what I started her on when I bought her but this kind of diet is obviously not going towork with her.

What I didn't bank on when I posted was how much different advice i would get and I am now more confused!!
 
I am sure you said earlier that give her a wheelbarrow of hay each night & it is gone the next morning? If so, could you try to give her enough that there is some left the next day? This would be the ideal situation & a good starting point. It means she has access to forage throughout the whole night, and better for her gut action. Good luck with her!
 
She's certainly lost quite a lot of weight in just over 3 months. Is she on same feed previous owners had her on? If so, could you ask them if she normally loses weight in winter? Other thought is that if she's been on same feed a long time and not showing any interest in it she could just be bored with it? Might be worth changing it or adding a bit of sugar beet or molasses to make it more palatable. I'm no expert on feeding but there are plenty of feed companies who will gladly give free advice.

Presume she's wormed and teeth have been checked?
 
Just being reading post through again and noticed she's already having sugarbeet and recently had teeth checked.

A friend of mine called the vet to her WB mare 2 or 3 months ago because she was losing weight despite having 3 feeds a day and ad lib haylage plus, she seemed to tire more easily. (she was eating her feeds) Like your mare, she looked well and coat was shiny. Turned out she's anemic and got 2 small ulcers. Now on medication, much improved and gaining weight.

Could just be a feed thing and you know your horse so I'd go with your gut instinct.
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its hard when you have one like your lady and you get so much different advice you dont know what to do so huge hugs xxx

my boy drops through stress, he dropped drastically when i got him, you could count his ribs, his shoulder blades stuck out as did his hip bones, it was horrid
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on the advice of Tia
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[ wish she would come back] i put him on black sunflower seeds and the change in him was fantastic.
hes currently on adlib haylage, BOSS, hifi srn chaff, sugarbeet and 16 + mix and is holding his weight well in the weather living out 24/7.

i would get her a MOT by the vet, get a good dentist to do her teeth and see what the results are. good luck, shes a lovely looking lady xxxx
 
Lets go back to square one!

What feed did the previous owner have her on? If you don't know, give them a call and find out because whatever they had heron obviously suited her and they may have gone through what you are now when they first got her. If that doesn't highlight where your problem might lie I would...

Secondly give your vet a call, get them to come and take a look and ask about taking bloods etc. TBH she looks a little too well to have a worm problem and the same goes for viruses...

This mare is getting plenty in the way of quantities of food but what she's getting isn';t suiting her for some reason...
 
i have had the same problem with one of my horses and i have got to say my first port of call would be to get the vet out to take some bloods and also to arrange a gastroscope.one of the most comman and un diagnoised causes of weight loss in horses is gastric ulcers. i gost my horse gastroscoped and he had grade 3 gastric ulcers and he was getting adlib haylage etc.

try this wedsite and do the risk assessment
http://www.equinegastriculcers.co.uk/which_horses.html
 
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I think you are right to be concerned but don't panic. This is obviously a horse that will never hold alot of weight or be food orientated



But this horse was carrying weight in the 1st pic from previous owners!
 
She does look lean but I wouldn't say worryingly so. Your main problem seems to be that she is not interested in food therefore you need to get as many calories into her as possible with as little food as possible. Making big feeds will just overwhelm her.

I had an arab that was positively anorexic. The more I tried to feed him , the less he ate. He was far thiner than yours. I found a combination of Alfa Oil, Alfa Beet and Top Spec worked very well. This has also worked very well my lean TB as well.

It may be worth blood test etc but her skin, coat etc looks excellent therefore she might just be that 'type' who will always look a bit lean in winter.

Another thing to try if you can get it is Canadian Hay. This has a much higher protein content than British hay. Feeding it allows you to feed less hard feed. It is also more digestible than haylage and they really hold condition on it.
 
My old TB mare lost a lot of weight when we moved a few years ago and she took a while to settle. She has always been a fussy eater and a bit 'stressy'. I found boiled barley and Blue Chip were best at putting the weight back on her, along with Spillers senior conditioning mix, sugar beet and carrots. She has always had ad-lib haylage.
Good luck with your mare.
 
i would be giving her oil based feeds as many times a day as poss and ad lib high quality forage 24/7.
she does need more condition on her rump and neck but i wouldnt call her thin. have her teeth been checked and has she been wormed and had a count done?
some horses are just very hard to put weight on in the winter if you have no grass........
 
only a thought but your horse sounds like my older horse and the horse of the girl that helps me out here at home too.They are such fussy eaters and like your horse if I tried to muck out whilst he was eating his breakfast, he'd ignore it - driving me mad, I have to stay well away at breakfast or he'd rather just go out.

