Weight lose in older pony. FRESH EYES NEEDED.

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howengold

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Hi

We have a 27 year old mare who suffered a particulary bad winter for the first time ever, due to going into the winter normal weight, 400kg (usually I build her up in the autumn but our grazing was ruined by the hot summer). We can't seem to build her up and the vet can't understand why as she has found no problems. She is a 14hh pony TBx Connie.

She lives out 24/7. We feed her a quarter of a bale of hay at night, a stubbs scoup of Hi-fi Original, a scoup of 16+, a scoup of sugar beet 2 x Pink powder, sunflower oil and veggies. She has the same feed in the mornings but no hay. I don't want her overweight but she does need to carry a little by the end of the summer to get her through the winter (its just something we have discovered over the 25 years we have owned her. She is ridden 1hr a day and gets two or three days off a week (depending on my workload). She is currently 350kg and I have only managed to get her up by 20kg since feb.

Is there anything out there that I may have missed? Fresh eyes needed.
 
How many meals do you feed her a day? Would you be able to give her an extra little meal just so she gets a bit extra of what she already has? (it sounds like a good diet to me). Also how are her teeth and what's her chewing like? She might benefit from having soaked cubes instead of the mix as these would be easier to chew and digest.
 
Does she manage to eat all her hay at night? At 27 teeth are bound to be compromised in some way, so I would suggest using some form of easily eaten hay replacer - things like Spiller's Happy Hoof, Dengie Hi Fi (used in bulk rather than a scoop), Alfa Beet, soaked High Fibre cubes, etc. I would suggest you contact one of the feed companies such as Spillers or Dengie for the recommended amount to feed your pony.
 
I would go with painted lady on using soaked cubes. My old boy does reasonably well on soaked cubes and alfa-a and does much better than he ever did on a mix- he will never be fat!!. Also I'd definitely get recommended dentist out to check the teeth with such a sudden weight issue.
 
my 19 year old pony hasnt done so well the last 2 winters. I have tried her on a lot of the conditioning feeds without success. The best out of the was the 16+ cubes which I just let to soften rather than soak completely. I moved onto Simple Systems earlier this year for my younger mare and thought id try my old girl on it. She doesnt lift her head out of the bucket now till its all gone. She cant get enough of it. I feed her both the blue and the red bag grass nuts (red bag is spring grass and the blue bag is late summer grass). Shes looking brilliant on it. If only I had known about it sooner.

Give it a try - it also works out a hell of a lot cheaper as you feed it soaked so the bag goes a lot further.
www.simplesystem.co.uk
 
She never leaves a drop of anything, all her feeds are soaked, we changed to cubes about two months ago. She is feed bucket feeds twice a day so I think I will give her an extra feed midday and see if it helps. thanks guys.
 
You could also consider swapping the Hi Fi Original (8MJ/kg) for either Alfa A Original (10MJ/kg) or Alfa A Oil (12.5MJ/kg) as they are both higher in calories than the Hi Fi.
 
May I suggest trying equimins pro-bio - this will really make sure her gut is working - made a huge difference to my old TB mare - actually reduced her feed she put on so much weight and more importantly, kept it on. Often oldies guts start to be less efficient.

Simple Systems are great or you could try spillars conditioning cubes and maybe give some hayledge with the hay.

I would also suggest trying to give her three feeds if possible, when trying to put weight on my very skinny TB, at one point she was getting four feeds a day - this meant I could really increase her intake but not overload the system.

Finally, I would have a blood test to put my mind at rest, if you have not already done so.
 
I know of a couple of ponies that looked like toast racks. They then went onto soaked high fibre cubes and had their hay replaced with bucket fulls of Hi-Fi. They put loads of weight on and looked super. Their problem though was because they couldn't chew their food, particularly their hay. If it's not a teeth issue, then I agree with Theresa, I'd look at getting a blood test done as it may be that she's not digesting her feed properly. Either way, I would give the feed helplines a call, but call several of them, so that you can start getting a consistent idea of what you need to be doing. To be fair though they don't try to push their products on you and will on occassion suggest other manufacturers if they don't do anything suitable.
Best of luck x
 
My reaction would be to retire her from riding, and turn her out permanently
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I'm sorry 'cos that might be not what you want to hear!!!

All the best with her - it sounds like she's just getting too old, and after a difficult season her body is telling her to slow down!
 
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