How do I avoid having a fat horse in summer?

Mary Poppins

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Oct 10, 2004
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This may seem an obvious question - feed the horse less and ride him more. However, I am told that Ben is a very good doer and previously has had to wear a muzzle during the summer. I want to avoid this if I can and need to think about my management routine in summer.

He will be out 24/7 on grass. He will be in a field with plenty of grass but it isn't particularly lush. He won’t get any additional hard feed.

I plan to ride him most days and will be doing light/medium work with him. I want to do some long hacks, will jump at least once a week and compete in some dressage competitions. He will do about 6 to 8 hours a week I think. This is about double of what he did in his last home.

Is this workload going to be enough to prevent him from wearing the muzzle and/or getting too fat? How much work does the average fat pony do? I really want to avoid the muzzle and most importantly avoid him getting laminitis (which he has never had). He is a big horse (16hh shire x TB) and will be 8 by the summer.

Any advice/comments appreciated.
 
All you can do is play it by ear. Given that he's out 24/7 & you have no control over the grazing I'd be inclined to muzzle first & see how he looks weightwise, if you choose to do it the other way round then get a weightape & use it weekly to monitor any changes & be prepared to stick the muzzle on if he shows any gain.
 
I'm going into my third attempt at handling my horse's weight over the summer. This year I hope to get it right, but it is - I'm fearful that this mild weather is putting us at a disadvantage!
I didn't want to have to muzzle either but I'm going to have to for the spring grass, no choice, but then I was only managing around four-five sessions a week, of around 45 minutes each, and the work wasn't really hard work - my confidence restricted that from being possible.
We already cut the field in half from when the new grass ciomes through (and this year I'm going to try to get this done earlier than fieldmate would like), he's in with a pretty good doer arab, but not as good a doer as Flipo sadly.
I'd play it by ear, but also muzzle if thats what has been done before. Once the spring hits and they balloon, its a hell of a job to get it back under control - although I guess thats my issue so every horse is different!
 
All you can do is play it by ear. Given that he's out 24/7 & you have no control over the grazing I'd be inclined to muzzle first & see how he looks weightwise, if you choose to do it the other way round then get a weightape & use it weekly to monitor any changes & be prepared to stick the muzzle on if he shows any gain.


I already weight tape him everyweek and condition score. He is def. gaining in muscle and looks more toned compared to when i first got him.
 
If he is a really good doer, I would still muzzle in Spring at least. It isn't easy to lose the weight, easier to avoid it going on in the first place.

It might be an idea to supplement him if he is doing a reasonable amount of work and being restricted. Magnesium deficiency can cause a horse to hang onto fat and is common in overweight good doers.

Good luck. I have 2 that I battle with all year. They have put some on the last few weeks can you believe!
 
I too would want to muzzle first rather than letting the weight go on - harder to get it off than put it on :)

I prefer to have mine underweight going into spring I allow some gain over summer.
 
I would definitely muzzle if out 24/7 even if grass not lush, which in the spring/summer will be to some extent.

I would prefer to muzzle than strip graze. At least with a muzzle they can move around and get more exercise that way.

I always find that the initial strip graze part means that pony only gets a tiny bit of paddock in which to move around until the fence starts to be moved out every week or so then she gets a bigger space but is eating the grass which has been eaten well down at which point the eaten down grass gets nibbled at even more as there is more sugar in that part so you can't really win!!!! If that makes any sense to you at all :giggle: I know what I mean!!

Also it means pony can go in with the other horses and graze in a herd. When she is strip grazed she is left on her lonesome, poor lass.

Worked really well for me last year. She didn't manage to pull of the muzzle either. She was happy and she could drink through it too.
 
Play it by ear and keep weigh taping regularly. If you can, keep the workload regular and if necessary do a bit more (not always easy I know!) Can you muzzle part of the day to see how it goes?
Do you know if the yard you are on fertilizes the land? (I know when I was on a yard a lady who had a weight problem with her ponies asked them not to do this as it made the grass more calorific)
 
I don't think anybody really wants to muzzle and would try anything to avoid that being necessary. The thing is, often it is necessary and I'd rather muzzle from the start and not have the hell of trying to get them to lose than to do it late and having to play catch up.

1 weeks weight gain in Joy can take 4 weeks to take off again so I'm a big believer is prevention, careful monitoring and micro managing. I actually weight tape Joy most days!

In summer, as I have control over my own grazing, I find it easier to control weight than in winter when I have to allow more grass to prevent a mud bath. Joy is currently heavier now, clipped and rugless than she was in summer with no exercise and the warm weather.
 