Then my pr company asked me to try mollichaff cherry chaff (showshine) because studies had shown that horses LOVED cherry so would I try it (over a year ago now)?? anyway to cut a long story short both these fussy horses now love their feed and never leave a drop. I do use saracen veteran mix and equijewel for condition in each feed too and they are fed three times a day rather than have 2 big meals. They are on adhoc hay too. It is easier because they are at home would definitely try the cherry. I was amazed as it smells so strongly of cherry which they clearly love:) only a thought - good luck I know how frustrating it can be having spent many a day trying to hand feed!
 
Hi

Our stallion is a poor doer and he was being fed alpha a oil. He started leaving a lot of his feeds and we wondered why, so switched him to Mollichaff show shine, which is basically very similar to alpha a oil, except much sweeter. We have never looked back.

Alongside the molloichaff we feed calm and condition and equijewel (similar to outshine) and he looks fab now.

Just a thought. He's not a big forage eater either, but does at least finish his meals off now.

Good luck with your mare.
 
This might have nothing to do with it, but what is her yard environment like compared to with her last owner?
My old horse (tb) didn't hold weight well at all at the yard he was first at - very big, mares/geldings serparated, stabled with different horses than t/o with and american barn stabling - but when I moved him to a small yard the difference was incredible. Mixed t/o and stabled in looseboxes next to horses t/o with. Had obviously been unhappy in previous situation because no amount of conditioning feed made him gain weight, it only made him loopy! At new yard he was fed adlib haylage, high fibre nuts, speedi-beet, alpha-a, oil and pink powder and always looked great. Just a thought?
 

Has the wiight loss been while you havn't been able to ride? Pickle always drops weight when she is stabled, her routine changes or there is a change in the herd. Nothing physically wrong with her, just her personality. Nothing will put the weight back on her until she has settled again. Sadly the only yard round here where she could live out was the one I left due to welfare concerns.
 
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All this advice is great. But its just confusing me more!!!
The feed company I called suggested adding Omega Rice http://www.falconequinefeeds.co.uk/supp_omega_rice.htm which I am assuming is similar to outshine etc. They suggested sticking to what she was getting and adding this!
Here's my plan - thoughts would be great.
Try the feed advice have ordered a 2 weeks supply so would hope to see a difference.
If no change then thought about trying milk pellets and pink powder alongside the Alfa A oil she already gets.
Does this sound slike a good plan?

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noooo try this

http://www.stanceequine.com/horsefeedproducts.php?CoolStance-Copra-2

it is amazing i have been feeding to a mixture of horses at my yard including 2 ex racers who have never in the last 3 years put on weight in the winter (and yes they get loads of forage)

they are now fat !!!!!

I have tried everything else and they worked a bit but nothing like this x
 
What feed does she get?? try her on Alfa A oil and spillers conditioning mix. I had one that looked awful and i really struggled plus he was 17.1hh so looked really bad after 3 weeks i saw a big difference.
 
I can see why you are getting very confused. So much information and all different. I would concur about getting her checked for an ulcer. Inappetance can be a good indication of an ulcer as it puts them off eating. the change in routine can be enough to start one off. It is alarming to know that an ulcer can form in less than 4 hours of not eating.

I would definitely get a vets opinion on this before you start changing feeds and things because nothing will work well if you are dealing with an ulcer. Once you have this sorted then please phone one of the many available feed lines. Try Spillers, Dodson and Horrell, Baileys they have a wide enough product range that they will be able to help you out in some form.

Don't panic and good luck.
 
Have vets seen her at all, because it seems strange the shiny coat etc would show she appears healthy and not eating badly. Pickle has phases of that with his anemia, he looks fine, however I know he drops weight because of it and a iron supplement such as red cell, equisup, propell plus do him the world of good.

I personally wouldn't call her a hat rack though.
 
Ad lib haylege will do the trick, for some reason haylege is far superior to hay for getting weight on. That has been my experience anyway.
 
Have you tried putting her on something like Equus Health "Winter Glow Summer Shine"? It contains all sorts of things to help horses gain weight and increase their appetite (fenugreek, mint, linseed, seaweed) - it's not an immediate fix, it'll take a few weeks, but I keep Ronnie on it all year round after having a massive problem with his weight 2 years ago, when he became about half the size of your horse and I was tearing my hair out trying to get weight on him.

They do a version with brewers yeast as well which is fantastic for putting condition on. I would really really recommend both the version with and the version without brewers yeast.

Good luck - and your horse looks in good condition apart from being on the lean side - lovely coat!
 
1) Vet check and a blood test, that will give you a good starting point. Cna slo check for tapeworms with a blood test which would be worth doing.
2) Make her hard feeds higher in calories (so oil or barlye rings or any of the other good feed suggestions already listed or what ever your feed merchant suggests that they stock, you might have to try a few to find one she likes and eats well)
3)Try her on hayledge, it might be too rich for her so just give her a net and see what she's like.
4)If she's not sweating up under her rugs then she's not too hot.

Good luck have had two skinny minnies in the past and it's hard work. Have to say the cure for one was him living out all year round but I wouldn't try that with the weather we have now.
 
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