Help for overweight horse

My Haflinger can live off a flake of alfalfa a day...just saying. I can't get weight off her either. Been keeping her on a dry lot, exercising her four to five times weekly. Nothing medical. Just an extremely easy keeper.

P.S. She doesn't get any alfalfa. We live in Ohio. So grass hay is plentiful here. But she could live off 1 flake of it. She only got two flakes of grass hay a day over the winter.

An over weighting horse is useless animal. But we should keep in mind that this problem can be removed bu just decreasing the food quantity of the food of the horse and increase the use of the water for the horse.

Not sure what you were meaning to say but wondering if you actually read the OP. How do you decrease one flake of hay per day and dry lot? (Though I admit I have no idea what they mean by one flake since flakes vary greatly in size.)

If she is going to have a job at your home, and be worked on a regular basis more so than she was at her previous home, I would say keep her at what she is eating now. Let her settle in to the new routine and you may find that she loses weight through exercise alone. You can re-asses her every few weeks and go from there...

I ride a morgan/percheron cross, and he ballooned out to be OBESE on NO grain and 2 only flakes of grassy hay per day. His behavior also became very lethargic and he lost his willingness to work. We had him vetted and found him to have thyroid issues. He is now on daily thyroid meds, and 3 flakes of grassy hay per day. He loves to work and with extensive daily w/t/c ring work, trail riding, and harness work... he maintains his weight well. Truthfull all this horse needs is 3 flakes of hay per day, nothing else and daily excercise....and he looks great.

We live in MA and have ample grass turnout at our farm (that Cam can't routinely have due to his weight issue). We DO turn him out in the pasture once every few weeks, and when he gets grass turnout, he wears a grazing muzzle. He can still get grass but he has to work to get it up through the muzzle so he doesnt over-eat. The muzzle looks funny, but he doesnt mind it at all and it serves its purpose.

Wow, you guys are lucky! I wanted to get an easy keeper, and I ended up getting my little guy (14.3 h arab) who eats 4.5 lbs of a 10% fat grain per day, and roughly a half a bale of hay, maybe a little more, per day.....someone should really tell him that he was supposed to be an easy keeper!

Half a bale of hay (unless they are really big bales) is not a crazy high amount at all.

I don't feed alfalfa, for us it's more expensive so I can't advise there but I agree, good exercise and maybe regular lunging will soon get her into shape because she is not far off! I term it a "grass belly" from more food than exercise. She'll come right quickly im sure :)

Do post more pictures in future as a before and after!