Keeping weight on..

[SuzieP]

Bea always loses a lot of weight over winter and with the late spring he looked really quite poor in Jan/Feb last year.

This year I've got him on Blue Chip (half the recommended quantity) and he's held the weight well up to now, but when I weight taped him today he'd lost a fair bit and is now just over 500kg. He looks fantastic and is very fit, but I really don't want him to lose any more.

I'm going to discuss it with YO on Wednesday when we have supper together - but does anyone have any ideas I could suggest? We could increase the Blue Chip and I've got a heavyweight rug for him which is still in it's bag - he's in a 280g rug on at the moment. Do you think a heavier rug would help keep the weight on - even though it isn't really very cold at the moment?

Any ideas would be really helpful! I know it's not normally a Dales problem, but I know some people on here have a lot of horsey experience and might be able to suggest something....

[greydales]

Yes put him on my grass for a month Sue! Seriously when any of mine have needed feeding up I've always used sugarbeet and found it very good, it's high in fibre so wouldn't be loading him with concentrates. It might be worth a try?

[jojoebony]

Readigrass did a great job with Eb, she lost weight very dramtically a couple of winters ago and this definately helped keep the weight on along with a good amount of speedibeet. It also didn't make her too fizzy.

Does he have a neck rug on? As they can lose a lot of heat through the neck. Prob with upping the rugging now is that it is going to get a lot colder, so I would avoid it if you can.

Jo

[shiatsudales]

The extra rug will help as he'll not be using energy to keep warm. Just make sure he doesn't get too hot underneath it the first time he wears it.

If feeding the Blue Chip at half rate why not put it up to full rate and see what happens? If he goes silly then you can drop it down and try something different. it saves you having extra feed bags and changing to introduce new stuff.

I've had success with Dodson and horrell Build-up cubes, bailey's number one cereal mix and Equi-jewel. The product I've used has varied according to what I'm feeding up and why. Bonnie gets the equi-jewel in the winter to help with weight gain as it's an oil based feed which is better for his cushings. Drummer got the build-up cubes when he was growing and when he's got thinner during fittening training as he can take the low level cereals and it's an oil/cereal mix so he got fast and slow release stuff to help with work and the weight gain. I used the Bailey's number one with Rowan (TB) as she needed to gain weight for her work but got daft on anything cereal based except wheat products which is what the number one is. The way the meal is produced gives a faster release energy reaction but helps them stay calmer.

[mickey]

Hillam feeds cheapest conditioning cubes have worked wonders for Paddy. Our trouble is a lot of our trouble with Paddy was at the same time as him having a mix- and he has improved a lot since cutting it out (though we did increase his work as well which should have helped). He drops weight pretty quickly and looks poor but picked straight back up after starting them. He's currently on about 2/3rd of a scoop of cubes, double handful of moilchop and about 1/2 a scoop of sugar beet.
Overnight he has a net of hay, plus a few carrots now and again. There's a pic of him in horsey chat that sort of shows his current condition and that of a year ago (having been out 24/7 at a dealers with hay in a mud bath- no idea how long for)
He has a full kneck heavish weight rug- at the moment though its being careful he isnt too hot.

[taffydales]

I have this problem with Merls and I have had him on spillers hi fi cubes sugar beet and a scoop of baileys no.1 and is starting to make a real difference.

[SuzieP]

Bea's weight seems to have stabilised at around 511kg and he looks fantastic.

Having discussed it with YO, we came to the conclusion that he doesn't cope well with a change of routine - and when I started this thread he had been kept in for three days because of the weather, plus the hunt had been out close-by and it sent him scatty. He was so hyper in his stable that we had to put him out once the coast was clear.

He did put some of the the lost weight back on, once he was back in his usual routine and hasn't lost quite as much this week after another few days kept in because of the weather (again!!)

We haven't changed his feed routine - just made sure he gets enough hay now the grass has gone.