Weight gain and a picky eater

[Palogal]

Cinnamon...love her, love riding her, love brushing her, love training her HATE feeding her.

My crew is on free choice hay and that doesn't keep weight on her. So, I tried weight builder...that made her crazy. I tried beat pulp, she doesn't like it. I tried Amplify...she doesn't like it and that's freaking expensive. I tried corn oil, she won't eat it. I put sugar in the corn oil...she won't eat it. I put appled and carrots in the beat pulp...I swear she rolled her eyes at me and said "I am soooo not eating that."

There is nothing medically wrong, teeth are good, she's wormed regularly all of that. Vet says she's healthy just a big mare and hay and feed aren't doing it. I even raised her feed and she wouldn't eat all of it!

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

[WashingtonBay]

Is the hay a quality hay? Or is it a fairly bland yellow grass hay? Could be the hay could be improved.

Have you tried a high protein ration balancer? The benefit in that is you don't have to feed a lot of quantity.

[Palogal]

The hay is really good, it's very green and mostly costal. The rest of them stay fat on that and very little feed. So I don't think I can improve that. She has no competition for food- there are two big round bales at opposite sides of the pasture for her and two others....
Ration balancer...haven't tried that yet. I wonder if she'd eat it. :huh: She doesn't like anything but hay/grass. She doesn't even particularly care about feed so if I put anything in it she's definitely out. I've used three different feeds and she doesn't show any preference to any of them...she loves the hay though. That mare can do some damage to a round bale!

[WashingtonBay]

Well, you could try a ration balancer and see if she'll eat it. Again, she doesn't have to eat a lot of it.

Or you could try separating her out and giving her some alfalfa in addition to the hay if she might prefer that.

[Palogal]

There's a thought. I could separate her and give her alfalfa. I really don't think she would eat ration balancer....and I've spend a lot of money lately on things she won't eat (hubby is not happy). I'd have to find some alfalfa...around here there aren't too many folks that sell it.

[Palogal]

Also, before someone jumps down my throat ;) She's NOT skinny and bony. She's just thinner than I like to see my horses. Lemme go run out and take a picture! BRB

[WashingtonBay]

Huh. - I thought you'd have good availability of alfalfa down there in your climate.

[Palogal]

I've never looked for it, but I've never seen it either.
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj162/palogal/IMG_0515.jpg

[vicklynn]

What are her lines? How old is she?
I think she looks fine. Thinner built, yet carrys it well.
City is a Paint, carries a lot of Quarter horse, but shows his TB in his thinner build.
It took me time to get used to his build, and I only trully accepted it last yr.
He will never be thick.

[Pi and Tofu]

An inexpensive alternative to alfalfa hay would be alfalfa cubes; a bag runs under $15 here and lasts 2-3 months. Soak a 1/2 scoop of cubes for 10 minutes until soft and even the most picky thoroughbred in the barn would eat it (for the pickiest eaters, they seem to like it without a lot of extra water, each horse is different). Use this as an additional feeding, not a replacement or add-on.

The other thing with a lot of picky, hard keeper thoroughbreds is that they just don't want to eat a lot; play with their hay-or worse just pee on it and ignore it, also not finish their feed. I don't use sweet feed for several reasons, but for this purpose, I find that sweet feed can be inconsistent and the picky eaters will turn their nose up if it isn't mixed just right. Also, the more food you give them, the less they eat. Use a high quality pellet that doesn't require feeding as much (right now the low NSC, high fat pellets work like a charm) and they will clean their buckets and eat their supplements better. A little icing on the cake is that these are "quiet" feeds.

Hope that helps. Have a lot of experience with barns full of hard keepers and learned the hard way how to keep them fat and glossy.

[Peggy Sue]

Palogal ... a ration balancer is basically a pelleted feed.. most horse will willing eat it right up. Good quality protien will help to fill in her topline which I am ASSuMeing is what you don't like LOL that is all I see with her is a weak topline

[westmanfarrier]

She looks good. You put some muscle tone on her and she'll look great. She is lacking muscle on the shoulder and back end. Your weight looks pretty optimum to me.

http://www.thehorse.com/pdf/nutrition/bcs-poster.pdf

[luvs2ride1979]

Cinnamon...love her, love riding her, love brushing her, love training her HATE feeding her.

My crew is on free choice hay and that doesn't keep weight on her. So, I tried weight builder...that made her crazy. I tried beat pulp, she doesn't like it. I tried Amplify...she doesn't like it and that's freaking expensive. I tried corn oil, she won't eat it. I put sugar in the corn oil...she won't eat it. I put appled and carrots in the beat pulp...I swear she rolled her eyes at me and said "I am soooo not eating that."

There is nothing medically wrong, teeth are good, she's wormed regularly all of that. Vet says she's healthy just a big mare and hay and feed aren't doing it. I even raised her feed and she wouldn't eat all of it!

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I would try adding a probiotic to her feed, like Source Focus WT. That will help make sure she's digesting everything properly.

