reducing intake ?

Purple18

Purple18

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Hi everyone :)

The vet came today to take swallow wolf teeth out today :) she also spoke to me about her weight which i know she is alittle over. she mentioned a grazing muzzles but iv'e heard some real horror stories and looking at lots of different posts on here some people saying the shires muzzle are good and some says the greenguard one is bad and other saing the shires one is bad and greenguard one is good :confused: .is there anything else i can do other than a muzzle or is that my only choice ? I was thinking about soaking her hay to try and help her shift some weight.

Oh by the way she doesn't have any hard feed :)

any advice is greatly appreciated :)
 
I'm not a fan of grazing muzzels myself.
To keep my cobs weight down, he's stabled during the day on soaked hay and out at night on very restricted grass.
Could you try something similar? And plenty of work of course. :)
 
Perhaps strip graze the paddock giving her minimal grass but enough fibre to maintain her nutritional needs and gut health.Very hard to do when your dealing with an animal evolved to munch away all day.
 
hollybear said:
I'm not a fan of grazing muzzels myself.
To keep my cobs weight down, he's stabled during the day on soaked hay and out at night on very restricted grass.
Could you try something similar? And plenty of work of course. :)
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sadly i can't do that as changeing her routine makes her stress :(
Wundahorse said:
Perhaps strip graze the paddock giving her minimal grass but enough fibre to maintain her nutritional needs and gut health.Very hard to do when your dealing with an animal evolved to munch away all day.
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thank you :)
 
Muzzles do work really well - different makes seem to fit different shaped heads (probably why some people get on with different makes) If you can borrow one/ a few to try them and work out which suits your pony before you buy one that might be useful.
Have you considered feeding a mix of straw and soaked hay when she's in? Again a bit of a marmite option (some people love straw as forage others think it's terrible!) but it works for me personally.
 
If her weight is such an issue then only change can make it happen, there are no diet pills for horses and they need to trickle feed otherwise will get ulcers, stress she will soon realise is not worth the hassle and she will calm down, she would also loose a bit of weight in the beginning by stressing, whose in charge you or your horsey, remember its for her own good
 
Polos Mum said:
Muzzles do work really well - different makes seem to fit different shaped heads (probably why some people get on with different makes) If you can borrow one/ a few to try them and work out which suits your pony before you buy one that might be useful.
Have you considered feeding a mix of straw and soaked hay when she's in? Again a bit of a marmite option (some people love straw as forage others think it's terrible!) but it works for me personally.
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thank you :) is that a risk of colic with feeding straw ?
putasocinit said:
If her weight is such an issue then only change can make it happen, there are no diet pills for horses and they need to trickle feed otherwise will get ulcers, stress she will soon realise is not worth the hassle and she will calm down, she would also loose a bit of weight in the beginning by stressing, whose in charge you or your horsey, remember its for her own good
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well she put her at a 3 on her neck 3.5 on her ribs and 3.5 -4 on her bum
I'm not looking for any deit pills just advice.

Turning her out at night just isn't a option the last time i tried she nearly broke her neck it's not worth it.
 
Well if you hear of any diet pills for horses let me know, cos mine could do with some, lol. Good doers are hard work but hey you just got to keep working at a way that helps them and you.
 
Purple18 said:
thank you :) is that a risk of colic with feeding straw ?
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I think that is what people worry about, if you can find it oat straw is very soft and easily digestable, however I (and many many others) feed wheat straw without any problem at all - I do notice they drink more when they eat lots of straw so I make sure they have lots of fresh water in the stable.

Horses have been eating their straw beds for decades without issue.
 
You could mow her paddock. If the grass is shorter they take longer to eat the same amount. And if you spread it somewhere for it to dry, you can then store it and feed it later in the fall. Just make sure that if you are doing this, spread it well so no mold can develop.
 
Polos Mum said:
I think that is what people worry about, if you can find it oat straw is very soft and easily digestable, however I (and many many others) feed wheat straw without any problem at all - I do notice they drink more when they eat lots of straw so I make sure they have lots of fresh water in the stable.

Horses have been eating their straw beds for decades without issue.
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thank you :) i certainly try that generally what the ratio of straw to hay ?
 
SCMSL said:
You could mow her paddock. If the grass is shorter they take longer to eat the same amount. And if you spread it somewhere for it to dry, you can then store it and feed it later in the fall. Just make sure that if you are doing this, spread it well so no mold can develop.
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lol her paddcok is 5 acres :P thank you for the suggestion i'll keep it in mind :)
 
Purple18 said:
thank you :) i certainly try that generally what the ratio of straw to hay ?
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Like any change in feed, start slowly swap maybe 10% to straw then build it up - overall it depends on how tubby she is and what effect other things (like more exercises) have.

My boy is out of work (I was pregnant and had a C section 2 weeks ago!) so he was really lacking exercise so he was having 2 sections of hay and 3 sections of straw overnight to keep his weight down.
 
Purple18 said:
lol her paddcok is 5 acres :P thank you for the suggestion i'll keep it in mind :)
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That might be your problem, she's going to be able to find a lot of grass on 5 acres.

I have a very good doer and the best way I have found to keep her weight down is to increase her exercise and keep her to a small, short grazed paddock supplemented with soaked hay. She gets the fence moved into a tiny bit of the really long (think waist high!) grass every night, the soaked hay is fed in the morning. The rest of the time she has to make do with the limited grass. She has a handful of Hi Fi molasses free and a handful of straw chaff, with her supplements in.

