Weight supplements

[Risuena]

Enjoytheride, I could have written your post a few months ago. When I got my guy (OTTB) last fall, he’d been let down and was lean but very “soft”. Over the winter and spring as he worked more, he gained muscle but lost a bit of weight. I wasn’t worried, I wormed him regularly (he was wormy when I got him), upped his feed a bit and added corn oil…with no change, and I think he even lost some more weight. So this spring I had an energetic, shiny, better muscled but too ribby horse despite progressively increasing his calories over the prior several months.

I got serious and did three things: 1) Teeth floating (sedated, full mouth speculum, thorough exam). 2) Even though I’d been deworming him pretty aggressively (including Quest Plus), I gave him a Panacur PowerPak. 3) Added Amplify.

Didn’t take too long before it looked like it was working, and soon you could see the pounds piling on! Now he’s right where I want him. Which one of the things I did helped? I dunno. His teeth just had typical points, nothing exciting, BUT he started cleaning up his hay much better after floating. No idea if the PowerPak was necessary or not but I wanted to cover my bases. I’m mainly attributing the weight gain to Amplify - at first he wasn’t crazy about it, but ended up eating it just fine. Now that we’re at the “maintenance” stage, I think I’m going to wean off that and probably go to TC Senior. But I’m ready to add Amplify back in at the first sign of dropping weight - worked great for us.

[KateKat]

Definitely look into feeding oil. Its a HUGE amount of calories and a good bang for your buck. I was giving a hard keeper I leased Ukele’s Cocosoya. It smells like candy corn and he found it VERY palatable.

[enjoytheride]

Does Amplify get the same results as Cocosoya? My Barn Manager will feed liquid but I’d rather cause as little hassle as possible.

[KateKat]

[QUOTE=enjoytheride;8276573]
Does Amplify get the same results as Cocosoya? My Barn Manager will feed liquid but I’d rather cause as little hassle as possible.[/QUOTE]

Same results in what sense? A cup of Amplify would not equal the caloric value of a cup of Cocosoya. Looking online Amplify is only 30% fat, while oil is well…all fat :lol:.

Honestly, I did not find the Cocosoya (or any oil) that much hassle, as long as your bottle has a pump. Uckele’s pumps distribute 1 oz with each pump-so if you wanted a cup fed, your BM would just need to add 8 pumps. I would think that is just as easy as measuring out scoops of Amplify.

[enjoytheride]

Thanks! I think I will try the cocosoya and see if it helps, and maybe switch to Amplify in the winter if she still needs it.

[Mitch]

Some sound advice all around. Try, test and measure

[Risuena]

ETR, sounds like a good plan. I should have added in my post that I’m all for oil, not sure why it didn’t seem to work for my guy recently but I’ve always considered it the first thing to go to if I want to add some calories. (Especially when factoring in $!). Start slow and work up to about a cup twice a day and see where that takes you!

[pony_baloney]

When my very Sr. Arab started losing weight, we upped his TC Sr. but he only wants to eat so much of it. The prilled fat of Ultimate Finish 100 didn’t do much.

However, Southern States Legends Omega Plus really makes a difference. It’s not messy like oil or powdery and smelly like Cool Calories. It’s flax-based and looks like cereal. You could probably add this (I gave 1lb/day coming out of winter and will see what happens this fall/winter) and eliminate the flax.

https://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p-6986-legends-omega-plus-40lb.aspx

[sascha]

I agree with the poster who said she hasn’t had luck with prilled fat. In my experience, if you end up feeding enough of it, and your horse happens to poop outside on a sunny day and you happen to back track and the sun is at just the right angle, you can see all your hard earned money sparkling in a mound of poo.

Once I saw that, I switched to oil, and whaddayaknow, the pounds started going on her where on the prilled fat I was pulling my hair out and spending lots of money and getting no results. I had her on the prilled crap for months and had built up the amount gradually so if she had been able to digest it, she would have.

JMO, and I’m sure the dry fat suppliers will tell you different, but I wouldn’t bank on a prilled fat to actually be adding any calories at all.

[Flash44]

OP, before you go purchasing expensive supplements, you might want to check into how much Strategy your horse is presently being fed. If she is getting close to the minimum recommended amount, and is not at the high end of the recommended amount, you may simply need to ask the BM to up the Strategy. Oil is calories, but Strategy is a balanced and fortified feed (even though not everyone likes it) and not only will your horse get more calories with an increase in Strategy, she will get more protein, vitamins, minerals, etc. AND you won’t be out of pocket $$.

[fordtraktor]

I agree on the oil but I would just use vegetable oil because it is substantially cheaper. If that doesn’t work or she won’t eat it, maybe use the expensive cocosoya, but most horses will eat the regular stuff and it will save you a ton to be able to get the huge thing at Walmart and just stick a pump on it. Why pay more when you don’t have to? I don’t see any reason why to use the cocosoya other than that it is marketed for horses if the goal is calories in. I am a huge Uckele fan and use a few of their supps like GUT and LungEQ as well as get some pure products like MSM and MagOx there, but oil won’t be one of them!

I feed Triple Crown Senior to all the hard keepers and it does a great job. Most of them get between six and eight pounds per day, up to ten. Add some oil to that, and that’s worked extremely well here to build horses up.