"Weaning off" grazing muzzle?

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RonnieHowe

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Hello all :)

After piling on a crazy amount of weight in a 2 week period at the beginning of May, my cob who lives out has been wearing his grazing muzzle all the time (bar when he is brought in for an hour and a half ish each day for a groom and ride).

He has lost a fair bit of weight and now looks just right to me. My question is - how do people go about "weaning off" the grazing muzzle once the horse reaches an ideal weight? Without the muzzle he stuffs grass in his mouth at a crazy rate I've never seen anything like it lol! As a result he puts on weight so quickly, and I've heard people say a horse can consume his entire daily requirement of grass in less than an hour so this is worrying me a bit.

The muzzle has worked very so far but just don't want to undo all the good work! Has anyone had any luck with one day off, one/two days on type of routine?

Any advice much appreciated! :)
 
Personally, if the horse became so fat within such a short period, I would not be weaning off the muzzle... It's quite clearly doing the job it was designed to do, and if it were my horse I would be happier with the horse wearing it, than with taking it off and then spending the summer playing a weight yo yo game. I suspect, that if you start to take it off, even gradually, your horses weight will bloom again. Horses do not become immune to the effects of grass. Furthermore, if you attempt to juggle this for example: 20 hrs in muzzle, 1 hr ridden, 3 hrs normal grazing... During that 3 hr period (what you've heard from others is true) your horse will 'guzzle' the grass, at a far faster rate than normal, packing in as much as possible before the muzzle goes back on. I would stick as you are, if you want your horse to have more of a break from the muzzle, do you have a stable he can come into during the day? This is a happy compromise, bring him in with some soaked hay, then turn out at night either with or without a muzzle... It may be that at night you could get away without a muzzle owing to the lesser sugar content, but I'd say it's safer to keep it on. Also if you don't already have one, I would invest in a weight tape so you can accurately monitor any changes
 
Queenbee said:
Personally, if the horse became so fat within such a short period, I would not be weaning off the muzzle... It's quite clearly doing the job it was designed to do, and if it were my horse I would be happier with the horse wearing it, than with taking it off and then spending the summer playing a weight yo yo game. I suspect, that if you start to take it off, even gradually, your horses weight will bloom again. Horses do not become immune to the effects of grass. Furthermore, if you attempt to juggle this for example: 20 hrs in muzzle, 1 hr ridden, 3 hrs normal grazing... During that 3 hr period (what you've heard from others is true) your horse will 'guzzle' the grass, at a far faster rate than normal, packing in as much as possible before the muzzle goes back on. I would stick as you are, if you want your horse to have more of a break from the muzzle, do you have a stable he can come into during the day? This is a happy compromise, bring him in with some soaked hay, then turn out at night either with or without a muzzle... It may be that at night you could get away without a muzzle owing to the lesser sugar content, but I'd say it's safer to keep it on. Also if you don't already have one, I would invest in a weight tape so you can accurately monitor any changes
Click to expand...

^^^^^ This

I would rather he kept it on and I increase/decrease high fibre diet as necessary than to worry about him ballooning again, pity they don't do human ones lol
 
Thank you very much for your replies.

I know he is not immune to grass, however if I keep the muzzle on 24/7 as I am doing now and his weight continues to decrease at the current rate, I'm going to have the opposite problem - an underweight horse. Which is admittedly better than an overweight one, but still I would like to try and find the balance.

I have no stable, only some hard standing, so unfortunately bringing him in is not an option.

So to sum up - you don't think it would work giving him one out of every 2/3 days (as in an 8 hour period) without the muzzle? I suppose my thinking was, though they can consume a days worth of grass in an hour if determined, would they in the same way really eat 3 days worth of grass in a few hours? Sorry if I am being completely ignorant and this is actually the case!

Thanks again for your replies, much appreciated.
 
No unfortunately not, huge field, lots of horses, no opportunity to strip graze.
I have tried that in the past though on a different yard and he seems to see electric fencing as a challenge... It's never kept him in one place for long lol.
 
Only suggestion then is to muzzle during day and off in the night, that way as he's still getting some grass through the muzzle during the day he won't gauge when he hasn't got it on.

OR

I have to watch my horses weight, he wears his muzzle when turned out during the day, you could get another muzzle, cut the hole bigger so he can get more but still restricted, that's what I do.

Then if you think he's getting porky again, you can put the smaller hole muzzle back on
 
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