feeding fat ponies

[fleabitten]

I think this topic will concern a good number of people so its gonna be of benefit to all.

if you have read my other post on the 'Hacking and Schooling' board you will know that im worried about Princess being fat - and if you know me from before last November then you will know I had an elderly pony called Connie (RIP) who was sick a lot and was always quite thin - so its a bit of a puzzle really to know how to feed those two extremes. And a shock, as i didnt realise how difficult it was to feed fatties - i thought it would be easy - and i suppose it was in comparison to Connie.

Anyway, if you havent read my other post then i'll quickly fill you in - Princess isnt being ridden at all at the moment and is getting no form of proper exercise - albeit she is getting to stretch her legs in the field. She had slimmed down a bit with being ridden regularly on her trial but it came all back on again, as it is inclined to do.

In the good dry weather she was on small patches of grass and it was fine to keep her like that - almost a starvation paddock - as the ground wasnt getting messed up. But now after its been raining badly we cant keep her on small patches as the ground will get badly damaged and we only sowed it fresh last year. (I know i have said before to let horses tramp about in the muck as they need to be out etc. but have changed my view on it) So now she is on quite a large bit of field and theres lots of grass and its still growing .

She is now going to be in every night as theres nothing else to do about it, from 4pm, getting hay - we do have freshly cut hay but are using old bales at the moment (is fresh hay ok to feed, i have a feeling i read that its not?) She is out from about 9 or 10am. She will get approx 2 slices of a rectangle bale - maybe a bit more for the whole night and i give her it in at about 10pm. Then she might get a slice in the morning about 7am to do her till she gets turned out. She might also get a slice at about 7pm to do her till 10pm.

Do you think we are feeding too much - i dont weigh her as i have a crappy weigh tape - i used to use string and a formula but thats too time consuming and fiddly. Shes getting a gutter, has a bit of an apple shape bum and a huge belly. cant really feel her ribs unless you press quite hard. Her dung is also getting sloppy from she was out on the bigger patch. it does get a bit better after being on hay.

Any feeding advice leave it here and any exercise advice leave it on the other post please

Thanks

[kateflashy]

with pika i only give her 1 slice hay at night and just a handful if she' cant go go straight out , only enough to keep her quiet while the others have theres , and our field is compleatly bald, if i ride her i may give her a handful of nuts , more of a treat then a feed ,

[rebanna]

soak the hay for a couple of hours it take's more of the goodness out

[joandlad]

I've been, and am in, a similar position. I had a 36yr old with hardly any teeth and I had to try really hard to keep weight on him. I've now got a 4yr old that lives on fresh air.

Horses are designed to trickle feed. So, you NEVER cut down on quantity (to a point where they stand without access to some sort of fibre) but you do cut down on quality. If you cut down on quantity you risk problems such as colic or ulcers. The best way I've found is to use a muzzle when out grazing. Putting out at night is best as the sugars in the grass are lower. You need to make sure they are getting all their necessary vits and mins and the best way to do that is with some sort of specialy formulated supplement. I use Top Spec Anti-Lam but there is also Bailey's Low Cal or one of the powdered supplements. Use a low calorie chaff to mix it in with (only a tiny amount!). The amount of hay will pretty much depend on how quickly your horse eats! Soaking hay for at least 4 hours releases a lot of the sugars, so get yourself a big bucket/bin and get soaking.

Don't worry about her not having enough energy. If she's got enough calories to turn them to fat she's got enough to turn to energy.

[racaille]

Joandlad, you are right about trickle feeding .... but sometimes it's just not practical to change hay quality etc (and I think Flea's family grow their own??)
It does sound as if Princess is eating far too much for the amount of exercise she's getting at the moment (ie, none LOL) If it's difficult to cut down her grazing (but you could try a muzzle) I would suggest the hay she is getting is too much. The solution is to cut out , say the 10pm feed, and give the 7pm feed in a double haynet, with very small holes, so she has to work harder to get it, which will take her longer. And if she's in a box at night, she really doesn't need to eat all the time, they do sleep in boxes, honest.

[joandlad]

You can change the quality of the hay you are feeding by soaking to remove some of sugar. Obviously, if it's possible you should send off various samples for analysis and feed the hay with the lowest sugar content. If you make your own then you are a bit stuck and will have to soak to reduce the sugars. I soak my hay during the day so it's been soaking for at least 8 hours. The soaked hay takes longer to chew and as racille says you can double hay net it (if you use haynets) to make it last even longer. It's a real bug bear of mine when I see horses being given a haynet at 5pm and when I leave the yard at 8pm they have finished it all and will be stood til 7am the next morning with nothing to eat. The way a horse's gut works is that it is constantly digesting and producing enzymes and bacteria (not like ours that only kick into action when there is food about). If they don't have food in their guts they get problems. I've just been googling for the study which showed up to 90% of racehorses have gastric ulcers. This was put down to the cereal diets and little access to hay. Can't find the study but can find a bit on my vet's website www.liphookequinehosp.co.uk/gastriculcers.htm

[brigadier]

Hi fleabitten
like you I really dont bother with formulas and weight tapes and hay analysis (cant really afford the latter and no two batches of hay are the same in anycase and I feed by eye- its not let me down yet! Nor you either as you now have seen and recognised both extremes!) as a general rule- dont feed new hay as it makes them foul smelling poopy (its too rich really) feed old good quality meadow hay which has less 'ping' in but use a net with tiny holes- two haylage nets put together may work well. Im not a fan of soaking to death either- it makes them foul smelling poopy! In essence your little horse needs some work. Also sometimes fat ponies need to have no food in their stables so they remember to sleep- because they would stuff themselves until bursting- think of fat people who just cant stop eating- something is wrong with their brain response not their tummies. its good youve seen a problem and are doing something about it- but rmember make any changes gradually- she needs to lose weight slowly and gain muscle through work at the same time.

