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Should my horse be eating grain and DEwormer questions.

2K views 14 replies 7 participants last post by  amigoboy 
#1 ·
Hi all,

I just recently started working my horse more and she is currently only eating grass. She is eating all by herself so she gets more than enough on 6 acres. I am not sure what to feed her really. Oh and she also has a salt and mineral block. Any tips?

I gave my horse her DEwormer 2 weeks ago and I noticed she has lost some weight. Is that normal?
 
#2 ·
If she's maintaining her weight on pasture alone then you don't need to feed her any grain or hard feed. You can feed a ration balancer or multi-vitamin if you wish, but it's not strictly necessary unless you know of a mineral deficiency (for example, some areas are deficient in selenium) If your horse does need some weight, I'd try options that don't include cereal grains first. Alfalfa, rice bran, beet pulp, and flaxseed are good options for putting on weight without the high starch/sugar of cereal grains.

Regarding the dewormer, my guess is that your horse had some worms and was a bit bloated as a result. When the worms were killed off, the bloating went away and she looked a bit skinnier.
 
#4 ·
Having another gazing animal with her may help too, causing a "competition" for the grass.

How old is she? Breed? How hard are you working her? Has she had a lot of time off before you? Have her teeth been checked?

If she has had years off from work, she may look like she is loosing weight but is actually toning up her muscles and just loosing fat.

When you dewormed her, did you have a fecal count done or just use a random dewormer? Not all dewormers are the same. Some don't get every type of worm. Having a fecal count done tells you what worms she actually has and then you can use the right dewormer.
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#6 ·
usandpets,

I did not have a fecal count done. I used Ivermectin paste bimentin. It controls large and small strongyles, pinworms, ascarids, hairworms, large mouth stomach worms, lungworms, intestinal threadworms and bots. I hope that was okay to use. I am not doing a lot of trail riding yet. I am just trotting and walking her up lots of hills and doing a lot of ground work. We work out between 45mins-1hr. We are just building her up slowly. She is really starting to show a lot of changes with her body. I can tell she is building up muscle. I would like to know some more helpful exercises to get her back in shape. I will post a few pics and see what you think. I have used a salt block for years and Ive never had any issues. Excuses her hooves I finally found someone to do them. My guy moved last month and I couldn't find anyone who could do them how I wanted them done. They are being trimmed over the weekend!
 
#9 ·
Pretty girl! She looks very healthy. You lucked out with the wormer. Had she been heavily infested, she could have passed some strongyles (bloodworms) and blocked an artery. 'O'
We've all done stuff that we shouldn't, but if you haven't learned about heavy parasite infestation, I wanted you to know.
She probably just had been neglected.
She has such a pretty shine!
Her back shows her age, but I'm thinking you bought her as a safe ride, so it's understandable.
 
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