How to fatten up my ponies!

[nyjinski]

I know this is a rarity on the dales forum but both my dales and non dales cob are underweight and I am struggling to find anything that puts any major weight on them so need some help. Both boys are currently on 2 meals a day which consist of the following for each meal:
1 scoop of allen and page calm and condition
1 scoop of happy hoof
1/2 scoop of baileys outshine
3 tbls of vegetable oil
3 apples

They are regularily wormed and the vet has done a poo count and blood tests and both have come back fine so I just dont understand why the weight isnt piling on!

If anyone has any food advice I would be most grateful.

P.S. I know it cant be anything in the grass cos my shetland is huge!!

[zeldalithgow]

Linseed meal from Charnwood mills has done wonders for my Daisy, she get about 400 grams a day in winter and about 200 grams in summer in with some high fibre cubes and Feedmarks Benevit Advance vits fed quite damp.

[Anna]

Rockets mother is a slimmer sort of dales and he's still a growing lad at 4 so may just be growing and maturing faster than weight can keep up. Is he in much work?

I don't know whats in calm and condition but I would certainly be looking to put him on some sort of basic balancer so you know they are getting the right basic nutrients and vitamins to utilise the rest of the feed you put in.

I have been feeding a pony that has been ill and is slow to put weight on on a product called "Ready-mash extra" from Target Feeds/Rowan Barbary. I've only been using it about 2/3 weeks and it looks to be really very good product. Its formulated to be gentle on the liver etc so not crazy high protein or anything and contains huge amounts of fibre plus other things to help weight gain when needed.

[harleydales]

Grass nuts does it for mine through the winter. They are all out 24/7 and get nothing through the summer.

It was a very hard winter for most livestock - were you affected by prolonged snow and frost? Did they lose more weight than usual through the winter?

[DalesLady]

I too would recommend Ready Mash Extra as Anna mentions above. We feed it to ponies doing lots of work to maintain their weight, so I would think it good to get one up to weight. We love it, the ponies love it too, but we don't put anything else with it.

[Anna]

The Readymash extra is a complete balanced feed according to the lady I spoke to at Rowan Babary so it would be fine on its own. She only said if it was to be fed to a stallion, or broodmare with foal to perhaps keep a stud balancer alongside to provide the extra from the normal gelding/mare might need.

[greydales]

Another one here who has used Ready mash extra (there are three products, Extra is the one recommended for poor doers/conditioning etc). None of my ponies need it but Remy my Lipizzaner did, it's very palatable and only needs soaking for ten mins.

I'd also use sugar beet for conditioning.

[tinkerdorisalison]

I would stop the happy hoof and feed more of the calm and condition (which is unmollassed sugar beet based.) When you say a scoop of the C&C do you mean wet or dry volume?

if you want to add a chaff, try alfa-a oil or similar

Readymash Extra is a really good product, very versatile and quite a few of our cstomers in the shop have had really good results for weight gain

[nyjinski]

Hi all, Thanks so much for your replies. They are all living out 24/7 and have done all winter. Unfortunately the last yard I was at used to wait until I was gone and then take the hay I had put out back out of my field which I only found out since I left so I now know that is why they lost a fair bit of weight.

However they have now been at my new place for 3 months and whilst they have gained weight its not been as quick as I had hoped. They have 3 acres of good grass between them and they get a bail of hay a day in addition to their hard feed. Both of my boys are ridden about 3-4 times a week but its only light schooling at the moment because I dont want them burning lots of calories.

I have ordered some of the ready mash extra today and am now also adding in soya oil to see if that helps. I have increased the amount of calm and condition from one scoop (dry) to one and a half to see if that helps as well! so fingers crossed and thanks again for all your advice