Help with treats

[wingnut]

If you have a local feed mill, especially if they have a pretty active retails store, check to see if they have a portable scale they can bring to you. I'm lucky in that our local mill does and I have them come out once a year to get a weight check on everyone. I'm going to push to see if I can have them come out again as I really want to see how much more my hard keeper has gained.

AngC: That darn winter coat can really be deceiving...in both directions. Each year, I think my "show horse" is really getting fat, but come spring when I shave her? She's not nearly as bad as I thought she was. Also, going into the cold weather months they need a little extra to keep them warm, or at least that's how I look at it. I'd rather them have a few extra pounds (few being the key word) and stay warm without stalling or blankets.

 

[Rhondaalaska]

I live over an hour from town. No one comes out this far.

I don't mind if my mare is a little heavy going in to winter, as we get 20 below as our normal temp for months . So I figure she will need the extra to keep warm. She has a nice stall that she can come and go from to get out of the weather if she wants as well. Come may ,which is our spring here ,I will see how much she weighs then.

 

[Hosscrazy]

As you know, carrots are sugar! Good alternatives are celery (cut up) - they love it! Also sugar free candies can be good treats as well.

Glad to hear things are going well with your Diva!

Liz N.

 

[Rhondaalaska]

I never thought about celery. I will try that.

Thanks hosscrazy

 

[AngC]

Thank you Chandab for the link--I had tried the formulas--both the heart girth and also the girth/length. In addition to coming up with different results with the two formulas, when our stallion went to the vet hospital, I found that both methods gave a result that was about 40/50 lbs below actual weight. I guess I should have been alerted when the first thing they all try to do when I approach with a tape measure is to try to eat it....

I've Googled to try to find where to get an appropriate scale to weigh them.

...silly thing is, my husband works in the test equipment field, as did I before I retired. I have several scales for weighing their hay but don't know what to use to weigh the actual animals. My husband has proffered several suggestion of things we have on-hand, which I've nixed (like an aircraft weigh kit---not enough resolution, if you can weigh a commercial airliner with it, it's not going to be able to weigh a little horsey very accurately) OR (he wanted to hang a dynamometer off a tree limb with a 4-point mount platform... uhhh, no, it gave me shudders thinking of trying to coax a horse onto a platform even if it was only dangling a few inches off the ground.)

Any suggestions on brands or models of scales for weighing?

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

Most shipping companies have scales. To find one big enough for minis you would want to find a company that trucks large items, what comes to mind for me is palletted groceries. If you were looking to buy you might contact someone who uses them and ask where they purchased theirs.

Re: the OPs comment about rings on the hooves. Just an FYI, and not second guessing your farrier who has actually seen the horse; we live in the central interior of BC where we get some pretty extreme weather, maybe even worse than your area of Alaska (haven't been there so I'm not sure but it would be comparable) and some years rings are a given. The rings I have seen are a result of stress not necessarily just diet. Because the growth rates are affected by temperature as well as diet changes and health changes if we have a lot of fluctuation in temperatures we will see lots of rings also, if we are forced to go from hay to grass and back, the grass for pastured animals gets parched then grows more etc., the hooves will show the changes, even if they just struggle thro hot, then cold, then wet etc we see it in the hooves.

 

[Rhondaalaska]

We deffenety have weather changes here's. Months of rain then cold,

I never thought of the weather as being stress, well I guess I will just do the best I can in her diet and if she still has rings in a year I will know I did all I can.

How long does it take to grow out.

The farrier was surprised that she didn't need as much trimmed off as she did considering that it was June when it was done

I had her feet done October 5 ,

I had to take her off the grass as well this past week, due to it being to short and it needing to get ready for winter.

I had let her graze in my yard this past month.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

How long the feet take to grow out is different for each individual horse and depends to some extent on weather (they grow slower in the cold) and diet(there are supplements specifically for encouraging hoof growth) so there is no way to give you a definitive answer but you should see most of the hoof grown out in 6 months to a year. At least that has been my experience.

 

[Rhondaalaska]

Thanks I hope I see some improvement by spring then.

 

[Rhondaalaska]

Hi everyone

had to share the news.

I found a new toy

it is a kong wobble treat dog toy

they had 2 sizes, i got the small one

you put the pellets in it and the horse or dog noses it around and it weeble wobbles and the treet comes out.

