Favorite fattener

[anon40672407]

I have found a place to take my weekly jumping lesson (over very small stuff, just for the exercise, really). And the horse I would use is a lovely 20 year old mare, who works fine barefoot and has very good limb articulation for a TB of her age. I was surprised, really.

However, she’s shockingly thin. Supposedly “she just had her teeth done” and indeed we have come off winter only recently, but I will not feel appropriate riding such a thin horse. I am perfectly happy offering extra cash to feed her up a bit. An undernourished horse cannot be considered to have sufficiently balanced nutrients to have healthy organs and strong bone. She really needs the calories if only to flesh out the deficits in nutrients.

So, what is your favorite (non heating) fattener? She’s a TB, so like many may become hot on literally anything, but I’d like to hear stories and suggestions.

Also, your favorite nutritional rounder-outer?

[Bristol_Bay]

Rice bran and shredded beet pulp both add calories without making my TB hot.

And more hay, of course! I went through a period of weighing his hay every day, a PITA but it worked.

ETA it’s very kind of you to pay for the extra feed.

[lenapesadie]

Triple Crown Senior Gold

Alfalfa hay

Oil

Kinda depends on the horse’s palate and the rest of its diet

[luvmyhackney]

Alfalfa hay and if teeth are a concern, whatever senior is consistently available in your area. Plus up to a lb of flax.

Ultium Gastric care soaks beautifully and puts the lbs on them.

Has she been wormed, tested for Cushings, possibly gut absorption issues.

[WNT]

I’d also look at the condition of the other horses in the program. Is she the only skinny one, or is it a trend? We had a “lesson” barn in the area shut down and horses removed because the owner/manager simply wasn’t feeding her horses enough and all were drastically underweight.

If it’s one challenging horse, helping out with extra hay, rice bran, or alfalfa pellets or even an extra-fluffy cushioning saddle pad is one thing. If it’s a barn-wide trend, I’d keep looking.

[endlessclimb]

Fat Cat, if it doesn’t make her hot.

[cayuse]

Rice bran works well for me,

[Bogie]

My OTTB could get skinny in a heartbeat. I fed him Triple Crown Senior (6 lbs/day), Purina Amplify, soaked alfalfa/timothy cubes and as much hay as he would eat. I used to feed oil but ultimately it was too messy. Beet pulp is also helpful but TC Sr is mostly beet pulp so I stopped that.

[J-Lu]

When Sir SpooksAlot was young, he was super hypervigilant and super skinny. We pumped calories into him. I fed Nutrena Pro-Force Fuel - they have several high-fat feeds - and that really helped put on weight. I also fed beet pulp and corn oil, tried Cool-calories (a coconut husk additive). I supplemented with compressed alfalfa bales.

He was hypervigilant and reactive, and the alfalfa didn’t make him worse. I specifically fed alfalfa to add cations to his diet to help battle ulcers. (He had mild ulcers that the vet really had to look for when scoping, vet thought he’d have bunches of bloody ulcers with his behavior.) The compressed bales were leafy, and I didn’t feed alfalfa pellets that are often stems.

I worked with my vets on his diet and this seemed to work. Now, he’s on only balancer.

Is the horse up to date on wormers? Maybe perform a fecal?

Thanks for really thinking about the condition of the horse you’ll be riding!

[anon40672407]

Thanks for replies so far. I talked with the trainer yesterday and discovered the mare is on alfalfa (baled) and a supplement of TC Senior, flax and bran. (I don’t know how much. “A BIG bucket!”) Trainer agrees with me that she’s shockingly thin and is appreciative that I’ve offered extra cash to bulk her up a bit.

There are several “rescue” horses on site, some skinny, some much fatter. It might be an absorption problem with the mare. She has “had her teeth done” (but I’ve no idea if she has a full compliment of teeth). I don’t know about worming.

The discussion with the trainer eased my mind a little bit. She’s not some kid skating by, she’s aware. Although she is not the owner of the horse.

I may have done my contribution wrong, though. I figured I’d just up my training fee to the trainer, and she could use that extra for the horse. But to a young trainer, that extra money may not go directly into feed; it may be diverted elsewhere. However, I don’t have a relationship with the owner, and the trainer is the one who actually does the feeding on many days, so that was my best solution at the time.