best weight builder for the starved horse

Good mixed grass hay for now. My walker looked very much like that. I spent the first 2 weeks running outside to check if she was still alive. Water, salt block.

Senior feed, start with one handful at a time. Not one 6'4" logger type handful but a woman sized handful and increase one handful at a time. A good name senior feed will be easy to digest and have probiotics in it. Get him through a week and add a little multi vitamin or ration balancer to it. At the amounts intended for a small pony at first. My 37 yr old, 11 hand pony gets 1/3 of a cup of ration balancer at each meal. The rest is mostly hay with some beet pulp on single digit or snow storm days. Slow, slow slow! His gut is severely compromised at this point. Any concentrated feed needs to be just a taste or two. I can't stress this enough. More and you risk colic and/or founder.

How old is the horse? If he is having trouble chewing hay you can soak some beet pulp and hay cubes and make him a mash. Careful there too because as a mash he can consume a lot more faster than chewing stemmy hay. Even if he can't chew very well let him have regular hay anyway. They need it for their psyche.

Worry about weight building things in mid Jan.

Keep colic and founder first aid supplies on hand.

So how is he doing?

This pic was taken about five weeks after they got the horse. They are feeding 3 times a day now, soaked alfalfa, soaked senior feed and free choice all you can eat hay. He is doing better, had his teeth floated and wormed twice. Vet said he is impressed he even survived. Thanks for all the help on here, sorry its been so long but didnt want to just leave it open ended.

Good job!!!
Now he looks like a horse

Those people should be charged ! And never allowed another horse. They should have never waited so long to get that horse a new home.

I agree, but the issue we had with reporting them is that due to local laws, Aladdin would then become part of an "investigation" and would be removed from my friends home and placed at the county aspca. We ALL were so attached to him it wasnt something she was willing to do. We had a lot of people interested in helping us help him.. some people would send money to the local feed store, some people would just show up and drop off grain. It has been a joint effort by many people to get him where he is now :) He is a super sweet horse that we just couldnt turn a blind eye to- we cannot WAIT for spring to hit- there is a nice big pasture with his name written all over it!

But you are right, I hope and pray these people never get another horse.

He looks fantastic, and what a cute name! Great job on his new owner's part. I hope that he can become what they set out to find in the first place. I am sure that he is beyond grateful to them for getting him out of such a horrifying situation. Taking on a horse in that shape is a huge chore, but it looks like it payed off in the end!

Im a firm believer in plain old pasture grass, IE grass, dandelions, clover, assorted weeds. For a starved horse don't wanna turn it loose on rich green grass, but Id give it plenty of access to plain old timothy/fescue/orchard hay, check teeth and worm at vet reccomendations, but grass and plain hay. Let it build up for awhile. Once it seems to be gaining Id probably add a ration balancer or pasture supplement multi vitamin. But wouldnt go overboard.