How can you get your horse(s) to lose weight at rapid speed without starving them?

Question

I have three warmbloods, one Dutch, one Hanovarian, and one Trakehner. Just beginning to work with them again, each have not been ridden since early spring and are each between 100-400lbs over weight. They are 24/7 turned out, stalls only in extreme weather conditions, and live off their hay in the paddock and fed some oats and fat and fibre about two to three times a week, as they do not require a three meals a day plan like my Danish mare does. Shows are already halfway through and I would like to get these horses in shape so they can do a few shows by the end of the summer or beginning of fall. They are going to be ridden 4 days a week. I need suggestions to get them as healthy as possible, lose their excess weight, and get in shape as quick as possible. Any suggestions on meals, riding excersises, medications, or general tips are very appreciated. Please help! Thanks!

Answer 1

Listen, first of all do check with your vet to make sure it is okay for your particular horse to loose a lot of weight quickly. Here are some tips:

1. Once my stallion Kiron became overweight. I found an effective technique was slowly decreasing the amount of food he ate. One day it was fifteen pounds, the next day it was fourteen, and so on until I reached about seven or eight pounds a day. I kept him there for a while.

2. Don't give your horse all-access to the pasture, they will eat too much.

3. Ride your horses everyday for at least four hours a day. This helped me with I found my stallion Kiron overweight. See tip 1.

Hope this helps,

Nicole

Answer 2

Cut back on oats;not hay. Just keep up with regular exercise. Don't try to get them to lose weight crazy fast, it should really happen over a long span of time.

Answer 3

Just as mostly everyone else has already mentioned, there is no safe method to get a horse to shed pounds rapidly.  Its not healthy.  BUT, there is a feed designed for overweight horses.

The name fo the feed is WellSolve W/C (stands for weight control)  It is specifically designed for the overweight horse or if you wish to maintain the current weight it works great for that too.  This feed is proven to help a horse lose weight, as long as it is fed properly.  In their tests the data showed that the control group (the ones who did not recieve the W/C and a regular diet of hay and grains adjusted to restrict calories.) really did not lose much weight.  (Well, the exception in the data is when there was a freak snow storm around week 3 where all the horses weight dropped significantly.)  The second group who were on the W/C feed with no exercise did lose weight slow and steadly.  The last group who were fed the W/C and worked regularly (really worked, not just 20 mins of a hack.) dropped more weight then all three.  For about the first 3 weeks all the horses lost about the same amount of weight.  But, after the 3 weeks is where the weight loss differed.  The control group continued to lose a slow and steady rate.  The group being feed the W/C with no exercise lost more then the first group.  An average of about 50 pounds.  The last group lost an average of 90 pounds who were being worked at 90 minutes a week and working up to 180 minutes.  The trials were over 6 week periods.

Now as I have had to mention to just about every person who I design feeding programs for, YOU MUST FEED BY WEIGHT AND NOT SCOOPS.

Some great key points about this feed:

-Contains ideal levels of digestible energy to help manage caloric intake and weight control while maintaining a healthy body condition.

-Its an extruded pellet so that you can still give full scoops of the desired weight to be fed.  Because the air is puffed into the pellet it weighs less resulting in you being about to feed full scoops.  This helps with the idea that when you reduce feed sometimes you feel like youre starving your horse with only a 1/2 or 1/3 a scoops.  You dont feed like youre starving your horse with such a small amount of another feed like oats.

-Its highly palatable and horses love the taste.

-There are less then 15% soluble carbohydrates (sugar and starch). Instead, it’s formulated with fermentable fibers and other low calorie nutrient sources.

-No molasses, no grains, no added fats

-Veterinarian researched

The link below is the page with much more detailed information.

http://www.wellsolveequine.com/default.a...

As mentioned with other answers make sure there are no health problems and check with your vet if you are unsure.

-make any feeding changes gradually 7-10 days

-always provide fresh clean water

-provide salt

-pasture has the highest nutrient content at morning and night.  If possible you might want to try stalling your horses overnight and let them graze during the day only.

any questions you can contact myself: [e-mail]

Answer 4

You might want to ck with your vet on this.  You don't want them to drop weight too quickly.  That would not be healthy either.

