I have a 10 year old OTTB mare that did not winter well. She isn’t being worked, is on pasture with hay as well 24/7. She is getting a quart and a half morning and night of soaked beet pulp shreds, a quart of Purina Strategy, and a 1/4 of oil to try and put the weight on her, but nothing is working. She has been wormed. I believe her teeth need to be done and the vet will be at my farm on the 25th to check them, but is there anything else I can do to help her gain weight?
I do not have experience with this myself but I have a friend who had your problem. She used Triple crown senior with great success She also sprinkled alittle bit of calf manna in with his food.
Well…it’s the middle of May. How long has she been getting pasture + hay 24/7? What is the recommended ration of Purina Strategy?
“Didn’t winter well” to me means didn’t get fed enough. If that’s true, and now you’re feeding more…for how long? And how much weight does she need to gain?
If she was being fed adequately throughout the winter, I’d start with deworming and teeth. The amount of food you’re feeding (assuming hay and pasture are decent) might be enough, if there is nothing else preventing her from gaining.
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I feed my TB TC senior. Good feed that is relatively high in calories and low in starch. Mine also gets stuffed with hay and is out on pasture. The difference? My gelding gets 6 quarts/day when he’s not working hard and 8 quarts/day when he’s in more work. He’s been rehabbing from Lyme and is in good weight right now but he’d be quite ribby if he ate as little as your mare. Remember that a horse can’t hold that much – 2-4 gallons, so if she’s filling up on lower calorie feed, she may not get the calories she needs.
Beet pulp is a good feed and his highly digestible, but it doesn’t have that many calories. I think of it more as a forage supplement when hay or grass is scarce (it’s long stem forage). 1/4 cup of oil adds 482 calories and a quart and a half of Strategy has about 2812 calories, so she is getting 3,294 in comparison to my horse, who gets more than 5,000 from concentrate. He also gets a cup of flax seed each meal, so that’s another 500 calories.
Take a look at the relative calories/weight of various feeds here: https://equineink.com/2011/12/05/cal…fferent-feeds/
Personally, if fed Purina, I’d choose Ultium (or whatever they call it now) which has a much higher fat content than Strategy. Ultium and TC Senior also have a lot of beet pulp in them so you can stop feeding that separately.
I did feed my boy oil for awhile. He’ll tolerate up to 1/2 cup per feeding, maybe 3/4 cup but it was messy. I found that a pelletized fat supplement like Purina Amplify was more palatable. Rice bran (stabilized) also can help but doesn’t have as many calories as straight oil or Amplify.
Basically, if she’s not holding her weight on free choice hay and grass, she needs more concentrate.
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Or has something else wrong with her. The backstory on “didn’t winter well” would help shed light on whether it was just lack of groceries, or something else.
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True. Also second the suggestion to test for worms (we do fecal tests ) and make sure her teeth are okay.
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As long as she checks out OK with the vet I’d say to feed her more. My Thoroughbred (not in work) ate a lot of food. He was receiving at least 6 quarts of a good senior feed (he wasn’t a senior but this is what my vet recommended) and another quart of beet pulp twice daily, along with as much second cutting hay as he wanted.
I have a hard keeper miniature horse that eats the same amount of beet pulp and grain that your horse is getting. I usually put feed into pounds but just for fun I took my measuring cup and dished out what he would eat into my 3 quart measuring scoop and it equaled over a quart without the added beet pulp mash.
I’ve learned over the years that a horse needs to eat what it needs to eat.
Some people thought I was feeding my Thoroughbred way too much - but honestly it was - after four years of trial and error - the exact amount of food that he needed to maintain a good weight and health.
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This is just not a lot of food.
Up her to 3 quarts of whatever your favorite senior feed is (strategy is fine, I guess) twice a day, plus a half cup of oil with each meal. Quart and a half of beat pulp is okay, although I really prefer alfalfa pellets. Free choice high quality hay (alfalfa if you can) or free choice high quality pasture.