If she were to come in she would get soaked hay and barley straw, she lived on that pretty much all winter, along with the same bucket feed as now, and for once she didn't get fat with less work.
 
Polos Mum said:
Like any change in feed, start slowly swap maybe 10% to straw then build it up - overall it depends on how tubby she is and what effect other things (like more exercises) have.

My boy is out of work (I was pregnant and had a C section 2 weeks ago!) so he was really lacking exercise so he was having 2 sections of hay and 3 sections of straw overnight to keep his weight down.
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well i wouldn 't say was very very tubby but thank you :) i'm going to up the exercise once her teeth have healed :)


just thought i'd add this in to give you a vague idea :)

Fjord said:
That might be your problem, she's going to be able to find a lot of grass on 5 acres.

I have a very good doer and the best way I have found to keep her weight down is to increase her exercise and keep her to a small, short grazed paddock supplemented with soaked hay. She gets the fence moved into a tiny bit of the really long (think waist high!) grass every night, the soaked hay is fed in the morning. The rest of the time she has to make do with the limited grass. She has a handful of Hi Fi molasses free and a handful of straw chaff, with her supplements in.

If she were to come in she would get soaked hay and barley straw, she lived on that pretty much all winter, along with the same bucket feed as now, and for once she didn't get fat with less work.
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luckliy it's not too rich at the moment plus there' two other horses out 24/7 munching alot of it but i will be having a word with the YO about sectioning it off. not doubt she will say her weight is fine :rolleyes: I'll just ahve to to try and push my veiws
 
She actually looks fine to me. Any more weight and yes, I do agree you would be in trouble. But she looks fine now.

Don't forget that if you bring her in at night, you will be reducing her movement too, so she'll be burning less calories. It may seem horse don't move much when grazing but its still a lot better than standing in a stall all night long.
 
Also in at night and they will be using far less calories to keep warm.

Thought I'd ask in this thread as it's something that I'd been thinking about reading all the threads about too much grass ect. if the OP doesn't mind.:)

Does anyone plough up some of the grass and then harrow so reducing the grass but not reducing the area the horses have to move around finding the grazing?
Thinking broad strips with grass inbetween type of set up.

Anybody know why this wouldn't work, what would go wrong ect.
 
Horse in picture doesn't look too fat but wouldn't want to put on anymore and 5 acres is a lot of grass and they can hoover up huge amounts quite quickly. Personally, I'd restrict grazing if possible, perhaps reduce turnout time and feed soaked hay in a haylage net with another net on top, or hay + straw. it means they can trickly feed for longer on a smaller amount.
 
My three are out on a 5 acre field, however they are in an electric fenced off section of about an acre (it started a lot smaller than that when they were first moved into the field). I move the electric fence daily to give them a thin, fresh strip of grazing and even with this I'm having to carefully watch the grey who's a really good doer. The other 4 acres are so thick and lush with grass, there's no way that the horses would have stayed sound if they'd had access to the whole lot.

If the Vet says that she's overweight, I would trust them as they have actually had their hands on the horse.
 
oldie48 said:
Horse in picture doesn't look too fat but wouldn't want to put on anymore and 5 acres is a lot of grass and they can hoover up huge amounts quite quickly. Personally, I'd restrict grazing if possible, perhaps reduce turnout time and feed soaked hay in a haylage net with another net on top, or hay + straw. it means they can trickly feed for longer on a smaller amount.
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hse has trickle net already so i'm going to start soaking her hay.
Faracat said:
My three are out on a 5 acre field, however they are in an electric fenced off section of about an acre (it started a lot smaller than that when they were first moved into the field). I move the electric fence daily to give them a thin, fresh strip of grazing and even with this I'm having to carefully watch the grey who's a really good doer. The other 4 acres are so thick and lush with grass, there's no way that the horses would have stayed sound if they'd had access to the whole lot.

If the Vet says that she's overweight, I would trust them as they have actually had their hands on the horse.
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thank you i'm going to speak to the other liveries in the field and YO and see what can be sorted.
 
Aarrghimpossiblepony said:
Also in at night and they will be using far less calories to keep warm.

Thought I'd ask in this thread as it's something that I'd been thinking about reading all the threads about too much grass ect. if the OP doesn't mind.:)

Does anyone plough up some of the grass and then harrow so reducing the grass but not reducing the area the horses have to move around finding the grazing?
Thinking broad strips with grass inbetween type of set up.

Anybody know why this wouldn't work, what would go wrong ect.
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It would look terrible. Weeds would grow on the ploughed area. Disturbed ground is thought to be a factor in EGS.

You would be far better to work a track system than wreck the field IMO.
 
Aarrghimpossiblepony said:
Also in at night and they will be using far less calories to keep warm.

Thought I'd ask in this thread as it's something that I'd been thinking about reading all the threads about too much grass ect. if the OP doesn't mind.:)

Does anyone plough up some of the grass and then harrow so reducing the grass but not reducing the area the horses have to move around finding the grazing?
Thinking broad strips with grass inbetween type of set up.

Anybody know why this wouldn't work, what would go wrong ect.
Click to expand...

but if i kept her unrugged and in she'd probably shiver to keep warm ?

I don't mind ask away :)

hmm interesting thought it could but sounds like alot of work and planning
 
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