I have an almost 5 year old 16h paint that absolutely will not gain any weight! We know he isn’t wormy. I feed intensify omega force and he gets a scoop and a half twice a day and gets 3 flakes of hay twice a day. I have considered adding alfalfa or adding a weight supplement but I worry that’s too much because his feed is already so high in protein and fat. Anyone else had this problem or have some advice?
Why do you feel he needs to gain weight? Is it really just muscle he needs? What sort of work is he in?
How much do all those things weigh?
How do you know it’s not worms?
The Omega Force is only 12% protein. At normally fed rates, that’s not a huge amount of protein. And if the hay is low in protein, adding some alfalfa isn’t a bad idea.
We need a lot more information about his current situation before any constructive advice can be given 
A conformation-type picture would help a lot as well.
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If I fed my horses 3 flakes a day, they would starve to death; some of my current hay has 2-3lb flakes. So…JB is correct. Way more information is needed about how much you are actually feeding; it’s possible you are simply not feeding enough hay and no other changes need to be made.
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Also, an idea of what the horse weighs, or should weigh, will help. There’s a big difference between a light-boned 1000lb horse, and a hefty 1300lb one.
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@rlane3245 Does your horse get any pasture? A rule of thumb is that a 1,000 lb horse should get at least 15 lbs of food a day (easy keeper) and up to 25 lbs of food a day (hard keeper/hard worker). A 16h paint at a good healthy weight will probably top out over 1,000 pounds.
For the hard keepers or those that come to me needing weight put on, I give them as much good to great quality hay, usually orchard grass, that they will eat. They are also on pasture half the time, so they have roughage in front of them 24/7. If it’s winter, it’s hay 24/7. I start them off at 6 lbs of Triple Crown Sr for a few weeks, and bump it up if they don’t start gaining weight. If they gain weight but still need some topline, I add Triple Crown 30% supplement.
You need to determine what you are already feeding, and then read the instructions on the bag of intensify omega force to see if you simply need to increase that product, switch products or add something else.
My 23 y.o. Paint gelding lost some weight last year, unknown cause. I put him on Blue Seal Sentinel LS which is 12% protein, 12% fat, and 20% fiber. He is about 1150 lbs and gets a scoop a day, which is close to 3 lbs. He is pasture boarded and on round bales. He had no problems gaining weight back and has maintained it. Vet pronounced him the fittest he has ever seen him. We ride usually 6 days a week for at least a half hour. Walk-trot, of course.
Weight, in and of itself, doesn’t mean much. BCS does. What’s the BCS?
G.
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He is about 1,000 pounds and 16hh! He is a barrel horse and he gets worked, so he has muscle. He just has some ribs showing and won’t fill out like I want him to. He gets 3 flakes twice per day and they are rather large flakes and the bales are about 100 lbs and it measures out to him getting about 37 pounds of hay each day. We know it isn’t worms because he is wormed every two months on the dot and we worm with a schedule recommended for horses in central texas. Unfortunately, he does not have access to pasture. Intensify omega recommends feeding 0.5-0.7 pounds per 100 pounds of horse, and he is getting about 9 pounds of grain each day. All my other horses are warmbloods so they are super easy keepers I’ve never had this problem before! I took a look at his papers and he does have some thoroughbred in him, so I thought that might explain why he’s such a hard keeper.
Thanks for any advice y’all have! @Guilherme @walktrot @Palm Beach @S1969 @JB
Have you had his teeth done? Is he eating every scrap of hay? If so feed him more. If he is 4 he is still growing some, so filling out will come in time if he is getting adequate calories.
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You might ask your vet about doing a fecal egg count test. I have seen horses that are on a worming schedule come back w/ a high count if there is a resistance issue in the area.
I’ve used the online service FeedXL for figuring out a diet for hard or tricky keepers and been really happy with it. Obviously it is possible to do all the calculations yourself, but for sheer ease of use, I really appreciated just paying a small fee and using the program online.
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I agree about fecal egg count. Rotational deworming schedules aren’t necesssarily recommended anymore for a variety of reasons. A FEC will give you an idea of whether the deworming schedule is working.
Agree about teeth - when were they floated last?
Does he eat his hay alone, or in a group turnout situation (and therefore, you are estimating?) Does he eat it all and over how much time? It could be that he just needs that much hay at his age and workload. If he is eating 37lbs/day, has no worm issues, has good teeth, then maybe he does just need more hay. He certainly wouldn’t be the first horse that needs more than 1.5% of his weight in hay to maintain good weight.
