Feeding Fat Cobs

[Maria]

Hi

It's that time of year and my cob has ballooned in size. I'm going to turn her out at night and bring her in during the day from the weekend. We've upped her exercise and cut down her food.

I currenty feed her the High Fibre Horsehage - the hay quality from the yard was so poor a couple of years ago that I swapped over and to make life even easier I've now found someone who will deliver small quantities to the yard.

Several people have advised me to put her back on hay - less calories - to tackle the weight problem - and just give her a section while she's stabled during the day. What do I do? I can't get small amounts of good quality hay delivered to the yard and I have limited storage so I'd be going out each weekend to buy a 2 or 3 bales.

Maria

[CarolineR]

We have the same problem with Charlie who can eat for England and the rest of the European Continent. But we have managed to get 25 KGs off his weight. He is turned out 8-12 hours daily with a muzzle on (Equine Friend Deluxe version that I cannot recommend enough it is absolutely fantastic). He gets a weighed Hay net over night of 4.5kgs, 1 kgs of Spillers happy hoof, Top Spec Feed Balancer and some herbs. The Hay is of poor quality and is also soaked (please note weight of hay given is before soaking). His muzzle is coming off as the horses and eaten down the paddock well, and he is also going onto 24 hour turn out at the weekend, so his Hay ration will be stopped and the other feed halved. We will then monitor his weight very carefully, putting on the muzzle as required.

Allowing him out to play has made a great difference to him and he is a lot happier for it. We tried to restrict turn out, but he got very grumpy as he is a greeedy boy so we needed to find an alterntive, which in our case has worked, as the pasture is also not of high quality. \it only took 2 days for him to master the muzzle and will graze and drink happily all day.

I have to say that I agree with feeding Hay to your Cob as opposed to Hayledge for a couple of reasons, one yes the calorific count would be less with poorer quality Hay, but he will also eat the Hayledge an awful lot quicker than the hay. So if he is stabled during the day he will get very bored soon if there's nothing for him to munch on. Remember it is naturual for a horse to eat constantly over an 18 hour period which not only keeps them happy but also maintains a healthy digestive system and you need to try to aviod periods of not eating which will then be followed by a pig out session if your boy is greedy like mine.

Weigh him at the same time each week and record the weight so you can see whats going on and whether you need to cut feed down or increase exercise etc etc.

Good luck as the management of greedy cobs is just as difficult as trying to fatten up a thin horse.