We cruzed through winter, on came spring and off came the blankets! He seemed to look ok, not ideal, but just okay... untill he started shedding! We lost an entire horse in one day with the hair that came off of him and we began wondering if any food we had given him all winter long had stuck! Me and my mom attended a feed seminar about this time to research some different feeds to see what might work for Simon. We found the highest fat feed we could which came in a sweet feed (although I wasn't happy on the idea of a throughbred on straight sweet feed) it was the only feed with such high fat so we slowly switched him over to Four quarts ( 2 scoops) Am and Pm of Purina Horsemans Edge 10:10. We were very pleased with this feed! In the spring we had the vet out for our anual shots and she suggested sending him to a farm down the road that had much lager pastures and lush grass for a month to see what that would do with his weight. At that time we were also experimenting with oil's. We had him on 1/2 cup of the tripple crown rice bran oil, Am and Pm. We were pleased with how the weight gain (truly gaining not just hair!) was going at that point.
When the month was up we brought him home and wern't entierly pleased with how much he didn't gain! any horse out there eating what he was would have put on atleast 100 pounds... nope not simon, he faintly put on some fat over his ribs! Although he had gained some weight, which we were very happy with, he didn't gain nearly the amount we had hoped!
After he came home we didn't see a huge difference the rice bran oil was making (other than the barn cats couldn't stop licking his bucket! :P) we choose to switch to vegtable oil. A comprable switch with a much smaller price tag, to see if we just needed to be paitent with the oil to see results.
Around August we decided to try beet pulp. As the summer was coming to a close we hadn't seen much weight gain since he had come back from his grassy pasture (about June). So we tried the scary beet pulp that could make you horses stomach EXPLODE if you don't soak it.............. well needless to say your horses belly wont explode if you don't soak it. There is an article in Horse Illustrated (which I will link below) that was great in explaning the common myths about beet pulp. Anyway back to the story, Simon did GREAT on the beet pulp! He wasn't much of a fan eating it but he packed on some pounds that we could actually see!!!
In October we had hit another plateau with the weight gain and nothing was changing. I work at a hunter jumper horse farm and I went to the barn owner to get an equine nutritionists name. We had had enough! we had almost had this horse a year and he STILL was to skinny to compete on and just looked bad! She was our saving grace! I decribed the situation to her and all the things we had tried. She mentioned from the discription I had given her that he had ulcers. Apon further research 97% of racing throughbreds have ulcers and as of yet I'm not convinced Simon is of the special 3% that wouldn't have ulcers! So we got a game plan and went for it. The results have been amazing and this is what he is eating to date and hasnt stoped gaining since! We switched him to a senior feed (high in protien) with much less sugar which is good for any horse. We put him on 4 quarts (2 scoops) Nutrena Senior (6% Fat), 1/2 cup aloe vera juice (For his ulcers), 5 Cemetaidne pills crushed (again for his ulcers) 1 cup of rice bran powder (we switched from the oil becuase it began to be more of a pain then the results we didn't see! Although, if you need to add some shine to you horses coat I highly recomend adding an oil, as Simon's coat looked amazing!) and we continued with the 2 quarts beet pulp fully expanded (1 cup dry pellets with 4 cups water). I can't believe what the ulcer treatment method has done! Although he never showed signs of having ulcers I am convinced he has them. He is looking so much better but we still have a long road to haul, but atleast were getting some where!! Im going to make a little chart below to sumerize our jouney!
October 2010 (before adoption)
- 3 Quarts Track sweet feed (7% fat)
- Ulcer Gaurd (a paste for healing ulcers)
- 3 quarts mixture ( Track sweet feed, Crimped Oats, Cracked corn)
- 4 quarts Purina Horsemans edge 10:10 (10% fat)
- 4 quarts Purina Horsemans edge 10:10 (10% fat)
- 1/2 cup Tripple Crown rice bran oil
- 4 quarts Purina Horsemans edge 10:10 (10% fat)
- 1/2 cup Tripple Crown rice bran oil
- 4 quarts Purina Horsemans edge 10:10 (10% fat)
- 1/2 cup Vegtable oil
- 2 quarts beet pulp fully expanded (1 cup pellets, 4 cups water)
- 4 quarts Nutrena senior
- 1 cup max-e-glow rice bran powder
- 5 pills crushed Cemetadine
- 2 quarts beet pulp fully expanded
- 1/2 cup aloe juice
I hope this helps you because I know just how frustrating it can be trying to put weight on your horse when he dosn't want to eat, and the normal weight gaining tricks don't work! Enjoy the christmas holiday's and shower your ponies and horses with carrots and treats ;) MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!
LINK: http://www.horsechannel.com/media/horse-health/nutrition-fact-or-fiction.aspx.pdf
Pictures :)
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| The day Simon arrived |
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| Around July |
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| Late August early September |
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