New mini owner with a feeding question

[momofmany]

My mini has been with me just over a week and is currently in quarantine. I took her home from Camelot since she sat all week and went over the weekend with no takers. She is just the sweetest girl and my little boys love to hug her and brush her.

I have always fed my big horses free choice hay and that is what I have been giving my little mini girl (good quality mixed grass hay, no alfalfa) but I am very surprised how much she is eating, on the order of 3-4 flakes a day. She is a little chunker as you can see in my avatar so although she was run through the auctions she was certainly not underfed and making up for being starved! Should I begin limiting her hay?

And I am concerned that when she is released from quarantine and moves into a paddock with my other horse she will blow up like a balloon if she is able to eat hay freely long term. Some strategies I have been thinking of are a hay bag hung high up or a tall feeder that she can't reach?

Many thanks!

 

[rabbitsfizz]

Firstly, on behalf of your new family member- Thank you!

Feed- well, of course, she could be eating for two.........

Grass hay is unlikely to do her a great deal of harm- I give mine free choice and at the moment she probably thinks she has died and gone to heaven so she had better eat it while it is there (well you never do know where your next meal will come from, do you?)

I had a rescue mare who never did get her head around the fact that she would not be allowed to go short- funnily she was best in the summer when she would graze normally but in winter I had to fence her away form the racks as she would just stand guarding them and not allowing anyone else to eat while she attempted to eat two bales of hay on her own!

BTW turning her out with a full sized horse is really not a good idea, is there any way you could just have a strand or two of hot wire between them??

 

[MajorClementine]

I wintered both of my minis at my grandfathers place one year. He seemed to think feeding them would make them into full size horses because he fed them tons. Lucky for me it was grass hay. At first they ate and ate and ate. Then after a couple of weeks they figured out that the food wasn't going anywhere and just ate when they were hungry. I guess some horses never do this and just keep eating as much as possible. Let her settle in a little and see if the "binge" eating stops.

I agree with rabbit in the above post about not turning them out with full size horses. The biggest problem is that it is fine... until it isn't. A half hearted kick from a full size horse can do some damage to a mini. I've seen it before at a neighbors and it isn't pretty.

Congrats on the new mini. She sounds like she's lucky to have you guys. What's her name?

 

[lucky seven]

Thanks for taking her. I check out camelot and saw alot of minis the last few weeks. I don't live close enough to rescue and then transport so I really appreciate what you did. BTW, she's cute.

 

[momofmany]

Thank you for all the replies! As a feedlot horse she could be eating for two, that is always a possibility with a mare. Or perhaps with all she has been through recently she is just happy to have as much as she wants without anyone bothering her. Or maybe she's just a piggy! I will give her free choice for the time being, the vet and farrier are scheduled to come out in the next few days so once the vet sees her he will give me the pregnancy lowdown and feeding advice as well.

Before I took her home, I did weigh the pros and cons of having her in with my big horse and since I board there really is no other way to do it, I rent the paddock and that is my only space. It is too large to run a wire across to separate them and I doubt the owner would let me modify it. I had thought many times about getting a donk or goat as company for my big horse since he has a private paddock. He can see the horses on either side but really can't interact because of the hot fence. There are a couple of other minis at the farm, the paddock next to me is a high strung TB who has a companion mini and it works out really well. Those two even share a stall! The owner has always had racehorses and always kept a mini with them to keep them company and happy, 30+ years... I know there are horror stories and worst case scenarios as well.

I know it is not a popular thing to do when keeping a mini with a larger horse, but it was kind of a choice between leaving her at Camelot and hoping someone else took her and taking her myself. She has such a sweet, people friendly personality that I was just worried that she wouldn't be as well cared for by anyone else as she would be with me. I did weigh the options and the risks. She really made an impression on me and I have been going to the auction and helping with the Camelot Horse Weekly networking for a number of years and never took one home until now. I did the photos that week and she really stood out and I just couldn't stop thinking of her all week and when she went over deadline I decided I could give her a good life with kids to adore her and brush and spoil her every day. She shines like a copper penny with all the currying and brushing!

Here is her link on the Camelot page (if I did it right), and my kids have named her Princess Leia but they have just been calling her their "little Princess"

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=511442525532887&set=a.511206162223190.131344.159567607387049&type=3&theater

 

[rabbitsfizz]

When you turn out with a big horse you always take the chance of the Mini dying, it is as simple as that, and hopefully it will not come to that- is it really impossible to just section off a corner of the paddock? The situation next to you is a good example of an accident waiting to happen IMO.

Even so, I guess she is better off than she would have been.....

 

[chandab]

When you turn out with a big horse you always take the chance of the Mini dying, it is as simple as that, and hopefully it will not come to that- is it really impossible to just section off a corner of the paddock? The situation next to you is a good example of an accident waiting to happen IMO.

Even so, I guess she is better off than she would have been.....

