How to fatten a horse help please

authentic farm, her gate is open and the feeder is full of hay. She can eat all she requires. The quarter section here is more than half light bush and the grass is still lush and green there and has not seen frost yet. I am not ignoring the advice of the kind hearted people here. Ouch.

And AGAIN, I repeat, your mare needs nutrition beyond hay & pasture, if you want her to make it through the winter in good shape. She needs that nutrition NOW. You NEED TO FEED HER GRAIN OR COMPLETE FEED. I seriously cannot stress this enough.

Is this the same mare you are referring to on infomall where you're looking for someone to break her to drive? That would seem inadvisable to me, if she's already underweight, has carried a foal before her body was finished growing, and now you want to put her into training a full year and a half before the norm?

Even though your mare has free access to hay she is not choosing it. Animals cannot always be relied upon to know their own nutritional needs. Confining her would also help to keep the weight on that she gains.

mares will be depleted when nursing just like humans babies suck up allot of nutrients from mom ...from the pic i see she doesnt look that bad but i cant see her from the side either.... when he is weaned that will help allot from what i can say free acess to good quality hay and give her some sweet feed for some extra calories maybe beet pulp as well if you want/ how old is baby?: looks like it is almost weaning time? also she could need her teeth floated (equine dentist)

Baby was weaned at 4 months. He is not nursing now and has not been for 2 months, almost 3.

Yes, I have an ad on the infomall looking for a trainer to train ME, not the horse.

The Fat Ewe wrote:Baby was weaned at 4 months. He is not nursing now and has not been for 2 months, almost 3.

Yes, I have an ad on the infomall looking for a trainer to train ME, not the horse.

Then you might want to remove this ad, because it states pretty clearly that you're planning to train an underage horse:

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Hello Ewe I think it is great that you posted an add for a little help getting you and your horse started! Even at a young age there are basic things she can learn.

Some friends of ours have used stabilized rice bran to help put weight on their horses and say it works well, seeing good results in 4 to 6 weeks. I have not tried this as the horses I usually end up with are too fat lol! It is higher fat content then most feeds and also has high iron and Vitamin E. I think the vitamin E content is high enough you will not have to supplement more to equal out the fat increase in her diet! Vitamin E is good for horses under stress

Not sure if this helps your situation but I see it has not been mentioned! I think it comes in a few different forms (powdered ect.) A feed store or some googling may help with more info.

Your mare is a pretty girl Good Luck Ewe!

Klassy

Just a little update on the skinny mamma...

I did let her go as the horse man suggested and she has put on a huge amount of weight in no time at all. At first she was so busy finding delicious things to eat that she did not return home, but as the snow and cold came, she began to stay more around her pen. I started to feed her oats, just plain oats, and she is doing well. Of course, she has good quality hay all the time, as much as she wants. The farrier is coming in a week, but I have had a hard time finding some one in this area to float her teeth if she needs it. But, the freedom to eat as she felt best has provided her with wonderful results. Gotta love those Canadians!

Fat Ewe, you need a trainer to train you? Take my Horsey Daughter...please.

She is a horse nazi. One of those people who knows it all and is not afraid to smack you with a riding crop to ensure that you do it HER way and do it right!

At the top of her dictator like rules is HORSES ARE NOT PETS! To which I respond, yes they are, as I kiss my baby on the nose while she pins her ears flat back at me. This earned me a smack with a switch. THAT HORSE IS GIVING YOU ATTITUDE! DO NOT STAND FOR THAT! The horse is standing perfectly still while I kiss its nose, when it would much rather be eating..so what if it's ears are pinned, she doesn't do anything. WAIT FOR IT!

Horsey Daughter is of the opinion that unlike dogs who seem eager to please, a horse is not born with the desire to be your hand servant. A horse has its own ideas about its place in the world, and in a horse's mind, that place would be to be the boss of you. SO if you do not act like a boss and deserve to BE the boss, you won't be. A horse will usurp your position as boss/leader if you allow it. This is true. My baby has trained me to scrath it where it itches. She walks over, puts her nose on an itchy spot and I scratch. Horse is boss. I lose.

Horsey Daughter will take all the fun out of owning a horse. What you see as affectionate nuzzling she will see as pushy invasion of space. While you welcome the love, she will freak out and none of her horses DARE approach closer than a set distance and Gordon forbid that they EVER lean a nose in towards a pocket. This is verbotten!

While your horse might be so comfortable with your presence that it continues to graze, ass towards you, as you approach with bridle in hand...or maybe even your horse will decide to leave the area when it sees the bridle, Horsey Daughter's horses do not do that. Hell no! When she arrives in their pen they STOP whatever they are doing and then she stands still with an expectant look on her face and the horse comes to her. And if, GOrdon forbid, she has to go get one, it has learned better than to run off! THey all try that...once. My baby, she heads out when I arrive and Horsey Daughter yells at me that this is my own fault because I am a flaming horse idiot. It's true. I am.

