Management ideas for fat horse never full

[CHT]

Client horse. Outside 24/7. Obese. Currently by herself, but would love to be able to put my pony in with her. Recently diagnoses with Cushings and high leptin levels (so always hungry). Started on Prascend and on thyroxin (for weight loss). Currently being tapered off the thyroxin to see what happens with her weight with just the Cushings medications. Being fed timothy hay 3-4 time a day (forth feeding is when extremely cold like this past week). Gets her pill in a portion of a fig, and gets the thyroxin in a small amount of beet pulp. Beet pulp will stop when the medication is done. Vet worried about sugar spikes. Horse rarely worked, but in a pen with a good hill and room for some self exercise. Likes to eat my fence posts. Chews through hay nets. Used to have an issue with colic, but not for years. Too cold to soak hay right now. Ideas? I ride the horse once a week, and owner may lunge weekly, but owner is not able to ride her on her own, and I am not able to teach (Covid restrictions). Horse is hard to motivate to work and knows how to resist enough to convince owner to stop.

Any ideas on slow feed options for a horse that is a chewer? Or some sort of supplement we should consider? Vet mentioned oat straw, but some concern with colic.

How do I convince owner to stop giving horse treats (carrots, apple etc)? What are good treat options to help satisfy the owner’s need to treat her horse?

[Ponycatraz]

Interested in the management aspects as I have a similar bottomless pit who is aggressively managed.

I use the Standlee Apple Berry cookie cubes. You can break them into small pieces and they are supposed to be low sugar.

For exercise I pony my fatty. I’m riding my husbands horse to put some miles and refinement on and I pony my fatty every time I go out. Plus is he gets worked much more and he prefers to be ponied then left alone at the barn. So win win,

I have found nibble nets to be pretty dang horse proof.

[joiedevie99]

Nibble nets are super strong. Also, if you just use two of the cheapest rope haynets at the same time, it won’t be so bad to replace them every few months. Something like a porta-grazer might also work.

Alternatively, take your flake of hay to the middle of the field and shake it wildly so it goes everywhere. Horse will have to walk around and scrounge for the pieces. Takes much longer to eat, and encourages walking.

[SuzieQNutter]

An electric fence will stop the fence being chewed. That doesn’t help with why she is chewing if it is gut related.

[Equkelly]

I board with one in a similar boat, always hungry but obese. They didn’t test but I’d also suspect high leptin levels because this horse would not leave a crumb on the ground. It was frustrating for me, because my hard keeper lived with this horse and I’ve always free-fed her but when this horse moved in with her it became impossible to do because he would not leave anything. He was always eating and no matter how much hay we put in front of them it would be gone quickly.

This year, we installed several slow feeders and we keep the slow feeders full 24/7 even though the one horse is pretty obese. We’re actually going through about 15% less hay than we were last year, just doing am/pm feedings. At first, it was more but he’s settled down and he spends less time in front of the feed racks.

I’d also recommend a more mature cold season hay that’s less yummy and has fewer calories. You can still supplement with a vit/min supplement but those fatties don’t need high quality 3rd/4th cutting hay.

As for treats, hay pellets!

[Simkie]

Is the hay tested? How’s it look?

Oat straw can be awfully high in NSC, so definitely don’t go that route (unless you test that, too.)