The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Pets & Working Animals => Horses, ponies, donkeys & mules => Topic started by: ellisr on August 24, 2010, 10:14:16 am
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I have a 17h ex racehorse and he has started dropping weight even though he is fed twice a day. Can anyone advise food that would help get his weight back on but not fire him up as he can be quite head strong.
Unfortunately we have no grazing left on the smallholding due to the drought, so he gets haylage every morning and night in addition to his food
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assuming he's on a worming programme & his teeth are okay, try Allen& Page's Calm & Condition. I used it for my very old pony with good result. In fact I phoned Allen & Page & they were brilliant with advice, sent me a pack about all their feed range & money off voucher!!
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Great I will give it a go, he is on a worming programme and his teeth are really good he is starting to drop condition a tad as I can't ride him at the moment.
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Midds is good for putting weight on and is by far our best seller over winter,is very cheap as well.
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Is the haylage good quality? Do you know where it came from? Grass can vary a great deal in varieties and therefore the goodness in it, so I imagine haylage does too.
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Top Spec pruduce very good quality Conditioning Flakes, almost guarenteed to put the weight on - and very palatable according to my very fussy 30 yr old TB.
Another suggestion is to get NAF Pink Powders it has a gut balancer in it which helps the horse to utilise and maximise what feed he is given. all the Top Spec porduce has the gut balancers too, but their are more expensive.
HTH Emma T
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All horses start to lose condition now, as the goodness has gone out of the grass. Teeth and worming are the first starting point, and also make sure your horse has access to a mineral block. Reduced grazing means they do get short of vitamins and minerals.
I agree calm and condition is good, only needs soaking a few minutes, and soaked speedibeet puts weight on too.
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Thanks all I am going shopping ths weekend to get him a good mix of stuff, thank goodness he is not a fussy eater. He needs a new mineral block anyway and a couple of new rugs for autumn/winter as he doesn't like stables at all and need to keep him warm as possible to help his weight.
I was looking at the speedi beet on Sunday so I think I may get some of that as well and see what works well with him, he just looks so slim and out of condition at the moment I need something to help.
Oh BTW if anyone is near a countrystores and needs new horse rugs they have most reduced to silly prices
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In winter I feed boiled barley to mine and it helps keep the weight on without fizzing them up, cheap as well just put some in a slow cooker in the morning and its ready by evening.
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Oh never thought of that and my grandma used to give the shires it, how much do you think to add to his food to give him a boost but not to make him bloated.
Honestly I will try anything with him he is so special to me and such a big loving horse who likes to just wander around behind me when I'm busy it is like having a best friend that can't talk but you know how he feels.
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How old is the horse? We have a 16 yr old TB 16.2 and he dropped loads of weight over the winter before last, my daughter was feeding him up to 6 hay nets a day plus his large bowl of chaff and nuts, he is quite excitable in the spring so we couldn't use anything that would worsen that, then we put him onto 16+ because of his age and he came through the last winter beautifully even though it was a tough one!
Dawn
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He is 17 so maybe it is his age effecting his weight maybe I should be thinking about a more senior diet.
So much to think about now, not really as easy as choose a feed and then ask how many scoops lol.
I think this maybe a bit of trial and error until I get it spot on, I am working trying to get him to settle in a stable so that winter won't be so harsh for him and so I can keep him out of the mud which he can spot a mile off and he must roll in it and become a mud monster. Spent over an hour last night trying to get mud out of his main looks like he is having a bath this weekend which he really doesn't like
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Ha ha sounds a lot like ours, my daughter like to make him look good, brushing and clipping him, then he goes out a rolls as if to say 'you wasted your time'. It was a lot of trial and error with ours too, lots of hay nets on top of his feeds until his weight started to pick up, we did use sugar beet too as well as haylage (not all at the same time) to see what worked best, and it all depends on the horse. Hope you work it out even though it will be a long process!
Dawn
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I've been using linseed meal from Charnwood Mills to keep the weight on my oldie
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I have the same problem with my 19 year old TB. I'm lucky that I still have very good grazing at home but I've become rather good at weight gain tricks from time to time!
Top spec feed balancer is brilliant to add to his normal feed. Alfa A Oil is good on my boy but I've known it fizz some horses up, T has it mixed with D&H Build up cubes and his normal supplements. In the winter he'll also have Readymash extra and oil added into his feed and they'll increase to two or three meals per day. I think I'd go for as much haylage as he can eat rather than feeding at set times.
The best I've used for weight gain is Boomerang Copra Meal which is coconut based and soaked as sugar beet would be but I know it's hard to get hold of these days! :horse: ;D
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Our big boy is 17hh and gets half a scoop of boiled barley added to his feed twice a day in winter apart from that he gets course mix, alfa A and beet pulp. He is on hay as we have very good hay but often towards the end of winter he will go onto haylage. When he was younger and competing he was on oats, alfa A, Blue chip and haylage but is now just a hack so course mix suits him fine.