Answer 5

Get rid of the hard feed with small amounts being taken away so they dont get unhealthy about the sudden change. Hard feed is usually used for horses that get ridden everyday or that need to put weight on. Hay is great for filling on horses but not letting them gain weight.

Ride tem everyday and if you do poles and jumping on them that will get them more built up and losing weight in no time.

Call your vet to discuss this diet change for the safre alternative for your horses.

:) Paige

Answer 6

dont give them feed. just give them hay and put them in an arena full of grass by his/her selve and they will get use to running around by themselve and playing amongst themselves.

Answer 7

Well I would talk to your vet first if I were you.  But I would recommend cutting back a little bit on their food, and riding them more and more each day.

Answer 8

Start by lunging them or riding them lightly, then once they are used to being excercised start cutting back on their fat intake bit by bit. It isn't healthy for any animal, even people, to lose weight quickly, as it strains and weakens your body. Ask your vet or trainer for help before making any changes. The person before me said to ride them for 4 hours a day and drastically decrease their food - DON'T OVERWORK THEM! Start with a light ride, escpecially in this heat, and work to about 2 hours a day (about 30 minutes of riding 4 tinmes a day, not all at once)

Answer 9

I own a 14.2 cob x .. she losses weight so quick it is unbeliviable .. before i ride her she looks just a bit underweight and after the ride she tucks up and looks as if iv starved her even if i walked the whole ride.. i hav talked to my wet and he said ther r no problems with her whatso eva and her diet is perfect if i feed her any more it could cause problems! i also hav a section c which is serioussly overweight! it doesnt matter how much i cut down her feed or how much i ride her ( EVERY DAY PRACTICALLY) she just doesnt loose weight .. shes extremmly fit but extremely FAT.. make sense? probabbly doesnt...its like people some people work well with diets and some dont ..some people look gd fat and others dont it all depends what geans the horse has inherited ... jus be careful which way u cut down her feed because her body is used to a certain amount of vitimins...put it this way she aint guna put on weight if shes getting exerscice ... so maby cut her food down a little and incease her exersice ..as long as she / he is fit and capable it doesnt matter ..exept if her health is at risk ..

GOOD LUCK .. I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM !

x x x

Answer 10

I am going to be honest with you. There realy is no rapid yet safe way to get your horse to loose weight. It usually takes months to get your horse to lose weight. First, you have to slowly ration them of of grain. Start making thier turn-out times shorter (by 20 minutes or so). Also, exercise them as much as possible. I would recommend at least 30 minutes a day but no more than 1 hour and 30 minutes

Answer 11

Just feed them a hand full of feed and work them gently but work them

Answer 12

take the hard feed away and spreed the hay out in smaller lots across the day. you can also give them meddic hay and see if there is a yard with know feed in it to leave them inthere for a short time. to make them use there fat you must cut down the feed and incress the work load to make them sweet. heavey rugs will help them lose waght as they don't need the fat to keep them worm.

Answer 13

First of all - you cannot lose the weight quickly. It's got to come off slowly and steadily, or you're in for a host of problems.

Overweight horses do not need oats. Oats are great for building condition on extremely fit horses who tend to be poor doers - they are not appropriate for your horses and by feeding oats you are undoing any attempts at weight loss. Ditto for feeding fats! What fibre are they getting? Also - if you are feeding, you should be feeding every day. Horses' digestive systems are not built for chopping and changing.

How poor is your paddock? I'd be willing to guess that they don't need as much hay as you're giving them - maybe not any at all. At this time of year, unless your paddock is absolutely dire (and if it is, it's horse sick and needs a rest!) they would be fine on just grass.

Ride 6 or 7 days a week. Start with long walks - around an hour is good, but make sure the horses are walking out properly. There's no point going if they're just wandering along. After a week or so, you can add in some trot work - but be sure not to overdo it. When overweight and unfit, it's far more likely that they could get an injury. It's important to push them enough to make them sweat, but not to pure exhaustion.