It's really interesting that most of you suggest to muzzle him. I didn't think that it was that much of a common thing to do. I guess that I was thinking that if I exercise him significantly more than he was in his previous home, then he would be burning more calories and not retain so much fat?

The problem with muzzling is that I would only want to do it for a proportion of the day and can only get there once a day to put it on/take it off. I could pay the yard to do it, but money is tight for me at the moment and if I paid the yard to put his muzzle on, I may as well pay them just to bring him in. I still have my stable over the summer, so he could come in during the day to have a rest from eating if he were to get porky.

He can be difficult to catch and I imagine that he would be impossible to get if he saw someone walking across the field with a muzzle.

I may well be able to restrict his grazing. There are some smaller paddocks, but I like him to be out with his friends and the smaller paddocks do not have very good fencing around them. I'm sure that I would worry about him in there.

I'm not looking for a straight answer as obviously I will have to see how it goes, I just want to start thinking about my different options and find out what others do.
 
Condtion score on a regular basis and adjust your workload to suit.

No one would have thought three years ago that I'd have issues with Henry getting fat, but I have done, so I've adjusted his feed et voila, a happy horse!
 
personally i would muzzle.

I am the owner of three cobs, in the summer they get lots and lots of work but i have never been able to avoid muzzling when they were out in a big field 24/7....they still get fatter and lazier!

the last three summers i havent had to use a muzzle and that is because i can restrict the amount of grass they can eat.

this summer will be the first time in 5 years my sisters cob wont have to wear a muzzle as he will be restricted with mine
 
Personally with what information you have given in your post's I would not muzzle to start with.

I would hope that if you monitor him, work him 6/7 days a week, don't give any extra feed, he could just maintain his weight. You would also be able to increase his work load to combat the spring flush etc I am sure.

It is different for every horse, as its different for every person MP, so I would play it by ear for the first year. Like you say, you could always have him in during the day to restrict his grazing time.

One thing I do in prep for spring grass is de rug and stop feeding hay as early as I can get away with, so hopefully they would drop a few more pounds before they start to add a few more pounds.
 
Personally with what information you have given in your post's I would not muzzle to start with.

I would hope that if you monitor him, work him 6/7 days a week, don't give any extra feed, he could just maintain his weight. You would also be able to increase his work load to combat the spring flush etc I am sure.

It is different for every horse, as its different for every person MP, so I would play it by ear for the first year. Like you say, you could always have him in during the day to restrict his grazing time.

One thing I do in prep for spring grass is de rug and stop feeding hay as early as I can get away with, so hopefully they would drop a few more pounds before they start to add a few more pounds.


Thank you, this is exactly what I was thinking. Surely if I work him harder, then he may be OK.

It's a good idea to think about de-rugging earlier. He is out in a MW rug with a neck cover at the moment. I guess that (unless the weather is freezing), I could reduce this to a LW at the start of March?

He is a nice weight at the moment. Ideally I would like to keep him like this all year round.
 
Yes I tend to do mid march depending on the weather..Sam has not been rugged this winter yet but we have has such a mild winter he may not get rugged at all now. :smile:
 
I would work him harder and maybe bring him in for part of the day.

Izzy is a very good doer and comes in during the summer for about 5-6 hours in the middle of the day. The grazing isn't brilliant.

He is worked 6 days a week all year but in the summer we do lots of long hacks, endurance rides and the like. This is the third summer I have had him and I have been surprised that I have got away without muzzling him, but then he is worked hard over the summer.

I don't weigh tape him but keep a close eye on his condition and plenty of work seems to be keeping him in good shape. And now that he is in shape he seems to keep it off even when others on the yard are porking out. My YO says it is just down to the amount of work.
 
Thank you, this is exactly what I was thinking. Surely if I work him harder, then he may be OK.

It's a good idea to think about de-rugging earlier. He is out in a MW rug with a neck cover at the moment. I guess that (unless the weather is freezing), I could reduce this to a LW at the start of March?

He is a nice weight at the moment. Ideally I would like to keep him like this all year round.

Henry's a tb (unlcipped) and at the moment he's in a rain sheet in a field with no shelter from the winds, when we move to out 24/7 in the current tempratures he'll be in a l/w with a little fill. By March he'll probably be naked (if it's like it was last year that is) during the day. If it starts to drop below 0c he'll get a m/w with neck and if it starts to go below about -5c I'll get his heavy weight out. Not sure which part of the country you're in though so this might have a bearing. I believe horses don't get as cold as we think they do! (Or at least mine's not frozen to death since I've had him!)
 
I wouldn't be so sure about the work theory, although obviously the more work the better.

When I met Joy at the riding school she was doing 2.5hours 6 days a week and was in a 52 inch girth. She's now often not worked at all and in a 44 inch girth.
 
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