Why do so many people think its fine to have fat horses?

Tiddlypom said:
Not everyone does, though.

The ones who pack yet more feed into already obese horses, for instance, could do with being called out.
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Yes, if it’s out of genuine concern for the horse.
My issue is with people who feel the need to give advice simply to fuel their own ego. The easiest answer would surely be feed less and get them to move more, surely. And that would be my answer (if someone asked!)
Obviously the very obese, or evacuated horses, are easier to see. But some people might say one horse is too fat, others might say it’s fine.
 
Bambelina said:
like I said, some people just love to give out information just to prove how knowledgable they are, it’s like they’re just reciting a text book. Obviously ideally no horse would be over, or underweight, both are detrimental to the welfare of the animal. And I agree, in severe cases maybe something does need bringing up!! But people try their best and do what they can. They don’t always need ‘advice’ no matter how well intentioned it is! There is no problem as such, but know it alls on livery yards can make it an unpleasant place!!
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If people are trying their best but their horse is suffering in any way, then they definitely need telling! That’s just a cop out in my opinion.
 
Bambelina said:
like I said, some people just love to give out information just to prove how knowledgable they are, it’s like they’re just reciting a text book. Obviously ideally no horse would be over, or underweight, both are detrimental to the welfare of the animal. And I agree, in severe cases maybe something does need bringing up!! But people try their best and do what they can. They don’t always need ‘advice’ no matter how well intentioned it is! There is no problem as such, but know it alls on livery yards can make it an unpleasant place!!
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Carrying a very very low percentage of body fat will not harm a horse one jot .

Its not good if they reduce their muscle bulk to feed themselves but they recover easily .
Most of the damage from being underweight comes from The things that tend to go with it , parasite infections damaging the gut , eating poor quality food and toxic plants things like this .
 
Goldenstar said:
what does doing your best mean ?
I hear the same nonsense from people with fat labradors I have lived with labradors all my life and I have never had a fat one , prone to gain weight yes , food finding ninja yes , but not fat because you have to do what you have to do .
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Okay I’ll change my wording. They are aware and are currently working to change the weight of their horse. Like you with your cob. No excuse needed, it just takes time. And people love to give information even though the owner is fully aware.
 
Bambelina said:
Okay I’ll change my wording. They are aware and are currently working to change the weight of their horse. Like you with your cob. No excuse needed, it just takes time. And people love to give information even though the owner is fully aware.
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And the owner can simply reply ‘Yes, I’m aware of it, and am taking such and such measure to remedy it’. Which I would be very happy to do.
 
Tiddlypom said:
And the owner can simply reply ‘Yes, I’m aware of it, and am taking such and such measure to remedy it’. Which I would be very happy to do.
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Or people can simply keep their opinions to themselves. Many a time it’s not a welfare issue, which is the point I’m trying to say. It’s just a people sticking their nose in issue. It’s these kind of people that can ruin the atmosphere in yards.
 
Tiddlypom said:
Yup, people can keep their opinions to themselves and allow animals to suffer unnecessarily.

Happy now?
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Which is exactly NOT what I’m saying at all.....but not every horse who is ‘a little bit overweight and is currently on a weight management programme to solve this’ is seriously suffering? Again it comes back to the point, are people genuinely hand on heart concerned, or do they just want to fuel their ‘holier than thou, more in the know than thou’ ego? Honestly.
 
Bambelina said:
Which is exactly NOT what I’m saying at all.....but not every horse who is ‘a little bit overweight and is currently on a weight management programme to solve this’ is seriously suffering? Again it comes back to the point, are people genuinely hand on heart concerned, or do they just want to fuel their ‘holier than thou, more in the know than thou’ ego? Honestly.
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who cares about that if it stops one horse being over weight that’s fine by me .
 
A couple of things stand out to me.
1. Livery yards are frequently overstocked meaning horses live in for a large proportion of the day. This is not great for health and legs. Horses are designed to move, it helps keep them a healthy weight, supple, their breathing healthy etc. Owners then feel bad and if you work opportunities to exercise can be very limited in the winter so instead the horse stands and munches all day.
2. A lot of yards now do a large hay bale for ad-lib in the field. The horse does not even have to roam and forage. It just scoffs.
3. There is pressure for horses to look A1 in March for the start of the season especially showing. The result is fatter and fatter. Horses are designed for feast ‘summer’ and famine ‘winter’. No wonder Laminitis is rife!
4. If half the riders I saw at clinics had their horses a better weight and at an appropriate fitness level, I can safely say they wouldn’t be able to ride one side of them!
 
