underweight pony

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liljulie

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Can anyone advise me on this please? I have just purchased a pony who is very underweight, her foal has just been weaned too, Iam fortunate enough to have a nice paddock that has not been grazed for a few months, so she has excess to grass 24/7 does anyone no of a feed i could give her. Also will her milk dry up on its own and how long will this take? Any ideas are welcome thanks
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You don't say what breed/type/height she is but for each case, please be careful about piling food and good grass into her just yet, her milk needs to dry up safely before you can do that else you will get problems, she really needs to be on a barish paddock to start so that she has to move around which will help disperse any milk. Hopefully, if she's poor, the milk would have been drying up anyway but that will help it. It will not help if she has access to very good grass even although you think it might, it could do more damage than good. You could give her some oldish hay to supplement for now but don't give anything succulent like sugar beet or a mollassed feed. When her bag has started shrinking and drying up, then you can start to gently feed her with small but regular feeds rather than a bucketful at a time. During that time, you could worm her and possibly get her teeth checked if you think there's a problem there, that way you know she will be able to utilise the feed you do give. In cases like this, I have found soaked Barley Rings, Baileys Topline Cubes (No.4) and some chop of some sort to be excellent for weight gain. Pink Powder might not go amiss either although I would prefer to feed a balancer like Suregrow or Lo Cal myself and as much good hay/haylage as she is able to eat along with good grass of course. Mares just weaned usually bounce back quite quickly into condition but if she's poor underneath too then it could take months to see her back to rights, you do have to be patient and find a feed that suits her according to her breed and type. If she feels the cold I would rug her as that will only shake the calories off too.
All of the feed companies have very good help lines and they don't always push their own products if they don't make something that fits for you. The ones I've found most helpful and experienced have been Baileys and Dodson & Horrell.

Good luck and do remember to keep pictures of her regularly; it's very easy to forget how bad they were (and show us too please?!)
 
Can't add any more to what everyone's said above except to emphasise that you should definitely take note of what MFH_09 has to say above - especially the first sentence. If you turn her out onto a lush paddock, it won't automatically mean she'll put on weight - and could in fact do a lot more harm than good.
 
I good feed is allen page fast fibre and calm and condition alpha a oil all good for weight gain but introuduce new feed very slowly. Is this horse wormed teeth checked etc?
 
Thanks for your help, the pony is question is about 13 hands and has a really fine coat. Her foal was weaned at 4 months will that slow down her milk drying up
 
soya oil is good for weight gain. I also agree with the recommendation for baileys lo-cal balancer. Baileys are particularly good at giving sound advice for feeding i would try contacting them you can put a request in through the website same as with most feed companies.
 
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