Sorry me again, hard core advice needed on weight gain

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gails

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He gets 3 scoops of apple chop
2 scoops of build up
and 1 of SB
2 times a day.

Hay has been limited, but he is loosing weight again, I hate to say it but he is getting skelton again, tummy is nice and round but his spine could support a tent it is soo boney.

I am at a loss, he is nearly 30, but even though he seems well in him self, trotting and running around, I am so scared that someone wll think he is not being looked after.

A girl at the yard who I thought was a friend, took at offence at some light hearted banter, and the first thing she brought up was my boy.

every other day he gets a small lunch time feed but never eats it, and always leaves a couple of mouth fulls of his full ration. So short of force feeding him, I am at a ,oss of whar to do. Until last year he was always a good weight , even for a TB that lives out all year.

Please help
 
have you tried havens slobber mash, its great for old ponies and horses as you soak it my horse has improved so much in the last 2 weeks on it
 
I feed my old tb on ready mash i do her a warm feed at night with plenty of alfa and two cups of baileys stud balancer. You could try the ready mash extra thats good for horses that need condition and weight gain after surgery etc. I giver her a huge feed at night as it takes her a while to eat it and she just picks through out the evening.
 
ive started to feed equijewel for weight gain and love the stuff its a high oil pellet, and its only fed by the mug full so although 30 quid a bag very cheap to feed.

it also meens you dont have the large bulk of the nuts even he cant do big meals... id personally feed it with a chaff and sugarbeet, it does lack all the needed mins and vits so needs to be fed with a supplement or balancer.
 
Are you sure its not just his topline muscles slowing going. Friend has a 30 year old and he has a nice round tummy but really projuding spine vet came out for vaccinations and told her not to worry it was just muscular.
Failing that Baileys No 1 is brilliant stuff x.
 
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Hay has been limited,

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Then feed it ab lib, and I would change to haylage. I couldn't keep weight on my veteran with plain hay.
 
I am sure someone of a more veterinary persuasion than me can back me up on this, but what you are feeding him is too much for 1 x feed x 2 a day - there is only so much that a horse will benefit from and the rest will pass right on through, giving no nutritional value at all. Equijewel has been mentioned and is supposed to be very good, failing that, adding oil will help, but I do think that the buckets you are giving him are just wasting you money ATM.
 
We've been feeding my sisters mare TS fibre plus cubes when we wanted to get weight on her.
They were about the only thing she would eat when she was in foal and now she gets them with speedibeet and so they break down really easily.
 
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Hay has been limited,

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Then feed it ab lib, and I would change to haylage. I couldn't keep weight on my veteran with plain hay.

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I think this is the problem, he now share a field bwith 20 others but holds his own, so is hard to feed him what he is used to.

Will try the other feeds but it is soo hard to get a bag of unusuall feed around me unless ou buy a palett.

My partner wont allow him home since he took a walk on the a46

A complete nightmare
 
I would feed Alpha A oil, SB, baileys stud balancer and prob something like Baileys topline cubes split over 3 feeds. Oh and LOTS of good quality Haylage.
 
[ QUOTE ]
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Hay has been limited,

[/ QUOTE ]

Then feed it ab lib, and I would change to haylage. I couldn't keep weight on my veteran with plain hay.

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I think this is the problem, he now share a field bwith 20 others but holds his own, so is hard to feed him what he is used to.


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I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean
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Also, Weezy makes a good point, the feeds you are giving are way too big for the horse to digest properly (and are a colic risk).

I would make sure that he has access to ab lib haylage 24/7, and feed a stubbs scoop of Spillers Senior conditioning mix at least twice, but preferably 3 times a day. Oh, and Topspec senior balancer is magic stuff too!
 
We were concerned about our retired cob losing weight during the very wet autumn. We have built her up by feeding as much hay as she will eat, which isn't much, alfa -a oil/reddigrass fed in a trug as a hay substitute and 2x bucket feed of soaked grass pellets. She is stabled at night and shares good quality oat straw with the good doers in the field during the day.
In your case I certainly wouldn't bother with the applechop, as that is virtually empty calories and won't help to increase his weight, just might stop him eating the good stuff because he is full.
I do agree that it could just be his topline disappearing. Our retired broodmare looks positively sway-backed but is nicely covered over her ribs.
 
I thought it made no sense, what I mean is

He shares grazing with 22 other horses, so it is hard for me to provide enough hayl/haylage to keep him going, as you can understand.. cant give him excatly the amount he needs

I no longer work, as I am bringing up my daughter, my husband wont allow him home since someone let him out of his fleld, I used all of my money getting kelly marks to help me to to handle him aflter he was on loan last year, and he was given back to me, as a horse unable to handle.... even though his loan home createfd all of his problems.
 
In my own experience with veterans it usually comes down to one of the following (and I stand to be corrected!)
1) teeth
2) Hierarchy
3) absorbing of Nutrients

so my questions are as follows:

Does he get beaten up when eating, do you make sure he gets his feed without another horse eating it for him?
Have you had his teeth checked? As a horse gets older its teeth can detiorate and it may quid - drop feed out of his mouth, if this is the case the teeth can get rasped and when teeth aren't there soft food can be used to replace the diet.
And finally if this doesnt work, then have you had him tested? It may mean that he isn't absorbing nutrients and needs veterinary help or is coming to his passing. At 30 he isn't a spring chicken!!!

Hope one of these questions gives you an answer???
 
At that age his teeth will not be what they used to, you need to get them checked every 3-4 months. Look at his droppings, if you can see pieces of hay more than an inch long, then it means hes not chewing/ digesting well enough.

Agree with other posts, drop the apple chaff it has no nutritional value, except for prob molasses which is not what he needs. Sugar beet is great, slow releasing energy, try and get some fibre nuts/cubes/ hay replacer. Wet his feed, or make a mash it makes it easier for him to swallow.

I've always been told they can't digest more than 5lbs of feed, as the stomach is too small and it just pushes straight through. A scoop of wet sugarbeet is about 3-4lbs alone and a scoop of mix usually about 2-3 lbs depending what it is. So yes if possible you need to split his big feeds into smaller ones.

Also, older horses seem to feel the cold more (like humans!) I would invest in a really good turnout, so that he isn't using up his energy trying to keep warm.

Sounds like a nightmare, but keep trying things you'll get there.
 
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I've always been told they can't digest more than 5lbs of feed, as the stomach is too small and it just pushes straight through. A scoop of wet sugarbeet is about 3-4lbs alone and a scoop of mix usually about 2-3 lbs depending what it is. So yes if possible you need to split his big feeds into smaller ones.




Dont forget when weighing feed, you should always go by the dry weight, not the soaked.

Most of the weight in sugarbeet is water, so the actual feed weight is not so much.

If he has a decent belly on him, I would not worry too much. I assume at 30 he is not going to keep a good shape unless he is in regular work.
 
If you are struggling to provide him with enough fibre than all the conditioning feeds in the world won't help IMO.

I would swap to a fibre replacement feed such as Fast Fibre which can be a complete hay replacer and speedi or sugarbeet which is conditioning with a large blob of veggie oil.
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