I have to fatten up my horse...

Question

So I have a 17-year old Arabian gelding and he has gotten a little too skinny for my liking over the summer (and school year- but I was at college). This is happening to a lot of horses in his pasture, so it's not just him. Anyway, I'm wondering if any of you have recommendations on how to fatten a horse up in a healthy way. I've been giving him beet pulp every time I see him (a couple times a week), but it doesn't seem to be doing much of anything. He only gets hay in his pasture - there isn't much grass at all - and I don't give him extra grain or anything, aside from the little that I mix in with the beet pulp.

I'll be taking him to school with me in about a month, and I'd love it if anyone could give me any tips that would help me put a little weight on him before I move him up to school. I was thinking about getting some 'weight builder' by Farnam, but I think it's in powder form, so I'm not sure what I'd add it to, since he doesn't get grain every day or anything.

If any of you have gone through this and have successfully put weight on your horse, I'd love to hear how you did it!

*Please, no stupid answers like, "feed him more" or something - I'm not stupid.*

Answer 1

Your vet is doing the right thing to rule out kidney failure first...the blood test will show whether nitrogenous waste is accumulating in the blood...if it is, it indicates kidney failure.  If it isn't, the vet can rule that out and take the next step to find a cause.  Something in the vet's observations led him/her to suspect kidney shutdown.

Answer 2

Omolene 300 4lbs & 1lb of beet pulp 2 X per day (yes its a lot, if you can feed that amount separated into 4 or 6 feedings it would be better). Do a 5 day wormer and feed as much alfalfa as he can eat. This is what Fred Tabor (multiple world champion halter horse trainer) told me to tell my friend with a similar 13 year old arab.  

Answer 3

I would still look at teeth first if you haven't already.

If he isn't gaining weight on beet pulp, I would increase it, how much are you actually giving?

Also run a blood panel, have the vet check for CHF, just to make sure you aren't dealing with something metabolic.

Arabs are usually such easy keepers, that it really doesn't take much to get them to porky pig status.

I wouldn't go into the whole grain and weight building, things like beet pulp just do the trick when you are dealing with a horse with no other issues.

Good luck.

EDIT- ditto shannon's senior feed idea.  I have used equine senior on a ulcerated mule and it is an excellent weight builder.

Answer 4

Our horses always fattened up off the pasture, but it seems like the pasture is your problem. Do you have anyone that could feed him daily? It doesn't seem like you can do much about the situation. Moving him to school with you may help him gain too. There, he may have a grass pasture to eat constantly, which should help him put weight on. Maybe a senior formula feed would help as well.

edit- I didn't even think about teeth checks and such. Those could be pivotal. I had a horse with bad teeth before. Once they were worked on, that horse put on weight like nobody's business.

Answer 5

Try rice bran. It has a higher fat content than any other feed, and you can feed it to them in bulk without having to worry about colic. It is about the only thing I've found that can put and keep weight on my 18 year old TB mare. For weight gain, I have to feed 6lbs of it a day mixed with 6lbs of Senior.  But she is a pretty hard keeper so you could probably get away with half that much or a third.

A lot of people like to feed beet pulp. It helps too but it's main function is as a source of digestible fiber. So it's almost like giving them more forage, like grass hay, it's just more digestible. But it's not necessarily that high in fat. Beet pulp can actually be used as a source of fiber/roughage when no hay or grass is available.

Rice bran, on the other hand, contains a lot of calories from fat to put the weight on a horse. It has 1/3 more calories than beet pulp, by weight. (i.e. you'd have to feed 1.3 pounds of beet pulp to get the same calories as you'd get from 1 pound of rice bran). This is a big reason why I prefer it...it's more cost effective. However, rice bran can have a mineral imbalance, so if you feed more than about 2 pounds of it, you should make sure a horse's diet is supplemented with a mineral block and/or a complete feed (hence why I feed Senior as well).  You could try Strategy or Ultium or just Senior.  Any horse can eat that as it's highly digestible.  They don't HAVE to be old :)

Answer 6

flax seed  

Answer 7

Keep up with the beet pulp, I used it on my underweight TB, it took him about a month to really show an improvement, and we worked it up to be about a half a scoop of the beet pulp as dry matter. We mixed our beet pulp with some rice bran and equine sr (high fat content) and it helped him get about 200 lbs overall. Good luck!

Answer 8

my horse was very skinny when we bought her. we put 1 cup of corn oil in her feed bucket at her evening feeding with her feed. that really helped to fatten her up. I hope this helps!!!!!!

Answer 9

i once had an appaloosa mare that got WAY too skinny for my liking and our vet recommended starting her on a high calorie grain like Omolean and adding a half cup of brewer's yeast to the grain.  I fed her this concoction once a day and within weeks she had put on weight and her ribs weren't showing.  its worth a try

Answer 10

try something like horse pellets or sugar beet.i had a 28 year old pony and this made her to fat.but be sure to soak it for a good 24 hrs!!you can get it from farmlands.it made my pony too fat for my liking

Answer 11

My horse did the same thing. it could be worms. be sure to de worm him because if the other horses r doing it to, then it probably worms. be sure to get that checked out. but it could also be his age. when my horse did that, i switched him to a feed that was for older horses, and had more fat and protein. just at his old age, he is needing stuff to help with it. I hope i can help u horse get better!!!!