Diva loves it , she was playing with it even empty.

an extra hour or so of forage fun for her .

i got some pellet feed to put in it.

i got Low non-structual carbohydrate equine feed.

it has no fillers or added sugurs, made out of bluegrass hay,

i was looking a timmithy pellets but we didnt know if it was made with mollassis to make the pellets so i got this instead.

had to share the new toy idea, i thought someone else might like to try it with thier little bored baby.

mine loves it and caught on quick how to play with it.

by the way i was grooming her today

and noticed that i could feel her hips and her spine,

is that normal or do you think she is loosing weight,

she has a big belly

and i just wormed her yesterday.

i will post a picture of the toy.

 

[Rhondaalaska]

ok i just measured diva

and she is

47.5 girth and 36 inches long

i did the formula and it says she is 270.75 lbs

if so then she has definatly lost weight.

how much should she weigh.

i can feel her ribs easily.

has a belly though.

 

[chandab]

ok i just measured diva

and she is

47.5 girth and 36 inches long

i did the formula and it says she is 270.75 lbs

if so then she has definatly lost weight.

how much should she weigh.

i can feel her ribs easily.

has a belly though.

For a 34" mare, that is probably in the ballpark for her weight. The belly could be from possible sand in her gut, have you ever used a sand clearing product with her? Some areas are more prone than others, and some horses are more prone than others. I never had sand issues until a couple years ago, and then its only been with a couple horses.

 

[Rhondaalaska]

Diva is 36 inches ,

I have only had her a month and I don't think she has ever had any sand cleaning product used on her, because untill I had her she did not get her vitamins either. I will have to look for some and try it.

I can't see her ribs but I can feel them easily, as well as her hip bones.

I think I need to give her more to eat, but am not sure if this is the way she should be or if she is getting too skinny and I just don't see it.

Her old owner feed two minis 1 flake twice a day. I have been feeding her 1/2 flake twice aday.

I have now added the pellets in her toy. It is about 2 or 3 cups A day .

 

[Rhondaalaska]

ok here are some pictures of my little 36 inch mare Diva

please let me know what you think.

she is very wooly right now.

sorry the pictures are not very good.

























thank you

I hope i am worring over nothing

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I think a belly is frequently the result of not enough protein in the diet. It is a lack of muscle tone and protein builds muscle.

Before you invest in a sand product, simply test to see if you need to. Put some feces in a bag of water and hang it up. Sand will sink, feces will float. If you don't see any sand, then you are fine.

Alfalfa is a very good hay choice. It has calcium, protein, and other goodies they need. The stemmier it is, the better mine seem to like it. No one has ever given me a convincing argument against feeding alfalfa. But, if you ask 100 people how to feed a hrose, you will receive 100 different answers!

She is a pretty girl. So happy you are enjoying her!

 

[Rhondaalaska]

ok i will try the water bag thing. i will have to try to get a sample that is not muddy. or frozen with dirt on it.

how much sand is ok.

i will try yo get som alfalfa cubes as well. she will like that.

we are trying to get her in shape we walk most days about a mile or two.

she didnt get much exersize before i got her.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

IMO, from the pictures you posted I would say your mare is not overweight but rather underweight. If you look at her picture from behind you can see that he croup looks 'tented' that is it slopes away from the spine. She should have more flesh on her rump than what she seems to have. If I am not being misled by the way the photo looks I would say your problem is probably that she is getting too little from her food and I would say adding alfalfa or beat pulp would do her good. Feeding hay that lacks protein/nutrients will give her the big belly look just like starving children.

 

[chandab]

Ok, I got your thread mixed up with the other one, at 36", around 300# or a little better would probably be a good weight. I have 3 mares that are around 36", they range in weight from 300# (she's a bit skinny) to 330# (one is good at this weight, one is a bit chubby).

If you can pretty easily feel her ribs and hips, she needs more food; more protein to cover her backbone and hips, more calories to cover her ribs.

 

[Rhondaalaska]

Thank you !

do you think I should give her 2 flakes a day instead of the 1 1/2 that I gave her today,

She also got about 3 cups of the pellet feed.

 

[chandab]

I don't skimp too much on hay, especially going into winter and winter, so yes 2 flakes would probably be a good idea. In winter my 36-38" minis probably get like 4 flakes of hay or more (2 flakes 2x daily). Really it should be by weight, as flakes all weigh a bit differently. Do you happen to know about how much your bales weigh? If so, then you can count the flakes in a bale and get a rough estimate of the weight of a flake. [As a close guess, the 75# bales I buy are about enough to figure 1 bale per mini per week for the B-size minis (probably closer to 10 days, but I always feed extra in winter). I'm currently feeding off round bales, but with 12 minis (3 A-size, 9 B-size), I go through just over one 75# bale per day.]