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Ok going today to get his new diet I have already started adding barley as it has been wet and cold this week and he seems to love it. I have upped his actual meals to 3 times a day at the moment it seems just to be going through him as the muck run has gone from a barrow a day to two but that us ok. I am going to get a supplement to help his digestion and see if that helps him keep weight on.
By the time winter is out I will have to get a small mortgage lol but he is worth every penny just for his companionship
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hey, i had the same problem with an Arab that I shared. I used pink powder which really helped, a good whole scoop in each feed - maybe more - really useful. Also, I was advised to cook rice and add that into the feed to bulk it up...I never got the chance to try it but i think it would work. You could also feed more hay throughout the day when he is in his field as he doesn't have much grazing. Hope that helped!
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Pink Powder ??? tell me more???? whats the manufactuers name??
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There is also a supplement Equitive body builder which i sell to alot of my customers and they tell me works very well,have pasted info from spillers website.
A unique concentrated non-heating conditioning pellet that can make a visible difference in as little as 2 weeks
An effective alternative to those traditional, high starch weight gain feeds that usually lead to excitability
Concentrated in a high calorie milk pellet, with quality protein to build topline without excitability
The most effective conditioner for safe and rapid weight gain
Can be used to supplement the diet of orphan foals but is not a milk replacer
Feed mixed with hard food - do not mix with water
Packed in 2kg and 15 kg tubs in pellet form
Suitable for horses competing under Jockey Club or FEI rules
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Pink Powder is made by Naff and is called "Pink Powder" :)
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Could it be the cold wet weather. I found my two Shetland colts standing in the field shelter shaking with cold the other day. I have started them back on feed that I would not be giving usually until October. I am loathed to start rugging this early as they are only starting to get their winter coat. Grass has been very poor this year, slow to grow and not much goodness in it. :horse:
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how odd ours are all shall we say plump. are they normally out or do you stable them. i really hope we don't have to start feeding ours so soon. they could do with a little less wobble. ours are not bothered by the weather. plenty of peat banks and stone walls to hide behind.
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Well he is on his new diet of Dobson and Horrell build up mix about half more than recomended for a few weeks along with chaff and haylage (can't get good quality hay at the moment)
I have had him rugged for the last couple of weeks to keep off the rain and cold at night, his teeth have been checked again just in case and they are fine (worming is up o date). So fingers crossed this will help him as he is looking very lean now good news is he isn't a fussy eater and just tucks into anything you put down to him, I just wish I could stable him for part of the day but he stresses so much it isn't worth it and the stable walls just can't take it and he is to tall for the stone barn.
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I personally do not feed chaff as I think it is a complete waste of money, I much prefer alfa A as it has feed value. Chaff is ok if you just want to add bulk.
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I have a bag of both as I personally do not like m-chaff it is just so dry and yuk so he gets chaff in the morning and alpha in the evening.
He is used to getting a bucket of chaff for breakfast from his last home and gets a bit put out if he doesn't get it difference is now he has meal with it and alpha with his meal in the evenings and haylage to munch during the day.
I have getting him a mineral tubby instead of his usual lick to see if that helps as well, I now have to put his buckets in the wheel barrow at meal times as they are too heavy to carry all the way to the field, my friend laughed and said would it not be easier to just mix it all together and feed him from the barrow ;D i know where she is coming from when you see the amount he has to have at the moment.
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Top spec ive heard is really good for tbreds, my boy will be on it this winter as he didnt do to well last winter ;)
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Well Blue is doing good and I can say he likes his new diet and is extremely eager to see me with his bucket. He doesn't leave a drop even if he spills a bit he hoovers the ground until it is all gone.
I now just have to wait and see if his weight is going to go back on.
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Great to hear itl ;) A happy boy then :wave:
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I have an anglo arab and when she started to drop weight we fed her sugar beet ... you soak it overnight and put it in with their normal feed .. worked a treat :)
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Does anyone give their horses milk? I used to visit a farm where the woman gave her horses any surplus goats milk. They didn't all like it but some did.
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never heard of that but mine are partial to a cup of tea, my big loves a brew tea with 2 sugars
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Ok see now I have a mental image of your horse with a napkin around his neck by a table with a cup of tea on it and slice of cake LOL .. thats too cute :) mine is partial to McDonalds milkshakes... Not that I give him a great deal of it I will add but if he gets wiff of the strawberry one .. it's all kinds of love he has for you (his motivation is his stomach) lol
Sam
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He is putting weight on yipeeee and I'm getting very strong with carrying all the food so double bonus
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;) ;) Great to hear :wave: