Post by spotti on Feb 2, 2009 9:31:08 GMT
I've noticed over the last few months Faith has been slowly putting on weight, yet condition-wise she's still the same, so when condition scoring, she's still spot-on what she should be (i.e. I can still feel her ribs easily but not see them, I can feel her shoulder blade, her neck is nice and soft but not wobbly and she has the muscle line running down it, her back isn't flat, she doesn't have the gutter down her bum (except the normal 'cob' apple-bum, but even that is quite nicely shaped) and I can feel her hips easily, but like her ribs, they don't stick out...) - are we thinking this weight gain must be from muscle build up?
*** I use a weigh tape roughly every fortnight but I used the weighbridge thing here at uni this morning (for worming purposes) and she was quite a bit over what she was last time I measured her with the tape.***
When I got her about a year and a half ago, she weighed 438kg but was riddled with worms and was super-fat with practically no muscle. She lived off loads of sugary hard food, tonnes of hay and very little grass.
After a couple of months of a reduced hard-food diet, increased grass intake (moved to a yard and she had access to a huge field with plenty of grass in it) and a bit of in-hand exercise - still a cripple at this point - she went down to 408kg.
Her weight fluctuated for a while until we got the balance of hard-food, forage and exercise right and finally settled on 420kg.
Then she got ill with strangles and had to live with the other 'lurgies' and so had access to 24/7 ad lib hay, and then lived out for a month or so (on 24/7 grass) and when she was weighed and wormed in september (at uni) she weighed a whopping 470kg! YET she's still in the same condition conditon-score-wise.
She stayed about the same up to and over christmas (but she started to be 'in work' over christmas, hence the change in weight) but now I've just weighed her, she's weighs 540kg!!!
Do you think that over the period of a couple of months she could have built up enough muscle to account for the change?
Also, anyone who knows about cobby horses, how do you measure/tell whether your horse is a lightweight cob, a middleweight or a heavyweight? Isn't it all to do with the amount of bone? (if so, how much bone do they need to be classed as LW/MW/HW?)
*** I use a weigh tape roughly every fortnight but I used the weighbridge thing here at uni this morning (for worming purposes) and she was quite a bit over what she was last time I measured her with the tape.***
When I got her about a year and a half ago, she weighed 438kg but was riddled with worms and was super-fat with practically no muscle. She lived off loads of sugary hard food, tonnes of hay and very little grass.
After a couple of months of a reduced hard-food diet, increased grass intake (moved to a yard and she had access to a huge field with plenty of grass in it) and a bit of in-hand exercise - still a cripple at this point - she went down to 408kg.
Her weight fluctuated for a while until we got the balance of hard-food, forage and exercise right and finally settled on 420kg.
Then she got ill with strangles and had to live with the other 'lurgies' and so had access to 24/7 ad lib hay, and then lived out for a month or so (on 24/7 grass) and when she was weighed and wormed in september (at uni) she weighed a whopping 470kg! YET she's still in the same condition conditon-score-wise.
She stayed about the same up to and over christmas (but she started to be 'in work' over christmas, hence the change in weight) but now I've just weighed her, she's weighs 540kg!!!
Do you think that over the period of a couple of months she could have built up enough muscle to account for the change?
Also, anyone who knows about cobby horses, how do you measure/tell whether your horse is a lightweight cob, a middleweight or a heavyweight? Isn't it all to do with the amount of bone? (if so, how much bone do they need to be classed as LW/MW/HW?)
I've been really scared to tell someone before and only managed to do it because I kept telling myself I had to do it for the horse's benefit. She didn't take it well. 