Then I'd add some other fat source that she might like. http://www.horsetech.com will flavor their supplements. The NutraFlax is great for putting on weight. You can feed up to 2 cups of it (8 oz by weight) without any problems. Other options for extra fat would be Black Oil Sunflower Seeds, stabilized rice bran (pelleted or powder), or whole flax.

Alfalfa pellets can be good to put on weight, as they are more concentrated than hay and most horses LOVE them! Just be sure to read the feed tag and don't get pellets with animal fat or molasses in them. The ones I get use rice bran as the binding agent. They run me $14 for a 50 lb bag. For supplementing hay or weight gain, feed 3-5 lbs a day. A 2qt feed scoop will hold 2.5-3 lbs of most alfalfa pellets.

[luvs2ride1979]

I think she looks fine in that picture too, she just needs muscle. Adding some alfalfa pellets and keep riding/working her should do the trick ;). She looks more "appendix-y" or barrel/gaming bred, which would make her naturally a bit "leaner."

[zoel_222]

She looks perfect. Maybe needs some muscling around her topline but she's perfectly healthy. Having her overweight can be dangerous, so be careful. If you really want to add more weight and she doesn't like the beet pulp, try alfalfa or alfalfa pellets like the others suggested. Never met a horse alive who'd pass up alfalfa. :D

My horses hated ration balancers. It took two weeks without grain (offering the RB to them everyday) before they're start eating it and they'd pick at it for 45 minutes before finishing it and they're not even very picky. I figured it wasn't worth the trouble of having to coax them for so long to eat their dinner so I just quit feeding it.

[YAorNEIGH]

She looks perfectly fine to me...:huh:

Have you ever had your hay tested to find out the nutritional content? That can be a real eye-opener for people. You can't tell if a hay is really nutritious just based on looks. The only sure-fire way to know is to test it :) I think equine nutrition is pretty fascinating. I took a class on it last semester.

[Palogal]

I think she looks fine in that picture too, she just needs muscle. Adding some alfalfa pellets and keep riding/working her should do the trick ;). She looks more "appendix-y" or barrel/gaming bred, which would make her naturally a bit "leaner."


She is a granddaughter of Cherokee Indian so she is speed bred. She will be getting her muscle this year. I bought her last year and she was so immature I spend most of the year doing ground work with her and a little bit of riding. The poor thing was three and had never been weaned. We're going hacking on a cross country course this weekend and I hope as the weather gets warm and stays that way I'll be able to work her.

And guess what??? By some act of God, she ate beat pulp today! :cowboy:

[luvs2ride1979]

Oh well heck, if she's only 4, she's looking great! My Impressive granddaughter (appy) stayed narrow as all getout until her 5yr old year, when she blossomed and ended up looking like a tank in a hurry, lol. Now she's 15.2h and takes a 34/36" cinch and a 50/52" English girth... :doh:

You never know, she might even grow an inch on you this year! My Appy mare did, and my Anglo Arabian grew an inch after he turned 5 yrs old... Very strange indeed!

[MusicReality08]

I have a TB mare that is a picky eater. Have you heard of A&M; ask your local tack store about it. It is an Alfalfa (sp?) and Molasases(sp?) mix.

It works wonders and it does not make them HIGH; which is great for a TB.

They come in bags of 50 lbs and are usually 17 dollars.

With beet pulp try putting some sweet feed into it to make it yummy.

[Palogal]

I AM SUCH A MORON!

She ate the beat pulp....she doesn't like sweets! When I think about it, when I raised her feed I threw an apple in it for a "treat" and she left it along with part of her feed. She won't eat sweet feed or any pepermints or treats that are sweet.

I guess I never noticed because I don't use treats for training and rarely feed the younger ones treats. I discovered yesturday that she liked carrots.

:eek:

[PatriotsDreamer]

ya pal i think her weight looks good. A pretty little girl you got there. i think if you apply the proper exersizes for strengthening her back she will really look great. :)

[Palogal]

The reason I think she's think is if you look real hard, you can see a couple of her ribs, although in the pic it's hard with her white hair. But, not so much anymore, they're not so obvious since she's been eating the beat pulp for the last few days.

[Peggy Sue]

You honestly WANT TO see the back two ribs on young ones BUT if you were seeing them thur winter hair she is a tad thin

but then again if you are like me and feel rib you think they need more I am still fighting this even with all my reasearch telling me it is too fat :innocent:

[Palogal]

As you can see she's not bony skinny. She just had another growth spurt here recently and got a little thinner than I like to see. And she's shedding so she looks half fuzzy too.

[Peggy Sue]

don't you just LOVE babies LOL I am hoping now that Moosa Man is 4yo we are done with the ribby thing but I am not counting on it..

[Joey A]

Joey! This is your brain speaking.... long time no see.

Oh yeah... It's not as common if she's been in an overalll pleasant disposition, but keeping away from high sugar / sweet feeds is a sign of digestive ulcers.

Just another two cents.