When I was boarding my full-size horses, I bought 5 or 6 portable panels and built a "creep feeder" in the corner of the paddock for the my filly, so she could have some feed that the two adults couldn't get to. It worked pretty good. If regular portable panels are out of your budget; surely, where you board they'd be ok with you buying a few t-posts (with the toppers for protection) and some mesh panels to make a smaller pen inside your main pen (it would be totally removable when you no longer needed it or if you ever moved).

 

[momofmany]

I will ask today about possibly building a small area in a corner of the main paddock using panels or other removable materials. I certainly don't want my new girl getting hurt. How big an area would she need? The size of a big round pen or is that too small?

Unfortunately it was minis galore at Camelot again last night, including several little mares in foal.

 

[lucky seven]

I didn't need to hear that. I love those little ones and some of the big ones tug at me also. A friend of mine uses large round pens for hers with run ins attached.

 

[JMS Miniatures]

Perhaps buy a slow feeder for her. My minis get fed 4 lbs a day, one is getting 6 lbs so it really depends on the individual and the weight your hay is. Free choice of grass hay should be fine but just watch her and make sure she isn't starting to get too cresty. But I think a slow feeder hay bag will help in a big way. And if she is getting free choice hay she probably doesn't need any grain. Just make sure she has some type of mineral block.

As far as putting minis in with big horses are concerned again it really depends on the individual. Minis can make great companions for horses but when you get them involved in a herding situation it can be disaster.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

As someone pointed out earlier it is absolutely fine right up to the moment when it is not!!

A playful kick out just for the joy of it as the herd galloped round the field was what killed my friends little mare stone dead in her tracks from a burst diaphragm.... Accidents can happen with big horses too, a freak broken leg is always a possibility, but you will very rarely go out and find a big horse stone dead in the pasture, that is the major difference.....

 

[Field-of-Dreams]

We gave a mini donkey to a friend to protect his Shetlands. One mare didn't like him, kicked out and killed him with one shot. And this was a pony mare....

 

[FurstPlaceMiniatures]

If both animals are psychologically healthy, there should be no issues. I had my guy running with a herd of big horses for quite awhile. Introduced him to th.e boss In a neutral space, and they were set to go. It all depends on the individual animals. If your two horses are ok with how they stand in the herd, they should be fine.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

As said, it is fine until it goes wrong, then you have a dead Mini. You were lucky, it did not go wrong....

 

[momofmany]

Once she is out of quarantine there is a round pen right next to my big horse's paddock. I had planned to put her in there for a few days to a week so they could just get used to seeing each other. My big guy is a real wimp, chronic low man. I did try a couple of different lesson ponies in with him for company at times and he kept getting beat up and run off the piles of hay. Since he was also a rescue and needed weight I stopped those experiments and have just let him fatten up so he is right where he needs to be now and healthy. But I know horses aren't at their happiest when they are solitary.

There really is no herd situation there other than the lesson ponies who are all together on the opposite side of the farm. Each boarder has their own private paddock with their own horse or two in it. Mine also has a large run in shed, which is one thing I wanted to ask about... shelter. Do I need to build a separate shelter in the small enclosure? I have always preferred my horses to be outside unless the weather is extremely severe. With her thick coat I would think she would be able to handle all but the worst weather such as blizzard, hurricane, really bad t-storms which are the conditions I tend to make use of my rarely occupied stalls. But I would feel terrible if she were in her enclosure and the big guy went in the shed to get out of the rain or to block the wind and she had nothing. I will admit I did have some cheery notions of them hanging out together and keeping each other company.

I am pricing easily removable fencing and movable panels and I will give the options to the barn owner and see what she says about setting up a small pen for my little one within the large paddock.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

Well done you!! Yes, she will need shelter- she is far more susceptible to wet and cold than she would be to snow (although if the drifts got too deep you could lose her altogether!!) and then there is Summer- remember that? We did not have one here so it's hard to imagine but horses need somewhere to get out of the flies.

 

[chandab]

How big is the shelter that is available for your big horse? Would it be possible to make her enclosure so that it includes part of the existing shelter, provided its big enough?

 

[rabbitsfizz]

I wondered that too, that would be the absolute ideal, as they could then hang out together and keep each other safe company

 

[momofmany]

That is a brilliant idea! This shed is about 16 x 12 which is the biggest in any of the pastures, most are only 10 x 10 at this farm. I talked to the owner last night and she said she'd think about it, but this is an even better idea than fencing off a corner.

She got her feet trimmed last night, wasn't scheduled until Saturday but the farrier was out doing some of the lesson ponies and when I arrived to feed he asked if I wanted to do her then. She was great, much better than I had expected for her first trim in what looked to be a very long time. She will need frequent trims for a number of months to get her feet in the shape they should be in but they look a lot better already.

 

[chandab]

That is a brilliant idea! This shed is about 16 x 12 which is the biggest in any of the pastures, most are only 10 x 10 at this farm. I talked to the owner last night and she said she'd think about it, but this is an even better idea than fencing off a corner.

That's a nice size shelter, and since you don't lock them in, dividing in half, gives you two 8x12' spaces. My half-Arab gelding would stand in the aisle of my mini barn while it was under construction (at that time the minis didn't have access by the old guy did), and he was quite comfortable in the 8x12' aisle.