Even that might not be “enough” but it’s a better whack at it than what you’ve got going now.
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Is that pre- or post-soaked volume?
Shredded beet pulp is generally about 9c per pound dry weight.
a quart of Purina Strategy, and a 1/4 of oil to try and put the weight on her, but nothing is working.
That’s because you’re not feeding much food 
Regular feeds are fed in the 4-6lb range. 1 quart of Strategy might be 1.25lb, so even if you’re feeding that twice a day, it’s at most half of what you should be feeding.
It’s also not the greatest feed out there, IMHO Many agree, some think it’s wonderful. On paper, there are much better feeds. In reality, some horses do just fine on Strategy.
If you said “here, feed this horse” I would put her on Ultium, assuming I had to stick to Purina. I’d work up to 5-6lb a day, and let that settle for 3-4 weeks and see how things were going.
Ideally, I’d use Triple Crown Sr, which ls lower sugar, high quality ingredients, and is really just a fantastic feed. And yes, there are horses who don’t do well on that, as no food, no matter how good it is on paper, works for every horse.
No beet pulp (it’s so high volume for the calories, and right now she needs more calories in less volume). No oil.
So those are my 2 choices given what’s usually readily available, and knowing you can already get Purina.
I have two OTTB geldings also on 24/7 turnout who did great this winter with TC Senior and some Amplify fat supplement added to each meal. Adding Amplify has really helped them keep their weight on.
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Thank you for all your input. We got her from someone who didn’t grain her. Just hay. So we have been slowly putting her on grain. The only feed dealer where we are only carries Purina. (I live in rural northern Maine.) She got half a bale of hay to herself outside during the day in the winter, and another half inside once we got her, which was in March. She was just wormed a month ago, a fecal test from a week ago showed no parasites. I really think it must be her teeth. Shes not super malnourished or underweight, just a little ribby which bothers me. I will switch her to the Ultium, granted that our supplier will order it as they don’t carry it now. And add the Amplify.
Boarding a LOT of Tbs, many ate up to 12 lbs of grain per day, split into 2 meals. That is about 1/4 of a bag of grain per day. I prefer sweet feed, like Omelene 200, but Strategy would also be a good choice.
I echo those suggesting Ultium. For prospective, my horse has a beautiful bloom on him FINALLY after 2 years, since I put him on Ultium. We tried everything from Seminole to Buckeye to Triple Crown to Cheap Crap to now Ultium. He is a 9 year old OTTB retired 2 years ago from racing. He gets 1.5 scoops twice a day, which equates to almost 12 pounds. Some horses just require A LOT to stay in weight. He is ulcer free, in perfect health, on freechoice hay, but still requires this. Some horses just need more food. Ultium is I believe the highest calorie concentrate on the market.
I’ve had great success with TC Senior (6 pounds daily) and Purina Amplify (1 pound daily). He is also on free choice pasture and free choice O&A. No one believes he’s a TB because of how thick he looks, hes done beautifully on this combination.
mjean, getting her teeth checked is certainly a good idea, but I have three OTTBs in the barn right now that would be thin with what you’re feeding, despite perfect teeth and no worms and no gastric concerns. It really sounds like the horse just needs MORE calories, however is easiest for you to get those into her.
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Probiotics are shown to increase digestive efficiency by a significant amount.
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Thank you all for your suggestions! We have switched her grain to a higher fat diet, her teeth are being done today, and we are hoping that this will all help. We got her in late winter. Previous owner wasn’t feeding any grain so we had been upping her slowly, as to not upset her belly. She seems to be gaining now
We are using Buckeye Ultimate Finish with my OTTB. He is also getting Triple Crown Complete. A few of the horses in the barn are getting the Buckeye Ultimate Finish. It seems to give them a nice coat. Carson has been gaining weight really well. He also was dewormed, ulcer treated and teeth done. He moved from 24/7 turn-out on a round bale to stalled half the day with really high quality hay. Lots going on there so I can’t fully pinpoint one thing.
