Ales getting fat! Track help needed, pic

MrA

MrA

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Feb 8, 2012
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Or more fat I should say.

Any tweaks you would make to his management?

He's currently in a bald ish area of about 15m by 20m, the grass looks dead and very unappetizing! Every day I move the fence to extend this area a little more and give him some grass. This new grass is long, rich and looks scrummy! He agrees and runs over when he sees me moving the fence!

I move the fence twice a day and each time he gets about 2m square of grass which he eats withing 20mins lol.

I'm also leaving him with a little hay, he gets about a section a day in all. I can't soak it sadly.

He's doing plenty of poos (a wheelbarrow full a day) so he's obviously eating plenty!

And then he gets a handful of hi-fi with his supplements.

So the obvious answer is to give him less food! But I'm just worried as never really see him grazing the bald dead areas even when I spend many hours down there with him, he's generally just wandering around with the odd nibble here and there.

Any thoughts.
 
My Marley has got fatter too, its just this time of the year unfortunately. Soon the grass will stop growing and what grass there is will have less calories, plus as the temperatures drop they will burn of fat keeping warm. So if its only a small bit he has put on I wouldn't worry too much about it..
 
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If he is getting fat, stop moving the fence and giving him more grass. The grass will be growing for several weeks yet, it is still 16 degrees overnight and this warm and wet weather will make it full of sugar. The grass may seem very short, but this is because he is eating it all.
 
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Bloody hell I get a full Barrow off a 13.2 welsh and a 14.2 Connie!
I wouldn't be moving the fence everyday let alone twice a day. I tend to move it every 2 or 3 but I judge on the poos, if I'm over a Barrow for those 2 it's too much, slightly less I move it. And they don't get any hay either. Both have lost a bit from the start of spring once I got them into strip grazing,but have held there weight for a month now at a weight I'm happy with.
 
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Mine do between 10 and 12 poos a day each...mine are on a track which was working great all summer but a couple of weeks ago I had to open up one of the small paddocks off the track as the big one was getting very grumpy and mean because of lack of food and he was taking it out on the wee one:mad: My problem at the moment is clover, what with the wet, warm weather we have been having it has taken over the grass and clover puts the weight on fast :eek:...Ale he will loss it over the winter months as long as he isn't over fed and over rugged , it is in a horses nature to lay down some fat going into winter...but I would agree with everyone about the amount of poos he is doing,he is clearly getting enough so I think what @mystiquemalaika has suggested is very good advice..
 
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Its tough at this time of year isn't it. Finding a balance between letting them enjoy summer, and not letting them get fat!
Sorry I don't know your background, is yours worked at all?

My Diego has a grazing muzzle on which apparently can reduce his intake of grass by up to 80% according to the nutritionist I got a feeding plan from for him. Using fencing isn't really an option for me (I tried it and he didn't seem to care about the leccy fencing... he just appears to have charged through it as it was dragged all round the field and I was scared of him doing it again and getting tangled.) so he is on a 4 acre field which is split into 2 fields by a wooden fence. I rotate him and his 2 mini field companions, as the grass starts to get eaten down. But he basically is free roaming on roughly 2 acres with a grazing muzzle.

He is out at the moment around 8 hours a day with his muzzle. He's on chaff lite, and his saracen balancer, plus he gets 2 haynets a day. He is ridden 5 times a week.

I'm so paranoid about him getting fat as it is my first summer with him...I've not yet found out how 'fat' is his fat!!! xx
 
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How many poos per 24 hours?

Albi is currently back in a fatty paddock and getting soaked hay. He is doing about 11 per 24 hours. I'm happy with that. For him that's a below average but not starvation. He, meanwhile, is sulking :p
 
Yup, if he's getting fat he's getting too much, I poo count too and although it takes a while to get used to how many = no gain once you get into it it's a very good indicator.
If Belle does 8 - 10 a day she's not losing or gaining, more than 10 I know I need to cut down something.
Agree with everyone else, stop moving the fence, I must own up here but when you posted the photo's of your new yard I was curious as to how his weight would fare, I can remember thinking ' Belle would balloon if I put her on that', I considered saying something at the time but didn't want you to think I was being horrid as I know sometimes things don't come across on here right, from your photo's it look like he's got loads of grass Ale and I would put money on it that he's eating plenty if you are getting a full barrow per day.
If you do want to give him a little fresh grass treat and feel you must move the fence, try just moving it a few inches and only a couple of posts. You'll get the hang of it soon enough but you have to stop giving in to the 'But Mum I'm starving, really I am' face. :D
 
