Underweight Laminitic pony?

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xXMrsIrishXx

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Our welsh section A pony came down with laminitis in May and was put on a strict weight loss diet by our vet.He has now finally been given the all clear and starting to enjoy going out on short walks again riderless which he throughly enjoys. Although he did need to lose the weight i now feel he has lost too much and would like him to slowly and safely gain a little especially with the winter fast approaching. Can anyone suggest the safest way to do this feed wise without risking laminitis again? He is very slowly gaining but i wondered if there was any feeds that would be best suited for his needs and would help with his lack of condition too. He is currently fed on 2 soaked haynets of hay each weighing 3kgs and 2 small feeds consisting of a scoop of speedy beet and a scoop of spiller happy hoof along with glucosamine supplement. Is this enough for him? He also is on very restricted turnout of a hour morning and night with a muzzle He weighs roughly 260 kgs now. All advice welcome :)
 
If you want him to gain a little weight the safest way is to slightly increase his hay, this will keep him occupied for longer and warmer in the winter as he will spend more time eating.
 
I guess my question is why does he need to gain weight?

My 12hh pony tapes at 200kg and she isn't ribby so I would probably guess he isn't that skinny? If he is stable I wouldnt be messing with it.

However if you are then firstly increase hay and then look at increasing rugs and then something perhaps like micronised linseed.
 
Thankyou for the replys. I look at him and even tho he has a winter coat coming through i can still see his ribs. As for extra rugs it really isnt that cold where we are at the moment so havent felt the need to rug him constantly, although saying that we had the odd night where i made sure he had his stable rug on. I will increase his hay slightly and see how he goes. The vet does seem to think that it wouldnt harm him to put a little back on just wondered if anyone had experiance with their laminitic ponies. This is my first pony to suffer with laminitis so am still learning as i go and open to all advice.
 
We've had exactly the same thing recently with a 14.1 pony. She was bought last September in the recovering stages of laminitis (she was a companion). All summer we have worked to get her weight down (she was huge!) and a few weeks ago she was starting to get that bit too ribby for going into winter.
Diet prior to this was pretty sparse grazing, Fast fibre and safe and sound twice daily.
We started giving her hay and speedi beet along with her safe and sound and in the evening a scoop of high fibre conditioning cubes (oil and fibre based, no cereals). This has picked her up nicely and we are now swapping half the hay for barley straw so she can still get the roughage.
The key is high fibre, low sugar feeds. What you are feeding sounds good and if she is gaining then stick with it or slightly up the hay. You don't want her gaining too quickly.
 
On his hay ration alone, you are feeding around 2.3% of his body weight as dry matter each day (that's assuming that your hay is around 85% dry matter).

My Dales ponies seem to maintain weight on a diet of around 1.5% body weight if they are doing light work of up to 20 miles ridden work a week. For my gang, going below that percentage causes weight loss, and going above it causes weight gain, but obviously each individual pony is different.

So I'd be surprised if your pony wasn't at least maintaining weight, if not putting it on, with that amount of hay (and not even taking into account the extra feeds you are giving him or the grazing), but maybe he's not a good doer?

Take a look at World Horse Welfare's website and watch their fat scoring videos, because they will give you a good indication whether your pony is underweight now, or whether he is just a bit less fat in some parts of his body than others:

http://www.worldhorsewelfare.org/information/right_weight_advice

Also, depending on the age of your pony, you may want to watch some of the videos on Prascend's website (the makers of the treatment for Cushing's) in case what you are seeing is uneven distribution of fat which might be an early sign of Cushing's. Generally not seen in ponies under 12 years old, but worth a look if your pony is that age or older:

http://www.prascend.co.uk/

Once you are sure you are fat scoring your pony accurately, you can start to tweak his diet more confidently to adjust his weight a little at a time.

Sarah
 
We have exactly the same - and we had ours on metformin for a few months and that exacerbated it. He's looking just right now.

We give him a controlled amount of hay, but he gets a tea mug of linseed meal (the Charnwood milling one) in his feed and that makes all the difference to him.

I'm a fan of linseed - very good for them.
 
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