Thoroughbred Weight Gain?

Question

I Just sold my appaloosa mare and purchased a 15 year old TB gelding who is amazinig and I was wondering how I can help him gain weight. I dont have the option to feed him more. He gets 2 flakes of hay am, and pm and 1 at noon.. Free choice of grass and gets a scoop of 12% sweet feed.. Thinking about switching to Equine Senior or Omleene 100 but would like to hear more options.. considering I would have to buy the grain and pay full board.. I dont want to work him hard due to being underweight not horrible but is getting thin

Answer 1

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.

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--since your horse is younger I'd try Strategy or something like that instead instead although Senior would work too).

Don't feed sweet feed.  It's not a lasting source of energy.  It's like eating a bunch of sugar...it will just make your horse hot, not necessarily make him gain weight.  Any feed with hight amounts of corn or molasses will do that.

EDIT:  If you can only feed 2 pounds, I would feed 2 pounds of rice bran.  That way you are getting more bang for your buck--more calories in those 2 pounds than in the 2 pounds of a complete feed (Senior/Strategy).

Answer 2

If you have acess to a large field or one with various grasses especially clover! worked wonders for my tb who was thin.

Answer 3

First off, how much is a flake of hay?  Is it 5 pounds or 10 pounds a flake?  Bales are all different around the country and you feed by weight and not scoops or flakes.  Second you are looking at two COMPLEATLY different feeds.  Equine senior is a balanced compleate feed.  Roughage (hay) is formulated into the product.  It is not a pelleted feed.  This feed is designed to be feed alone or with forage.  If fed properly by the correct weight, not scoops, it will meet all the nutritional needs of your horse.  Omolene 100 would definately not help you since there are not enough calories to put on weight unless youre feeding way too much and in that case you risk a number of health issues (founder, colic, etc)  Omolene 100 is a sweet feed that is formulated for pleasure horses who do not need weight gain.  But you are on the right track with the Omolene.  You want Omolene 200 if you are looking into sweet feeds for weight gain.

You need to take a few things into consideration before you decide on a feeding program.  How much does the horse weigh, what you do with the horse, what you want the feed to do (you already mentioned you want to put weight on the animal), and any health concerns (as mentioned before: worming, ulcers, dental issues, etc.)

General things to keep in mind when designing a feeding program:

-Make changes gradually over a period of 7-10 days.  

-If you need to make any adjustments to a program change no more then 10-15% at a time; or no more then 1 pound of feed.

-The horses body condition should be assessed at regualr intervals to determine if the current feed needs to be adjusted.

-When feeding roughage and concentrates you need to feed at least 10-15% of the horses body weight with roughage(hay).

-Always provide fresh water and salt.

Now, from what you said about your horse and my guess that you have no health problems, your horse being about 1000-1100 pounds, you want to put weight on, and you are doing light work with him these are the following I would reccomend feeding him one of the following feeding programs.

(Keep in mind your horse needs 20,000 calories and these diets are baised on the factors listed.  As always consult your vet if you have questions)

Complete Feeds

-18 pounds of Equine Adult

-16.5 pounds of Equine Senior.

Note: if you are feeding with hay, reduce about 1 pound of feed for every 2-3 pounds of hay fed.

Sweet feeds

-6.5 pounds Omolene 200 with 12 pounds of hay.

Pelleted Feeds

-7 pounds of stratagy with 12 pounds of hay

-5.5 pounds of Ultium with 12 pounds of hay

(Remember to feed by WEIGHT) Stratagy is a pelleted feed and Ultium is an extruded pellet (meaning there is air puffed into the pellet).  One scoop of stratagy is going to be very different from one scoop ultium nutritionally.

These are a few diets you can try.  Just remember to monitor your horse and adjust as needed.  Start with one of those at the reccomened amounts and increase as needed.  Remember to spread out the concentrates and dont feed them all at the same time.  The horses digestive system was not designed for 3 large meals or even worse one large meal.  Thats a whole differnt subject.

I noticed you added what you will be feeding.  One -two pounds of either feed will not meet the nutritional needs of any horse.  They are not designed to be feed in that small amount.  Unfortunately it looks like you will need to pay the extra money to properly feed your horse.  You will never get any result with feeding anything in such small amounts.  Feeding such small amount should not make your horse hot.  Balanced feeding shouldnt make any horse hot.

Answer 4

Mabey feed him Beetpulp. Just remember to soak it for about 24 hours. Or I think Source has a weight gain supplement.