Kite_Rider said:
Yup, if he's getting fat he's getting too much, I poo count too and although it takes a while to get used to how many = no gain once you get into it it's a very good indicator.
If Belle does 8 - 10 a day she's not losing or gaining, more than 10 I know I need to cut down something.
Agree with everyone else, stop moving the fence, I must own up here but when you posted the photo's of your new yard I was curious as to how his weight would fare, I can remember thinking ' Belle would balloon if I put her on that', I considered saying something at the time but didn't want you to think I was being horrid as I know sometimes things don't come across on here right, from your photo's it look like he's got loads of grass Ale and I would put money on it that he's eating plenty if you are getting a full barrow per day.
If you do want to give him a little fresh grass treat and feel you must move the fence, try just moving it a few inches and only a couple of posts. You'll get the hang of it soon enough but you have to stop giving in to the 'But Mum I'm starving, really I am' face. :D
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The good thing about the new place is I can completely control his feed, he's only on a small area of his field because there is so much grass in the rest of it, but this area was alot balder and he grazed it down very quickly. I was just overly worried about him getting colic so I don't want him not eating.

I'll reduce how much I move the fence and only move it once a day or every couple of days as we have had alot of rain today.

This isn't a good pic but you can see that the grass in the area he's in looks very dead and short. FB_IMG_1473520551145.jpg
 
I'd say at a rough guess he's doing about 15-18 poos per day so obviously need to cut back on what he's eating.

I'll move the fence less and a smaller area and reduce the hay down a little too. Thanks everyone :)
 
You can't be cross with him, because he is so cute!

But if you can, Ale, I can't recommend too highly setting your fence so that the area is as long and thin and crookedly shaped as possible. If it's square, he has very little work to do to mow the whole thing each day. If it's spindly, he has to walk, walk, walk.

I've kept Ziggy and a reasonable summer weight (never more than 3 out of a condition score of 5) for nearly 2 years by using a track and I never want to go back to rectangular fields. It's good for the horse in every way to be moving all the time.
 
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My welsh D wouldn't believe his luck if he was on that! The field he's on is extremely short, to the extent that I bring him in each day for a couple of slices of soaked hay and a small feed of high fibre cubes & balancer. I know many people would put him on better grazing, but he's insulin resistant & while short grass is higher in sugars he can actually graze so little of it that the total amount of sugar is almost certainly less than if he was stuffing himself on long lower sugar grass.

Combined with being ridden out in walk 5 or 6 days a week he's lost about 40kg in just over 2 months & is finally at a weight I'm happy for him to maintain, which I'll do by adjusting hay & feed. If I kept him the way you describe he'd pile weight on at a terrifying rate & would quickly be laminitic.

As a test why not tape off a corner of his patch & see how quickly it grows back? I suspect he's getting far more than you realise & the reason you don't see him constantly grazing is that he isn't actually hungry :)
 
20 poos between 10am yest and half 6 this morning!!! :O

So no moving the fence or hay this morning, just his brekkie. We had a ton or rain yest and the grass is all green so he can just eat that today and I'll give him a tiny bit of hay later
 
I can only move 2 posts by 6" every other day at this time of year or give them 10 mins in the rested paddock, I'd rather give mine their low cal hay than fresh grass or they ballon, I get 1.5 barrows/24 hrs from my 3. My track is bald on the bits they prefer grazing, some other bits are longer but they don't like those bits.
 
Ale said:
20 poos between 10am yest and half 6 this morning!!! :O

So no moving the fence or hay this morning, just his brekkie. We had a ton or rain yest and the grass is all green so he can just eat that today and I'll give him a tiny bit of hay later
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Ale I know it sounds harsh but I would seriously consider making the area he's in a bit smaller too, or mow it or something, I know it doesn't look as though there is much grass but if he's done that amount of poo in less than 24 hours he really is getting way more than he needs. Trust me I know how hard it is having a horse who appears to live on fresh air!
 
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Kite_Rider said:
Ale I know it sounds harsh but I would seriously consider making the area he's in a bit smaller too, or mow it or something, I know it doesn't look as though there is much grass but if he's done that amount of poo in less than 24 hours he really is getting way more than he needs. Trust me I know how hard it is having a horse who appears to live on fresh air!
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Thanks I don't want to change the amount he is eating too drastically so today I will just not move the fence and only give a small amount of hay. Then tomorrow I will count again, if no reduction then will consider reducing area.

Yesterday he had the fence moved and a large amount of hay pm so that's probably the cause of the many many poos
 
Are you going to track the field?? Is so I would be starting to do this now, leave the middle as is and maybe extend the sides so he is having to walk between the two parts you have extended and it's not as easy for him, I would be doing this every two days or so. I'm not worried at this time of year if they are too plump, winter is coming it's getting chillier and chillier up here, Kia is growing a winter coat very early this year, so I'm sure that over winter he can lose those kilos he is gaining just now, it is how nature intended it :)
 
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I don't understand why you are giving him additional hay? If he is getting fat and pooing for England on grass alone, why does he need supplementing with hay?
 
Right so from 10 yesterday to 5pm today he did 35 poos.

Let's see how many he does tomorrow as have no moved the fence and only giving him a couple of mouthfuls of hay tonight.
 
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