Goldenstar said:
I completely agree the ulcer advice has played a role in fuelling the obesity crisis .
Horses do not need to eat all the time but some will Fatty would eat till he popped .
Modern horse ownership makes it hard to Trickle feed and there’s far more horses you see with hay during the day In the paddock that are stabled at night .
I have four horses not one of them can have free access to forage , and they are working I hope by Christmas Sky and H will be having almost ad-lib but Fatty won’t be and Blue certainly won’t be .
I have not had Blue down to the vets yet but I think it could be as much as 200 kilos ?he needs off .
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It would be amazing to see the outcry if we suggested we would be putting 200kg of person and tack on a horse and riding it.

If a horse is 200kg overweight, add the rider tack etc, that Velcro holding the feet together is under a colossal strain.
 
Yes it would , He’s losing weight on a bareish field he Is out 14 hours or so a day .
standing in the rest with a feed for his supplements and a kilo of forage .
We are working him carefully we have to get him moving he’s fully clipped as in everything except his tail and in a zero fill rug .
He’s extremely unfit and its clear he has a wind issue which we are on top of now ( fingers crossed ) .
He also has the worst chronic cracked heels I have ever seen .
And what’s described as classic damage from a treeless saddle .
He was stabled most of time and fed a lot and got little turnout or work ,he’s not greedy though .
All of this aside he’s a lovely lovely boy and we will get through all of this .
 
Goldenstar said:
Yes it would , He’s losing weight on a bareish field he Is out 14 hours or so a day .
standing in the rest with a feed for his supplements and a kilo of forage .
We are working him carefully we have to get him moving he’s fully clipped as in everything except his tail and in a zero fill rug .
He’s extremely unfit and its clear he has a wind issue which we are on top of now ( fingers crossed ) .
He also has the worst chronic cracked heels I have ever seen .
And what’s described as classic damage from a treeless saddle .
He was stabled most of time and fed a lot and got little turnout or work ,he’s not greedy though .
All of this aside he’s a lovely lovely boy and we will get through all of this .
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Was the treeless saddle a side issue of his weight ? I e too fat for a saddle and lack of will for the expense in keeping it fitting and or replacing ?
Shame about his cracked heels, they must be pretty sore.

Glad he is on the turn now, this time next year his previous owner would walk past him without realising he was once theirs. Are you using the red horse products on him ?
 
Goldenstar said:
And what’s described as classic damage from a treeless saddle .
s .
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Goldenstar could you tell me more about this? I recently bought a Barefoot saddle (treeless) for winter work and one of the things that attracted me was that I thought they are super comfortable / good for backs. But yesterday someone commented to me that this is not the case, and seeing your comment seems to confirm this. Would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.
 
I recently took in a livery with the most obese horse I've ever seen. He seems aware that it's a problem and he apparently had no control over its grazing at the previous place the horse was kept. I hope that is the case because it needs to lose weight sharpish as I can see it coming down with laminitis otherwise.
 
Winters 100
So what I was told is that as time goes on many horses who wear treeless saddles show these marked depressions ( wastage ) in the muscles at the back of the saddle , he also has very poor muscle development along the whole back however he has poor muscle development everywhere he was not in want you would call work.
The depressions on the back are quite big but shallow you can see them you don’t need to feel them .
The vet found significant back pain at the vetting and said it was classic saddle related issues but he had no doubt that with the care system we have in place here we could manage and sort it .
I sent pictures to the physio and saddler both said the same classic of a treeless saddle causing pressure at the back I have not seen wastage that looks quite like this before ( I know now from the sales agent he was in a treeless when he saw him first).
I have in a not perfect fitting put ok jumping on him atm saddler is booked however we have almost no back pain now .
I am not too worried because it’s reduced so much so quickly with a saddle change and one physio session .
I am fortunate in that MrGS has these type of horses so we had three saddles to choose from .
 
mule said:
I recently took in a livery with the most obese horse I've ever seen. He seems aware that it's a problem and he apparently had no control over its grazing at the previous place the horse was kept. I hope that is the case because it needs to lose weight sharpish as I can see it coming down with laminitis otherwise.
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People who have horses need to find the correct livery for that horse , As your livery has done .I hope you get it managed It does sound like he’s open to advice .
 
