Trying to put weight on a poor do-er over winter?!

[Goldenstar]

Things that use up energy .
stress from pain, from things in the environment that don’t suit that horse .
exercise
Keeping themselves warm .

To get calories into fat in the pantry you need to use fewer calories or increase how many they eat .
I had a TB the answer with him was reducing the ad-lib forage so he would eat four feeds of high calorie food daily ( he had five at first) I had him prior to haylege being a thing .I also had to keep him very warm .
He became in time an easy horse to feed you did not have all the tools we have now in terms of blood testing and all that .
He came to me at 8 thin and having run out a winter after injury .

 

[Goldenstar]

I would try oats many many horses do very well on them

 

[sugarpony]

he’s a nice type of horse .
On another point he has weak looking thoracic sling add in work over walk poles if you can .
I do agree with IHW it’s a bit more rib than I think is perfect in a horse doing his type of work in a race horse he would look normal .My first event horse who was a large Anglo Arab always looked like that in the rib when she was working hard she had bulkier front she never changed .
However she was still hunting at 24 it did her no harm .

Perceptive! Yes I fully agree, we did a lot of work on it last winter which helped but I’ll put my hands up and say I let the groundwork slip this summer with all this going on with him. Have a very highly recommended rehab/acpat physio coming next week to have a look and come up with a proper plan for him. We are also in the middle of a barefoot rehab for his feet, as they weren’t great angle wise. But again, now have a good remedial farrier/trimmer on board who knows what he’s talking about so that should help too

 

[honetpot]

I look at the DE of anything I feed, and I feed the highest that they find most palitable, at three plus feeds a day, weighed on scales dry. I start loading up the end of August.
I leave most of their hay portion for night, sometimes with a bucket of high energy chopped fibre.
Sometimes they are like small child and want something 'nice' so I try and vary the diet with something with added carrot etc, which energy wise is not VFM.

 

[Annagain]

My old boy does vey well on Ease and Excel. He has the cubes as the mix has a small amount of short chop forage in it and he can't have that due to his teeth but the mix is slightly higher in digestible energy. He's actually putting weight on at the moment (I weight tape weekly) on a combination of that, a bit of Veteran Vitality (to dampen it all down or he'll bolt his food) and linseed.

 

[motherof2beasts!]

Key flow pink mash might be good

| Keyflow Feeds

keyflowfeeds.com

I had my previous horse on this , current one doesn’t need it but they all seem to love it and it has linseed in.

I do think he is a bit too ribby for the work he’s doing , could you cut back a bit to try and gain again. Hopefully new yard grass will make some difference , fingers crossed for you.

Is he a warm horse or feels the cold ?!

 

[sugarpony]

Key flow pink mash might be good

| Keyflow Feeds

keyflowfeeds.com

I had my previous horse on this , current one doesn’t need it but they all seem to love it and it has linseed in.

I do think he is a bit too ribby for the work he’s doing , could you cut back a bit to try and gain again. Hopefully new yard grass will make some difference , fingers crossed for you.

Is he a warm horse or feels the cold ?!

Am reluctant to change his base feed at the moment really, current feed has good energy content (highest I could find other than copra, at 13.25MJ/kg) and he will actually eat it reliably, unlike a lot of other things

Work has been cut back a little bit anyway because of the time of year, and will be cut back even more over the next month or so when life is busy. Though as I’ve said, I don’t plan to stop work entirely as it doesn’t tend to serve him well, and he needs work for his feet and postural rehab. Plus he put on most of the weight whilst still in full-ish work, other than right at the start. I think come spring the grass will really help, he didn’t really get the full effect after we moved as it was already October!

 

[motherof2beasts!]

Am reluctant to change his base feed at the moment really, current feed has good energy content (highest I could find other than copra, at 13.25MJ/kg) and he will actually eat it reliably, unlike a lot of other things

Work has been cut back a little bit anyway because of the time of year, and will be cut back even more over the next month or so when life is busy. Though as I’ve said, I don’t plan to stop work entirely as it doesn’t tend to serve him well, and he needs work for his feet and postural rehab. Plus he put on most of the weight whilst still in full-ish work, other than right at the start. I think come spring the grass will really help, he didn’t really get the full effect after we moved as it was already October!

Spring will be here before we know it, I don’t know about your boy but mine tends not to eat the grass when we have had the relentless rain we’ve had. Lots more standing around looking furious.

 

[nikkimariet]

Less than that between these, exactly 6mo, 20th May - 20th November. He’s well rugged, on the warmer side but not so much he sweats underneath


I’ll try and get hold of a trial pack of copra, he may or may not eat it. It’s been a struggle trying to find something he will eat tbh, so definitely won’t buy a big bag until we’ve tried it…

Linseed oil I can get hold of this week, I’d been thinking of adding oil but wasn’t sure which type was best. Oats I also have access to, but wasn’t sure about adding cereals to the diet of a stressy horse, even though no known ulcer history…0

Oats are fantastic for tummies and non heating (I’ve had 3 horses on them now and 2 were hot 1 v lazy)