Purina and triple crown also have rbs triple crown is probably the better one. I got a bag of TC 30 here to give my hard working gelding more nutrition. Don’t want extra calories added.
Will see how he does on it, never have fed or used rbs.
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The best hay would be relatively high in protein but low NSC. You can’t know this without testing it. I say higher protein because if you are going to limit his hay intake, you don’t want a low nutrition hay.
Get a fish scale or luggage scale which are cheap and a big Costco or IKEA plastic shopping bag. Use that to weigh his hay.
Figure he is getting a pound per hour on pasture.
Start by calculating how much forage he is getting now. If it’s way over 20 lbs, cut back to 20 lbs for two weeks. Get a weight tape and use weekly. Take conformation shots weekly. Monitor those fat pockets. At the moment you can’t trust your eye.
If he doesn’t lose weight on 20 lbs, or if he is only getting 20 lbs now, cut back to 15 lbs per day.
My choice would be to cut back on hay not grazing time. Grazing is much less efficient than eating hay, it is soothing instinctual behavior, and fresh grass has vitamins lacking in hay.
You must not feel guilty for cutting back on his feed. You will feel much worse if he becomes metabolic and gets founder from his obesity.
It’s great you posted a photo because we were all getting the wrong impression from your description. We were all thinking normal or low weight with a distended belly. But what I see here is a fat, undermuscled horse with a belly proportionate to his overall weight.
Maybe if he loses weight he will have more go in the arena, too.
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Yup, he’s a chunky monkey allright.
I came back to give you this link, which it’s not as useful now that we’ve seen him and that he’s not underweight. But anyway, it might be good education for you, to give you some ammunition /knowledge to respond to folks who may be chirping at you that’s underweight.
https://heartofphoenix.org/2016/07/1…ecks-and-ribs/
I’d really urge you to continue to work on muzzling. Your guy truly should not get green grass at his weight. When pasture is limited, once your horse gets to go out, he’ll throw his head down and hoover in as much grass as he can with a sense of urgency. So he’s likely getting more sugar in that one hour of T/O than a horse who’s been out far longer than that.
The GreenGuard muzzle is often better tolerated by horses, it’s not as confining. Yes, they’re expensive, but much less expensive than the vet and shoeing costs of laminitis.
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I read an article recently that measured grass intake while on pasture. Highly variable would describe it, and the horses on limited pasture made up for lost time by gobbling while it was available! Muzzle was the only thing that led to overall intake reduction.
Thank you. The pastures are absurdly high right now but will be cut and bailed (is that the right terminology for making round bales out of pasture?) within next couple of days. At least then he won’t be able to scarf as much down so quickly. I will look into the Greenguard muzzle and see how quickly I can get one shipped. The extra lateral work is really benefiting our work outs (nice supple stretchy horse) and he came in steaming and dripping tonight-still happy with ears perked though! …so hopefully I can post some weight loss progress shots in the next few weeks.
I will second the green guard muzzle, Only one mine will tolerate.
