22 year old QH Gelding Will not keep weight- Help please

Hello everyone! I am new to this forum and I am at my wits end. I have been battling my skinny horse for almost 2 years now. He has been vetted (2x by different vets last year) and has come back as healthy as a horse (Haha no pun intended). He was just recently placed into a pasture with belly deep grass and he seemed to flourish but now the grass is dwindling and he is losing weight again. He was getting 2 qts of 12% sweet feed and 2 qts of oats per feeding (2x per day) but with putting him on the rich grass I didn't want him to founder or colic so he was taken off of it. Along with 2-3 flakes of hay per feeding as well, then turned out for about 12 hours a day. But he is still about 300 -400 pounds under weight.

The most troubling thing is that we were going to slowly add grain and more hay into his diet to bulk him up and now he has gone off of his hay. He eats like a fiend in the pasture but will not eat the hay in the stall.

I have tried supplements but they just don't seem to work. I have owned this horse for 8 years and he has ALWAYS been a hard keeper with loose stools (Ironically enough with being on this new pasture his stools have firmed up YAY Fiber :)) I am pumping food into him 24/7 to no avail Please help me!!! He is on a regular worming schedule and was just wormed in the beginning of May. (so he is due) Someone told me to give him a double dose of Strongid and then in two weeks give him another double dose of it. (I have not done this so please keep the flames at bay :)- just what some one told me- It was actually a Vet).

I would like to avoid using senior feed- long story but every horse I have put on senior feed has died within 6 months- I'm cursed :(. Maybe it is coincidence but I'm not going to risk my baby.

Thanks for your time- I am also on kind of a budget and I cannot afford to be spending $100s a week on feed- Thank you Nursing School :( So if anyone has any kind of remedies for cheaper they will be greatly appreciated. Thanks again- I hope to hear from you all soon :)

Okay sweet feed=crap. It may keep him looking good, but you would get tubby too if you ate McDonalds for your 3 squares a day! Not to mention that was a LOT of food for one horse. You also failed to specify what kind of hay you're feeding? Maybe he's picky now that he has good grass.

Search around the forum to get some feed suggestions, or you can look at your local feed stores for whats available and then ask around here for what might be best. For supplements, I would look at ones that only have fat in them (I just recently did a search on this....Cool Calories 100 is what I've decided to use).
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Your are right it is a lot of food for one horse and he still was not gaining any weight. I will look into my local feed store and see what they have. I have searched this forum for a month now and every one has something different to say- Beet pulp- alfalfa cubes- this and that it is overwhelming :(

As I told you in the other thread I had a good mixture for my rescue horses who were severely under weight it worked well safe healthy calories, my mix was equal parts beet pulp,BOSS,alfalfa pellets and oats .

I will have to give this a try. You say equal parts of everything but how much like one 1qt, one cup etc?

Maybe a cup and go up from there. I'd put them in a 5 gallon bucket then mix it by hand.

Ok thanks with it only being a cup each it should last a while and not break the bank too much :)

Exactly and its a healthy mix your taking out alot of sugar in eliminating the sweet feed.

Probiotics and cool calories!

They worked like a charm for our starved 6 yr. Old OTTB. He is now a fat pig!

Probiotics are a MUST!!!!

I have a 29 year old hackney pony mare that has trouble keeping weight on and I gave her a bunch of time off over the winter and that helped a lot. I also am a big believer in canola oil, which i've found that a half cup of that a day keeps their coats nice as well as helping them gain weight. Right now I have my mare on vintage senior and she get 6 courts of that a day as well as a court of hay stretcher at night. Good luck!