Native Owners help needed

[shandy84]

http://groups.msn.com/NRphotos/shandyandbramble.msnw?Page=1

Pics of Bramble, i have left her unrugged so far this year but she has lost a lot of condition while she has been on grass livery for a week also the feed she is on (1 scoop hi fi, 1/2 scoop stud cubes) doesn't seem to keep her weight up and i don't want to feed her too much being a native, do you have any suggestions for me? I have her on as much hay as is possible to give her and she is out at grass from 8 to at the earliest 5 nearer 7 normally

Any help greatly appreciated

P.S in the pic that is her ribs you can see they are easy to see and feel, she just looks tubby, think it's the growth spurt given her a big barell on no chest

[Showjumper]

I'd be tempted to lightly rug her so that she's not using her food to keep warm.

[shandy84]

She has a lightweight rug that is more like a mac, is that any good as I was told they flatten the coat making them cold? If this is true would a summer sheet under give a little warmth?

Bramble is meant to be native but I'm sure someone forget to tell her, she has awful feet (needs shoeing all round) and good dooer :D yeah right! Oh well the arab at least is healthy if a little stressed

Cheers Showjumper - How's dolly doing these days?

[callie]

I usually use barley rings ( not just barley) if i want to put some weight on one of mine, it might be an idea to get a feed balancer like a blue chip ..you can get cheaper ones dodson and horrell do one called growth i think. Ive kept navtives for 30 yrs ( i currently have a highland and a fell as two of my gang), and will always use barley rings to add some weight if needed. dont forget though to introduce new foods gradually.

www.realequine.co.uk

[shandy84]

With the barley rings how do you prepare them how much do you normally feed and will they fizz her up at all?

Cheers

[callie]

barley rings dont need any preperation they can just be mixed in, they wont fizz up at all theyve got added things in apart from just normal barley like linseed oil, they look like giant rough polos and i just feed them with some chaff and a bit of water to mix to dampen down. I promise they wont fizz i had a very very fizzy thoroughbred who was a poor dooer and his main diet was barley rings and it kept his weight on great.

[callie]

on my site theres a picture of poorly toby on the true stories page, hes my shire who was really bad , he was nursed back to weight on a barley ring mix..see the photos for the difference.

www.realequine.co.uk

[Showjumper]

If you're going to rug her all winter, it shouldn't matter. Right now with the rain, that's as likely to chill them as anything else. Keeping the rain off would help keep her warmer. Dolly's shivered off 20kg since the rain started to get very cold (no big worry - she's still about 50kg overweight...)

[shandy84]

That is a big difference and a really nasty story, he looks wonderful now, where would I be able to buy these from is it an agricultural merchants product?

Thanks Showjumper I will fix her lightweight rug and use that on the chilly/wet days

[callie]

The ones i use are made by a company called Burgess ..they make other feeds as well and theyre called Super Barley Rings, i buy them from my local feed supplier they should be easy to find.

[artemis]

Have you wormed her?

I have used the barley rings & they are excellent.

[chev]

I had the same problem with Lili until last year - she dropped weight every winter. She didn't last winter though - ok, so she was rugged, but she's also finished growing, which I think has a lot to do with it.

I've had mixed results with barley rings - they do condition pretty well, but some horses don't react very well to them. Haylage instead of hay (or a mix of both) if you can manage it will make a big difference, and a feed with a higher nutritional value will help, native or not. Dot, who needs some weight putting on since rugging isn't an option just now is on stud mix and milk pellets, but you could try a pasture mix with showing chaff (or just ordinary chaff with some oil thrown in!) and see how she does on that. Don't underestimate cugar beet either - people tend to dissmiss it but it's actually quite good for conditioning, and contains electrolytes too, if you don't throw the water you soaked it in away.

I would say though that rugging her would be the first thing I'd try - she won't gain weight until she's not having to use her food to keep warm.

I'd also chuck a decent supplement in there too - a general all round vit/min supplement and maybe some biotin too, especially as you say her feet are poor. It will take a few months to see the results in her feet but I do think she'd probably benefit.

[cvb]

This is kind of the opposite problem - we have an ex-laminitic Fell who is on permanent diet. The best thing that we have done for him is have him on a balancer. Then he gets limited food but is still getting all the vitamins etc he needs. His coat and and feet are great.

Just recently we won some different balancer (Saracen) in a comp - as it has cereal in we decided not to give it to the Fell but use it for our old chap and my mare. The old guy (32) seems to be benefiting from it and has more of a spring in his step. We have to watch him for losing condition as he has virtually no front teeth so can't eat grass in the same way (gets to go out on long grass). And at 32, his digestion isn't what it used to be.

So a balancer might help you ?