Diary of a hard keeper

This is over the course of 5 years. I wish I could give you time periods for all of these, but I've seemed to have lost the date


The first week we owned him










Last year:beginning of the summer after his illness


End of the same summer


2 days ago

He looks great! What is he eating?

Unfortunately we don't have very much grass so he's on a very grain heavy diet in addition to supplements.

Right now he is getting about 1 scoops athelete, 1/2 scoop of sweet feed, and 1/2 scoop pellets, all Purina feeds, though, I have forgotten the specific kinds.

He's also on double cool calories from smartpak and a mix of alfalfa and timothy hay

It seems to be working well. He is gorgeous, by the way.

Hi,

I'm gathering the 'hard keeper' title is sarcastic??<GG> In most of those pics, he looks a bit chunky. In the 'after illness' pic he looks a good weight. Nice horse!

Sorry to say, but grain & sugary feed does not take the place of roughage for a horse and is not healthy to overfeed. If there's no grass, free choice hay(+ supps) should be provided & may be all that's needed. There are other healthy option for weight gain if a horse needs extra, but if grain / sweet junk is fed, it needs to be in small quantities, mixed with a lot of roughage, fed in as many small meals daily as possible.

Nope, It wasn't sarcastic at all. The picture you said he was a good weight in all his ribs where clearly visible and his hips were protruding out. Keeping him a good weight has been a struggle with him so we tend to like him going into the winter with extra weight, since we've still been unable to keep him from dropping weight at the beginning of winter. He's a lot wider then he looks, especially for TB. Though I will say, the one picture before he got sick he was very chunky.

He's currently on free choice hay. Always has been, including when we first got him, unfortunately his favorite thing to do is pee in it and move it around his stall. In the field he prefers to pick at the tiny amount of grass we do have, which is pathetic. We've tried him on other types of hay and we've gotten the same reaction, even with straight alfalfa. We also tried elevating it in a hay bag, which he likes to hit around his stall. The only time I've seen him actually and eat his hay is when he's being trailered.

Yeah, pics can be misleading & perhaps he was in reality a lot thinner than he looks there. Ribs just visible through a summer coat is fine though. Dropping a bit of weight over winter is also perfectly natural & fine & no reason to beef him up even more before hand. Ofcourse you don't want him wasting away to a shadow, but it is actually being overweight continuously without seasonal chances for the body to use up the extra 'stores' that is a major factor of insulin issues.

Don't you hate that?? Had a mare that had to pee on the hay all the time! Yeah, using a hay bag or other feeder that's off the ground will take care of that. Playing with it, well, can't blame him for playing with something if he's bored locked in a stall. Can you let him out more &/or give him other things to do/play with as well? My guys love playing soccer with a big ball!