Can you post pictures? A couple of ribs showing on a 4 year old horse isn’t necessarily a need for “weight gain.”
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OP, if your calculations are correct, he is getting 46 lbs of roughage and concentrate a day, which is lots. Maybe your hay looks good but is low in nutritional content? I’d hesitate to add volume/pounds of food at this point; I’d look to replace some of the hay you are feeding with higher quality hay if that is an issue, or switch out some of the intensify omega with a ration balancer plus fat. I find with my tbs that some of them need the higher protein in a ration balancer to gain that last little bit of topline/muscle.
Are you positive? That’s SO much hay for a 1000lb horse, coming on 4% of his body weight a day. There aren’t even a lot of horses eating that much during the Winter up in Canada. Not impossible for sure, but that’s such a huge amount of hay for not a very big horse. Have you ever had it tested?
We know it isn’t worms because he is wormed every two months on the dot and we worm with a schedule recommended for horses in central texas.
I recommend going to www.thehorse.com and looking at the Strategic Worming articles. Deworming every 8 weeks is quite old school and has not been recommended for well over 10 years because of resistance issues. All those schedules use chemicals that have high (over 80%) and widespread (around the world) resistance issue.
Has he ever had a Power Pack, or had Quest, and when was the last time tapeworms were targeted with either Equimax, Zimecterin Gold, or Quest Plus?
FECs will not show you encysted strongyles or bots, and only very, very rarely tapeworms.
Unfortunately, he does not have access to pasture. Intensify omega recommends feeding 0.5-0.7 pounds per 100 pounds of horse, and he is getting about 9 pounds of grain each day. All my other horses are warmbloods so they are super easy keepers I’ve never had this problem before! I took a look at his papers and he does have some thoroughbred in him, so I thought that might explain why he’s such a hard keeper.
Not even having TB in him explains a 1000lb horse getting 46lb of food a day and not having enough weight.
Can you post a picture of him?
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I definitely sounds crazy! But I will say, my OTTB gelding, 17hh and narrow, required about 5% body weight per day to maintain any weight in his younger years. At 19 and retired now he is normal at about 2%
Hay type/quality may need changed. 37 pounds a day of hay with little to no nutritional value is just empty volume.
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My paint horse goes through a 1000 pound bale in 2 1/2 to 3 weeks. Plus 5 pounds of grain a day. Never gets fat eating that much hay and grain. That’s from November to april when he’s fed hay.
Just because a little rib can be seen doesn’t equal needs more feed.
You have been given some good advice.
Check his teeth.
Do a FEC. Really. Do a FEC. Rotational worming is no longer considered to be effective for a variety of reasons.
Do consider having your hay analyzed and confirm that he is receiving 37lbs a day. Is there a lot of wasted hay in his stall? Is he fed outside in a group where he might not get his allotted share?
If he is really getting 37lbs of hay a day? If he is fed 6 flakes per day those flakes must be 6lbs+ a piece. Not impossible, that each flake could weigh 6lbs+, but it wouldn’t be the norm in our area.
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Really, so many questions still, especially about hay.
Unless the horse is always alone, it is hard to measure what is really being eaten. And we don’t know what, if anything, is being left behind. And whether the hay is actually being weighed or if one flake was weighed and the rest was estimated.
Who is putting out hay (the OP, barn staff, someone else?)
How good is the hay? What kind, what does it look like?
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I would argue that an actual weight, or a guesstimate via a tape is far more accurate than the subjective BCS, which was never intended to gauge the health or weight of horses in general anyway, as per the originator of the BCS.
Actual weight doesn’t really tell us much anyway. It’s just a number. A 16h Paint could be 1000lb or 1500lb and be a good weight for his build.
If a horse is a solid BCS 5, he’s not underweight, he’s not fat. He could drop .5, or gain 1, and still be healthy, and his actual weight can be 100s of pounds different from another horse of that same height.
BCS does tell you a lot about whether the horse is a healthy weight for him, whatever that number is, which will vary based on being in no work, or hard work. But it’s also just a piece of the bigger picture, and tells you little about the actual health, outside of the extremes of 1-2 and 8-9, which are life threatening.
A 16h horse who is 1000lb with “some ribs showing” is pretty healthy. High BCS 4 to low 5 maybe, depending on what “showing” means - barely, and in good light? Or “yep, he’s got ribs!”.
I wouldn’t want a barrel horse to carry excess weight.
And again, a picture in good light would help a lot
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