Advice on fitness for fat cob!

[cobbychic]

I know I should never have let him get sooooooo big but having been unable to ride during the summer my 15h HW cob is rather big!!!
you cant see rib and you cant feel rib. He's got a round rump shaped like an apple and I know this is not good.

He only gets a tiny hand full of hi fi light at night.

Here is my predicament.... its dark now when I finish work and I don't have facilities at home to work him then.

I can only really ride at the weekends.

Can anyone give any ideas on a fitness regime to get him fit and at a more healthy weight please?

I what's the best work out for him? a long hack or 20 min on the lunge?

thanks

 

[jo90]

I had exactly this problem with my 15hh cob too! in the end i did a combination of things, firstly i stopped putting a rug on him through winter. harsh as it seemed to my freinds on the yard it helped him use up his extra fat to keep warm ( he wasn't clipped though and grew a thick coat).by spring he lost so much of his fat he could stay out in spring grass and only returned to his normal weight which meant i didn't have to keep him in or use a muzzle. by summer he was getting rather porky again but it was ok as i knew he would loose it in winter. It becamme a seasonal managment thing. but I swear by leaving his rugs off he manged to keep a healthy balance. secondly lunging gives far better workout than a walk so i did that. also I advertised for someone to ride him on the days i couldn't to help keep the weight off. You could also try one of those balls that you put chaff in which might feduce eating time and keep him walking after it around the field. hope that helps x

 

[cinammontoast]

Beau has noticeably lost weight being turned out 24/7 unrugged this week: he comes in for riding, pampering etc and gets a handful of chaff/apples etc. Apparently hill work is excellent for this and lungeing is worth twice the same amount of time riding-harder work going in circles! Can you turn out more?

 

[Bebe]

The best exercise for burning fat is slow and steady work, so a decent walk at the weekends would be great. I'd combine this with lunging if you can, but wouldn't start with 20 mins lunging if he's overweight and unfit as it's very hard work. I'd start with 5 mins in walk on a circle and build up from there.

If he's got a decent coat, forage and some form of shelter in the field, then I'd turn out unrugged. If he's stabled overnight then I'd make sure I didn't feed more than 1.5% of his bodyweight in hay, so would weigh tape him, work out what 1.5% of his weight is and then feed that in hay. It might mean using small holed haynets to make it last for longer, or you could give him good quality oat straw as well to give him something to chew on without adding calories.

I have a good doer and have done all the above to get weight off her. It's not easy though and to be honest, it's far easier to keep weight off her in summer through muzzling than any other means I've tried.