seriuosly underweight pony

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buddyangusbart

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i have a 2 year old cob who has lost a seious amount of weight over winter he is literally skin and bone, he has ben seen by a vet and if we are lucky we have had a narrow escape, does anyone have any advice of what to feed etc to help get the weight back on him as i want to do everything i can for him.
 
Have you done bloods etc to see why the pony is underweight?.
wormed??


I would get a complete health check first then deal with the weight


You want to feed little and often small feeds with good quality roughage and a little alfafa
maybe a pro biotic to help gut work good

a little build up nuts
some good supplement
little speedy beet to mix.

Thats what I have done in the past

i wouldn't use mixes yet could cause laminitis ir such like
also use a measuring tape to monitor his weight
 
I would get him on a high fibre diet, plenty of good quality haylage or hay, with small regular feeds of easily digested fibre based feed with oil or linseed to add the calories. A balancer or supplement to give the essential vits and mins.

Do not try to get the weight on quickly it will take a long time and steady gain is more healthy in the long term. Start with very small feeds and do not worry if it takes a while for you to be able to see much improvement.
The grass will be coming through now and that will be the best thing for him but be careful to not let him out on too much.
I assume he has been checked by the vet for underlying problems and that he is now in a better environment for him to be able to recover.
 
I had this problem and took my horse to the vets lots of test and many reasons they said it could have been

Glucose and biopsy told us it is inflammatory bowel disease
 
thankyou for the advice the vet has seen him, it was a case of being in a bad place for winter him and his friends were stuck in a field with sheep that were being starved so were eating the ponies feed and hay but he has been moved now, but will bare everything in mind everything will help.
 
We use Rowan Barberry's Extra Mash... it's very good for putting weight on an poor doer/underweight horse/pony. It's about £13 a bag ande you soak it for atleast 5 mins before you feed it, we feed it with Just Grass... We put our infoal with foal at foot underweight tb mare, that we brought from sales on it... The difference after a couple of weeks was huge. I'd Definatley reccommend it.
 
Kim1978 Thankyou I will find some of that to put him on. and as for who was in charge I got him off a friend who is just so so busy before I had him I was going up when she couldn't to hay and feed them but I could only wait with them while they ate the hard feed to make sure the sheep didn't get it and we were trying to put the hay on a platform so the sheep couldn't reach it. But the grass in that field was very poor they are moved now though.
 
The vet has given him a worming injection and another injection to give him a bit of a boost, I have been told to give him plenty of feed, sugar beet etc
 
Can you put some photos up so we can see his weight cond etc. you will be able to get more advice if people can he how he looks.
 
I can't get any at the moment but will try next week he is basically skin and bone really really thin the vet said if we are lucky he's had a narrow escape
 
Lots of good advice here already, but have to add would not be classing his previous owner as a friend. Hope she doesn't have others? Sounds like you want to do your best for him, best of luck
 
In all fairness her other 3 that were in with him did lose a little weight but they have all been moved too and are fit and well now it's just mine didn't cope so well just want to do everything I can
 
I hope he pulls through. I don't understand why no one noticed his dramatic weight loss. Was he rugged and the rugs never removed?
 
Thankyou, when I got him I rugged him as he was already thin and it was cold the problem we had was we struggled to find somewhere else for them to get away from the sheep I have since moved him to the place I work so I can keep a close eye on him everyday
 
If he has been rugged have you checked him for lice, they can cause rapid weight loss and often go unseen for a while. We have had 2 occasions where only one pony was affected and the others never got them, the affected one lost weight rapidly both times. We have bought several emaciated horses (large ones at that - 17hh+) in the past and it is possible to get them back to full health but does take time.

Try to work out what the ponies ideal weight should be and feed at least 2.5 - 3% of that initially (including hay), ideally in 4 small fibre based feeds a day (soaked grass nuts and sugarbeet are good) plus hay/lage. Work out the weight of the feed that you will be giving and then the minimum amount of hay/lage that he needs to make up the percentage of body weight you are using. We have always fed ad lib hay but you need to make sure he is getting enough down him rather than just available. We have always used oil in increasing quantities to add to the calories taken in, they can manage quite a large amount built up gradually but check with your vet on safe quantities - it does make a big difference. Try to feed a balancer or vitamin supplement if you can, and pink powder is good too.

We are coming up towards spring now so hopefully in a few weeks the spring grass will be able to work it's magic. Good luck, I hope all goes well.
 
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