I have read the report on racehorses (Basil is an ex one so anything like that fascinates me-) it was covered by horse and hound so you may find it on their website but they are sport horses who are trained to the extreme and their lifestyle is also a contibutory factor to gastric ulcers. I wouldnt have though your regime would be anything to worry about at the moment.
Keep us updated on how you get on!

[Becca]

What bedding is she on?
I would bed her on straw and give her max one section of hay, straw is edible with little or no nutrience in some cases. As Joandlad said it would be better if you could turn her out at night, and if you need a grazing muzzle I have a pink full size one.

And as brig said the best way is to get her some exercise. Do you or anyone you know how to lunge as i know you don't fancy getting on

[racaille]

Straw's a good idea! Just a little word of caution, some really greedy GGs will eat all their bedding and can sometimes fall victim to impaction colic. If she is a greedyguts, you could try giving her a slice of straw on her usual bedding.

[lizziebrandy]

My pony is has an obbsession with food he cant leave it, he has to eat it. He was ill for over a year with lami, so he now is stable full time, well accually he has a double field shelter with about the same concreted to roam around in. We feed him a bucket feed of mollichop in the morning, followed by hay a couple of hours later, some afternoons we let him out for grass in a well eaten paddock or a small area, but then we cut his bucket feeds down, if he doesn't go out he has the same food as morning in the evening. But as your pony is out more, what about just giving him hay in the evenings? With a straw bed (my pony is on straw, and yes he does eat it, but not to much) intil morning when you let her out?


Edited because of being a bit capital letter happy
If you can't exersise your pony have you any other horses you could out her out with for half an hour of galloping around? Hope this has helped

[fimacg]

Chompy is the kind of horse you would get fat if left on a pavement, exercise is the only thing that keeps the weight off him.

I keep all my boys on a similar regieme to yours Flea, they go out at 7am and come in at about 5.30pm. then ridden, fed at abput 8 pm and hay at 10pm.

I have found that over the summer they need just 1 section of a square bale at night, any more than that and there is still stuff left in the morning so I am happy they are getting enough and all are beween 15 - 16hh so bigger than Princess. in the winter this amount of hay goes up to about 3 sections over night depending on how much grass they can get access to depending on forst/snow etc.

I try to use end of season hay if I can get it which is harder with more stalks than high quality hay as it has less richness to it.

In terms of hard feed I have recently been in touch with a feed companies in order to see if there was a better way of feeding and I am gradually changing to Dengie Hi Fi light chaff and Baileys Lo Cal balancer in order to give them the nutirents they need but with fewer calories.

Hope that helps.

[racaille]

Sept 2, 2008 8:20:22 GMT fimacg said:

Chompy is the kind of horse you would get fat if left on a pavement,

Love the image of that! ;D

[cosmic]

with fizz i have to soak her hay for 2 reasons, shes got a breathing problem and is a fat moo bag.

she gets it soaked for a few hours then hosed down, i never leave her with nothing to eat, her hay goes in double haylage nets and she is on topspec anti lam for her vits/mins along with a lick

[joandlad]

Slightly off original topic but in one of my replies I was looking for figures from a gastric ulcer study but couldn't lay my hands on them. Was looking for something else on the web and found the site that has the papers quoted for the Gastric Ulcer studies. Makes interesting reading. Especially the bit about ulcers occuring in 37% of leisure horses. As Brig said earlier you'd kind of expect it in high pressue performance yards but it's higher than I thought it would be for "leisure horses" - need to look into how they class a "leisure horse" too.

[joandlad]

D'oh - forgot the site link!

www.equinegastriculcers.co.uk

[ceej]

Aug 31, 2008 8:39:06 GMT racaille said:

Straw's a good idea! Just a little word of caution, some really greedy GGs will eat all their bedding and can sometimes fall victim to impaction colic. If she is a greedyguts, you could try giving her a slice of straw on her usual bedding.

yes careful - Our bif TB decided his bed was the tastiest thing around...two weeks later, after the worst impaction colic the vet has seen, 3k vets bills and a touch and go moment where he was tested for peritonitis, he was ok again - phew - but never had a horse so close to dying!!! I havent used straw since - paranoid maybe but it scared the poop out of us.

[fimacg]

2 weeks of Chompy on Paddock rest (even in a well munched field with hardly any grass), no exercise, and having to have 2 feeds a day with a big handful of chaff to get him to eat his antibiotics. I have a very fat balloon again...

I have had to give him about 4 times as much as he normally gets over the course of the day as the antibitoics have to be given twice a day and he normally has 1 small hard feed... and With limited execise over the next two weeks to get him going again I am starting to pull my hair hair out over his weight - will I ever get him slim?

[brigadier]

Sept 12, 2008 13:10:54 GMT fimacg said:

2 weeks of Chompy on Paddock rest (even in a well munched field with hardly any grass), no exercise, and having to have 2 feeds a day with a big handful of chaff to get him to eat his antibiotics. I have a very fat balloon again...

I have had to give him about 4 times as much as he normally gets over the course of the day as the antibitoics have to be given twice a day and he normally has 1 small hard feed... and With limited execise over the next two weeks to get him going again I am starting to pull my hair hair out over his weight - will I ever get him slim?

No- it appears not!!

[fleabitten]

Do you ever see a slim cob?? Nothing springs to mind!