Interesting re the treeless stuff. I have no experience with them.

However, if my PRE becomes too fatty he gets depressions in his lower back from the saddle. A saddler told me something about adipose tissue/sort of equivalent to the impressions a woman's bra straps can make on her shoulder area. So this could happen with a saddle with a tree too, if the fit is off or the horse is too fat.

It may indeed be more prevalent with treeless, but again, I have zero experience there.
 
Agree. Some horses it is so hard to keep weight off them though. Ive got one who lives on air. I have her and my retired eventer on only an acre of paddock with not much grass on it (normally I have to supplement with hay most of the time). The retired eventer I always struggle to keep weight on but my mare, if she isnt ridden its hell keeping weight off her. She doesnt get properly fat but she's not what Id call slim - I like them to look fit. She's not been worked last 3 months as Im pregnant and her weight has crept up, I tried lungeing her daily instead but its not enough to do anything - she has to be cantering about to lose weight. I'm leaving her rug off for as long as possible so she uses up some calories going into winter and she literally gets a handful of low sugar chaff daily, thats it.
 
I've used treeless saddle for years and had no problems. My understanding is that the danger spot is under the stirrup bars particularly if the ride is too heavy for the saddle. Not all treeless saddles are created equal too. Never heard of the back of the saddle being an issue but I've never needed to have a conversation with saddler either so perhaps I've just not spoken to those in the know.

But yes. Have used treeless saddles all this time and not had any damage. Physios have always been very happy with their backs.
 
Goldenstar said:
People who have horses need to find the correct livery for that horse , As your livery has done .I hope you get it managed It does sound like he’s open to advice .
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I suggested to the owner that I put the horse in a small fenced off area of the field. He agreed to that and is coming out later today so hopefully things will move forward that way until the horse is a healthier. It's a part blood horse so hopefully it won't be too difficult for the weight to come off.
 
In my horse it is muscle wastage it’s not fat .
He‘s not carrying a lot of fat along his back it’s his neck thats yuk obviously he has fat all over I would describe his shoulder pads as moderate nothing like Fatties get and H carry’s far there too .Blue does not have lumpy bum some obese horses get .
Blue is visibly thinning I think I am lucky because he was being over fed on hard food and doing very little and had severely restricted turnout so if you start appropriate work everyday stand in a while with only snacks for his tummy and turn in a bare paddock you make progress quickly .
Fatty on the other hand was fat on a restricted diet out a lot of the time on a bare field so we had severely restrict food and add work ( which is restricted by his issues ) so progress was slow .
 
One of the fattest horses I've ever seen in real life arrived on our yard (change of owner too, thankfully! ) having been living with cows and eating cow cake! She slimmed down really easily and eventually had to be fed to maintain weight. Easier to slim down the overfed than the good doer!

MrT is a reasonably good doer but arrived with his previous owner (the lady I bought him from) the size of a house. She did a really good job of slimming him down and now I have to feed him a bit of linseed as he doesn't need the restriction that The Beast does.
 
While we're the topic, am going to try and keep H's weight down this winter by reducing his night-time haylage intake and upping his exercise. He will be out during the day. He doesn't tolerate hay at all, soaked or otherwise and develops a cough within about 3 days.

What do people recommend as a haylage replacement I could leave in at night to let him pick at when he's finished his net?

I've heard people mention TopChop Zero, HoneyChop Lite and Lucie Stalks but not used any of them before myself ... if ever I've had one that runs to fat, they've been on straw which has helped if they get the munchies before dawn, but the yard doesn't allow straw and it wouldn't suit his breathing anyway ...
TIA :)
 
Topchop zero is made too palatable to feed adlib ossichaff has mine turning their noses up so suits me fine they only eat it if they are really hungry
 
What about rather than straw bed a bucket of the chopped straw feed products. If he ignores it, he can't be that hungry but it's there to pick at if needed. It's a feed so presumably the yard would be OK with it
I've not tried any personally (just use a slice of normal straw at bottom of hay bar) but looks to be lots of brands that claim to be just straw
 
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