Thin tb

If she's not holding weight- you're not feeding enough calories - you need to increase the calories, without increasing the feed size.

I've got a TBx who is a show pony type - she was poor when we got her as a 4 YO and has turned out to be a fairly easy type to manage feed wise.

She's on 1.6kg (dry weight - 1 stubbs scoop) of Alfa beet per day (2x feeds) with a mugfull of opti gro gain pellets between the two and adlib hay/haylege mixed. She's in light work and out for 8hrs a day - we have quite a lot of grass currently.

When she was out in a field with less grass - she got adlib hay in the field, a trug of readigrass overnight and 2kg of molichaff calmer added for fibre to her feed. We've dropped the molichaff and then dropped the grass as she was doing too well on it!

Based on what you're feeding - and the fact it sounds like my mare is a better doer than yours i'd say you need to look at supplementing grass if that's what she does well on (either nuts or dried grass in a trug overnight for her to graze at) and giving her more hay/haylege at night as well as looking at increasing the calorie count in the feed you're giving - maybe think about swapping the chaff for something higher in calories? Could you swap the ready mash for something higher in calories - rowan barbury conditioning mash maybe? Obviously - don't change all this at once, but making adjustments should help you work out what works.

Its trial and error - god only knows it took forever to work out that my mare didnt like alfa a chaff but will eat the mash.
 
chestnut cob said:
Just one question... is she warm enough? It might not seem like a big thing but if she is cold then that won't help her keep weight on. Might be worth thinking about upping the rugs.

Hay or haylage in the field while she's out? There is nothing in the grass ATM (if you are lucky enough to even have any!). You could switch your chaff to Dengie Healthy Tummy - it's alfalfa based (so assumes she gets on with alfalfa) and has Protexin Gut Balancer added so should help with any potential tummy probs. How much linseed are you feeding? You could increase that to a couple of mugs per day. Maybe get a worm count and blood test for tapeworm done, just to be absolutely sure. Also agree with the post above about feeding grass nuts alongside your hay as an alternative forage source. When you say you are trying grass nuts - are you giving them as extra, or swapping something for them?
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this is very true-if she's cold she is going to be burning it off keeping warm, maybe try an under rug too? i get slated for rgging mine to the eyeballs, but i spend in excess of £200 a month on hard feed and supplements alone, and i wont see it burnt off by shivering!
 
Pure feeds are good.

I had a very skinny tb, it took a yard move and change of management to get any weight on her.

Do you feed her or does the yard?
 
I couldn't keep weight on mine on pure feeds, it was better than the standard feed I got with my livery but I had to add extra oil and beet to keep her weight up. It is too expensive if it doesn't work as a complete feed.

What works for me is:

True ad lib hay. You need to weigh it to be sure your horse is getting enough. Weigh what she currently has and then up it gradualy until you have a significant amount left over. I thought mine was getting enough on 24lbs haylage as she always left a bit, I increased it to 32lbs and she still had the same amount left over and her weight was better. When on no grass at all she can go through 50lbs in 24hrs.

Making sure she is warm enough. I have had eye rolls for asking for her to have an under rug on but she needs to be warm to hold weight.

Feed, mine isn't in as much work as Fig (typical rc type she hacks twice and schools four times a week with some competitions and hunting) so she gets a bit less than him, but still a big feed that makes most people on my yard gasp! Per day she has two feeds, the total amounts are 2 scoops of whole oats, 1 scoop mollichaff calmer, half a scoop dry speedibeet, 375ml of linseed and pro hoof.

If I am worried about her weight I will give three feeds and increase the quantities.

Lots of people assume oats send them nuts but mine is as calm under saddle as ever on oats.

Feeding a poor doer is a totally different mindset to good doers. You have to think about fuelling them up rather than filling them up.
 
Mine had ulcers and oats were def the best thing for him. While fiber only diets are the ideal sometimes you have to feed grains to get enough calories into a poor doer. Just stick to the golden rule of max .5% of their body weight in grains.
 
Sorry just coming back to this - OP you've been asking the same questions about weight gain for your mare since March last year. Why hasn't anything changed?
 
Kat said:
True ad lib hay. You need to weigh it to be sure your horse is getting enough. Weigh what she currently has and then up it gradualy until you have a significant amount left over. I thought mine was getting enough on 24lbs haylage as she always left a bit, I increased it to 32lbs and she still had the same amount left over and her weight was better. When on no grass at all she can go through 50lbs in 24hrs.
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This is so true, people think that because their horse doesn't eat every scrap of hay that they are feeding enough. This applies to feed as well. I had an old horse who was hat rack thin and he always left some feed. I feed Simple Systems food which is forage base, ie no grain. When I spoke to them they said increase the amount of bucket feed. I said but he doesn't eat what I give him. BUT I tried it, I doubled his ration and left it in with him over night ... by morning most of it had gone he had just left the normal amount that he could not be bothered with. Being very old (35) his teeth were wobbly and falling out so he couldn't eat a lot of hay or at least could not chew it effectively. So the extra ration of Lucerne and S/beet got his weight back up.

My current girls always get real ad lib hay over night, what they don't eat over night goes out in the field with them during the day. My vet commented the other week just how well my eldest girl looks so was really pleased.

I also agree with the comment with keeping your horse warm, makes sense really if you think about it.
 
She needs to be warm enough - not just warm at the base of her ears, but even half way up shouldn't feel really cold. I use a duvet in winter, on top of a fleece and under a full neck HW with leg straps. Works wonders. Speedibeet works, but you have to feed an awful lot of it. You need to look at the energy requirements of a horse her size (for a 500kg horse it's 70MJ per day) then at the energy you're giving her. Hay is about 8MJ/kg, speedibeet (dry weight) 13MJ/kg etc. If you work out how much you're giving her in her feeds, she should eat 2.2% of her bodyweight minus those feeds, in hay/haylage if you're feeding ad-lib. Add it all up. If you're feeding WAY more than she should need, and you're SURE she's not cold, yet she isn't gaining, then you need to call the vet!!!
 
I found calm and condition to be quite fattening - it did a great job of making my horse fat, now he's on a diet! There is also a likit that is natural molasses.
 
Agree with the extra warmth from rugs. I was looking after a friends trotter mare last spring who wintered badly, even in 16* she was in a MW and wasn't too hot, my friend noticed a difference in a week :)
 
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