what to feed an older pony for energy?

S

stanley101

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Hi

My daughters pony is 20yo and over the last month or so its been really hard to get him going and I was wondering if there was something I could give him to give him a bit more oomph? Anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks

S
 
Depends on the weight of the pony and lots of other considerations such as current diet, hay, grazing, health, teeth, tack fit, etc. Any one of these (or more) could be a reason why the pony is lacking energy. If its a native pony you need to be careful feeding too much starch, common in many mixes. Sticking to slow release fibre feeds is safer.
 
There could be numerous reasons why the pony's lacking energy so i wouldn't automatically think you need to feed it up. It may well be the pony needs more energy feed but i would check other things first. My horse has gone (and is a bit at the moment) lethargic before and it turned out he'd actually hurt his back after slipping in the field (well actually whilst he was attempting to get under a fence!). Got the back sorted and he was back to himself.

My older pony has also been lacking energy before - sometimes he's just lazy to be honest but there have been times I have actually leter discovered he too is in some pain (he has a very hign pain threshold. He had glass in his foot for about 2 weeks -unbeknown to me - and was just a bit lazy really going out. It was only whem we found him actually non weight bearing one afternoon (following a ride in the morning) we realised he'd been suffering for a while.

So, I would advise to rule out any other reasons first. It may well be it is just lacking in enery/nutrients as the grass has now dropped off. If that's the case then Old Faithful is very good BUT is very sugary (hence why my pony loves it!) so probably not sensible for a pony prone to weight gain etc. Great though if you struggle to keep weight on them. Other than an energy feed maybe look at adding a supplement to his diet - either a simple mineral lick if he doesn't have one or something like Kossolian (blood salts) that contains a lot of minerals and does help on the energy front.

It depends a lot on the individual horse but i wouldn't automatically jump at feeding a high energy feed to help woth oomph.
 
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