Weight Gain Advice

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Accy

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Please can someone give me some advice I have a 16.1hh Westphalian who needs to put on some weight ok rather a fair amount of weight.

He is in light work and fed one scoop of Baileys no.4 One Scoop of Sugarbeat One Scoop of Chaff, with Added Garlic twice a day but his weight is not increasing if have had suggested
Dodson and Horral Build up mix or Pink Powder Or Baileys Outshine etc

I dont know what to do I have tried some variations but dont want to keep switching feeds he also gets hayledge, the last one i needed to get weight on responded well to Calm and Condition but not this one hence we have now tried No4
 
First of all make sure he is getting as much haylage as he can eat - you should give him enough so there is a little left in the morning plus he should have some available at any time he is in the stable, and preferably there should be some in the field as well.

As you can only feed twice a day, you need to give quite calorie-dense feeds. If you are already on No 4 I wouldn't swap to Build Up because No 4 is actually higher in calories than Build Up. What chaff are you using? You would be best to use an oil-enriched chaff such as Alfa A Oil as they are more calorie dense than normal chaffs. You could also add some straight oil (vegetable, soya, corn etc) or if you prefer use an oil-rich supplement such as Outshine. Oil is a very calorie-dense food, so useful for increasing the calorie content of the feed without feeding more volume than the horse can cope with at one time.
 
firstly you need to find out why he has lost weight teeth , is he equally rugged etc ?
if the answer is yes to these
are you feeding him the correct amount for his type ,age, height ?? if so
i would recommend putting him on bailey rings or weight gain mix along with corn oil
corn oil you can get from normal supermarkets and is very good for weight gain
 
First of all how much does the horse weigh and secondly how much does a scoop of number 4 weigh?

It is important not to use guess work when trying to increase a horses weight.

My horse went from this....

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to this....

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in less than six months with ad lib hay, green grass, Baileys number four, D&H Safe and Sound and Pink Powder.

Not to mention lots of tlc!!
 
If your horses diet is balanced enough you can add anything up to 400mls of corn/rapeseed oil to the feed (about two coffee cups per feed) and this will help out weight on.

The reason I say balanced diet as the oil can sometimes leech nutrients which you need to top up.

I feed Kia spillers horse and pony normally at the recommmeded level and because these contain vits and mins plus the supplements he gets for feet and joints he gets a pretty balanced diet therefore I dont need to add anything to complement the oil.

Nikki xxxx
 
How long has he been on his current diet??

I have great results for weight gain with High oil fibre diets, i use Alfa Oil with speedibeet, Topspec Cool Condition Cubes & a balancer. I chose this as it's a fibre based High oil (calorie dense). If my horse was still losing weight on this diet i could add Topspec Conditioning flakes, but i havent needed them.

I tried all the conditioning feeds for my TB but they just didnt give the results. The only thing he responded to slightly where spillers conditioning cubes.

The other thing thats helped all my horses is Protexin Gut Balancer.
 
What is the horses routine?
How much out does it get?

A horse that arrived with us in the summer really needing to put condition on has been transformed, not only through correct feeding - but through a much better management routine. One that suits her so much better.
 
Baileys No.1 cereal mix, Burgess Supa Barley rings, and ad lib forage, ie. hay/haylage/grass - as much as he can eat of the stuff. Also get his teeth checked to see he is chewing correctly, and also do a worm count in case he should have some little friends floating around in his gut!
 
Thank you all for the advice, He gets turned out at 6.30am every day and in at 5pm weekdays and 4pm weekends, workwise approx half an hour low level work four times a week only two sessions under saddle, worm count came back fine.he has Hay in the field and adlib hayledge in the stable.
I am going to try Pink Powder and see how we get on, if anyoen has any further ideas i would appriciate them
 
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