Cut back feed or let a chonky pony remain chubby in the winter?

[Scribbler]

Hard to evaluate weight without a photo at least.

@paintedpennypony have you worked through the Henneke charts? What are the fat pads like at withers and tail? Can you see ribs?

Horses can have saggy bellies from gas from poor quality hay or former pregnancies or lordosis without being overweight. That’s why belly isn’t included in the Henneke charts.

Wild horses will enter fall obese and can lose a lot of weight over the winter. This helps keep them from getting metabolic syndrome. But it isn’t desirable for a riding horse to be 7/10 in September and 3/10 in March!

Domestic horses should stay around 4.5 to 5/10 year around. But they tend to creep up in weight because they have lots of grazing in summer then no work and lots of hay in winter.

Whether obesity will have immediate consequences is very dependent on the horse. I’ve certainly seen people tip their horses into metabolic syndrome and laminitis just on overfeeding hay. Also it’s worth testing for Cushings if weight is out of line for the amount of feed (either thin or fat).

Once a horse is metabolically compromised it’s a lifetime of soaking hay and limited grazing.

[candyappy]

@paintedpennypony

it’s just a hay belly

That in itself is another concern. I may be wrong but in my experience a horse with a hay belly is not getting the proper nutrition or has a worm overload-- or both.

Too much food (overall) makes them fat all over, not just the gut.

[Scribbler]

@candyappy

@paintedpennypony

it’s just a hay belly

That in itself is another concern. I may be wrong but in my experience a horse with a hay belly is not getting the proper nutrition or has a worm overload-- or both.

Too much food (overall) makes them fat all over, not just the gut.

Yes good point.

[luvmyhackney]

@candyappy

That in itself is another concern. I may be wrong but in my experience a horse with a hay belly is not getting the proper nutrition or has a worm overload-- or both.

Too much food (overall) makes them fat all over, not just the gut.

Really good article about hay belly.

Hay Belly in Horses: Signs, Causes, and Treatments | Mad Barn

[JB]

@ThreeWishes

Hence why I asked for a photo (: Makes the discussion so much more meaningful when everyone can “see” what someone means.

Pictures do help to some degree for sure! But even without a Winter coat, at some point you can’t really see how fat a horse is. I’ve watched an acquaintence’s Morgan mare lose 6 HUNDRED pounds over the last several years. Her original pics did look like an overweight horse, for sure, but on a picture alone I probably would have said a high 7, maybe 8. Not a 17 on the 1-9 scale

There’s just no replacement for a human putting hands on all the BCS score locations to determine what’s what.

@Jackie_Cochran

If the horse’s crest is HARD the horse is TOO FAT!!!

I would just be careful making that direct distinction. Not all IR horses are overweight, let alone with a hard crest. In other words, lack of a hard crest or a cresty look can easily be a false negative. And, the crest is not always directly related to how fat the horse is. TBs in particular aren’t a breed prone to being IR, but when they are, often they’re hard keepers, not the stereotypical easy keeper air fern.

@Scribbler

Wild horses will enter fall obese and can lose a lot of weight over the winter. This helps keep them from getting metabolic syndrome. But it isn’t desirable for a riding horse to be 7/10 in September and 3/10 in March!

Yes, that’s exactly the point I was trying to get across, you said it better.