Answer 5

thoroughbreds tend to naturally be a bit ribby especially if they are athletic.

beet pulp is a good thing to feed them. its like eating potatoes for horses, it puts weight on them but does not make them hyper. at the ranch i board at they feed a half or full bucket of soaked beet pulp to some of their horses i think around 3 - 5 days a week.

Answer 6

We have a 16 yr old TB gelding who is also hard to put weight on. Does he eat everything you give him? If not, switching feeds would be good. If he eats well, you could try a fattier feed like a Senior feed, but make sure he eats it as well as he eats his current feed.

There is a supplement called Platinum Plus that is a really good all-around supplement. It's not meant for weight gain, but I've noticed that all of the horses we put on it get really fat. And we only give them 1/2 the recoemmended dose!

I know you said feeding him more is not an option, but here is my suggestion anyway. It works for my lightweight TB. Give him free choice hay and grass. 2 scoops of feed AM and PM and another scoop for lunch. Platinum in one feeding per day. People that have known this horse his whole life tell us that they've never seen him look so good.

hcm: great points about checking for deworming, teeth and ulcers. Those could definitley play a role if they're not maintained!

Answer 7

I feed my TB gelding about 9 lbs. of grain per day plus hay. TB tend to be hard to keep weight on, especially one that's 15 years old. Switching to a Senior feed may be a good idea, and a weight gainer supplement is also a good suggestion. Feeding him the proper amount of grain to have a healthy and happy horse should be worth the extra money.

Check with your vet to see if he/she has any other suggestions.

Answer 8

Why is there no option to feel him more? If your horse is thin, then his body is telling you that you need to feed him more. TB's often need more food than easy keepers like Appaloosas that can 'get fat on air.' How much food was he getting at his old place? If you are feeding him more than they were, then he should start to gain weight as a matter of course. It will just take some time to see.

You have some options like adding a weight gain supplement. I have used Farnam's weight gain supplement with some success before. You could get him a higher protein feed - like 14%. Senior feed might help as it is supposed to be more digestible for the horse, and therefore easier for his body to make maximum use of the nutrients in the food. However, senior food is significantly more expensive than other kinds of food.

There are also other reasons he would be thin such as tooth problems or metabolic conditions. You don't say if you have checked for these things with your vet, but I'm guessing that he must have had a vet check when you purchased him. Did your vet say anything then about needing to gain weight?

Answer 9

Beet pulp!

Beet pulp!

Beet pulp!

cost $10 per 50lb bag and only needs 2-3 pounds per day

Answer 10

feed him beet pulp. but i would ask your vet. that way you don't give him to much or not enough. but i have a little arabian mare and she eats 4 flakes of hay a day 2 at am and 2 at pm. well i hope i helped. Sabrina

Answer 11

Omalene 100 is a 12% sweet feed.  Omalene 200 is 14%.  If you changed to Omalene 100 you would just be changing brands of the same thing.  Equine Senior is a pelleted 14% feed.  If your horse is digesting a textured feed ok, you might want to go up to a 14%.  But, if you are not working him much, he may get hyper.  

Has he been wormed recently?  Checked for ulcers?  Teeth floated recently?  Does he crib?  These can all play a role in is being underweight.

You could also add fat to his diet but putting corn oil over the feed.

Answer 12

I'm in California and if I have a horse who's starting to look a bit "ribby" or I've purchased some rack of bones,  I go out and buy a 50LB sack of A&M (Ground alfafa and molasses) (In the mid west they use beet pulp BUT I've been informed that you HAVE to add water to it or it will swell in a horse's belly causing colic), dump it into a tub or feeder in the horse's stall, then top it with some rolled barley corn that is mixed with corn oil and apple cider vinegar. (I feed a 3LB coffee can of the barley corn mixture once a day.) The horse will normally devour the first couple of bags of A&M, but then they will slack off as they get used to it (Never had an issue with colic or founder)...

I haven't fed oats or any mixed feed in decades, basically because I've had running horses and TBs I'm trying to keep quiet, so I feed the rolled barley corn mixture to them for weight, NOT heat.

I also give my horses a hot bran mash twice a week with the vinegar and corn oil (I can mix the barleycorn into it.).  I feed 1/2 a 3 LB coffee can of red wheat flakey bran and add enough water to it so that it looks like oatmeal in consistancy.

I make sure that they get 2 flakes of alfafa hay per feeding.