Horsey Daughter would ask you what your end goal is with your horses? Do you want a well mannered, well broke horse who knows the rules and whom you can trust? Then she would say the number one problem you have to overcome is YOURSELF and your views on horse keeping. Then she would tell you that whatever views you have now are wrong, hers are right, listen close and don't screw up. She is, after all, one of those opinionated horse people who knows everything.

But (horsey mom brag alert) one of her horses was recently borrowed by a woman who has advancing MS. Her legs are in an advanced stage of seizure and she has metal braces on both legs. She does ride. BUt getting on a horse is a long, involved, tedious process in which the horse CANNOT MOVE A MUSCLE. Most horses, when presented with someone whose movements are very different from the normal movements of a human, react with some nervousness and skittishness and will step away or jig. Not Horsey Daughter's horses. And for this reason, the fact that her horses are trained to STAND RIGHT WHERE YOU SET THEM, is why her horse was borrowed for this lady to ride. It takes her, literally, 10 minutes to heave and drag herself onto a horse, then someone has to remove the braces from her legs and get her feet in stirrups. It is an extreme procedure and requires a very, very co-operative horse. If Horsey Daughter has trained the horse...it will not move a foot until expressly asked to do so. SO, there might be something of value to what horse nazi Daughter has to say. But I don't listen, and my baby horse is bad.

If you would like her email address so that she can knock all the joy right out of this for you, let me know, I'll hook you up.

Uno, Horsey Daughter sounds like my kind of people!

It is very difficult to find someone to train the person. At her age she can be taught the basics to driving without having the stress in her body. She could be taught to ground drive and to stand for harness, and even to pull something like an old tire which is not heavy enough to harm her body. She should not be put into heavy training until she is three by heavey training I mean 1 hour a day at the most! Good luck with your horses and above all enjoy them! They make awesome friends, and will NEVER judge you or hold a grudge for any mistakes you may make

One word of advice on baby is do not let him get away with lifting a foot at you or nipping and whatever else you do will work out in the long run. Praying you can find someone to help you out. I will check out with a few friends from the Lloydminster area to see if they know of anyone willing to teach you

Yup, what Smokyriver said. One lifted, threatening leg, uncorrected, will lead to another. It's called escalation. Me, I stand, open mouthed and gaping wondering what the horse is doing. If this happens to nazi Horse Daughter she has an approach called DON'T EVEN THINK IT! I have never quite acquired her skill, speed, certainty or technique, and thus, the horses push me around wihthout mercy. It's my own fault.

Uno, I would love to have your daughter's email. I would like to train the horses to be all that. I do not stand for much from my dogs, so the horses would follow suit. But does she live far away from here?

UNO hubby calls mine the ohhhhh don't go there discipline. We were working with a yearling Canadian filly this summer and she shook her foot at me when I touched her leg and I gruffly tell her ehhhhh. She didn't quit so I "bit" her. I used a strong finger bite to stop her. This was enough for her, but in the past when that did not work, I would spin around and kick backwards just like a horse and this usually works awesome to stop them. With each discipline I would give I growl "ehhhhhh" when I am done doing the "play" lessons all I usually have to do is my ehhhhhh and they quite doing whatever action I disapprove of. Works great on hubby also! Lol. He scared me by sneaking up and grabbing my butt and I out of habit kicked back and growled ehh. Guess the horse training habits get so engrained you use them without thinking!

Here is Willa today. As you can see, without beet pulp, Show Stopper or other rations, except whole grain oats and hay, she has gained a good amount of weight and is calm and happy. I am happy too.

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Watch out FatEwe! Soon you will need to be worried about having FatCanadians!

This is obviously the result of the poutine diet. I have achieved similar results myself by eating more than my share of poutine.

I would n cut out the majority of the oats as Canadians are notoriously easy keepers. Our horses paw most of the winter with very little extra hay (only given when the weather gets really bad or they seem to be loosing a little weight) and hubby's mare comes in each spring looking like a mini buluga! She is usually so fat we have to bring her into the corral for a diet come spring so we can actually use her!

OK, only a taste of oats for her now that she is back to normal weight. Thanks to everyone who cared. You are great!

It's hard to truly see body condition in a winter coat, but I'm glad to hear that she's picked up Ewe!

Thought I'd share this link ... it's information on body condition scoring horses, I thought you or someone else might find it useful. Just one more thing to add - thick winter coats (like those grown by Canadians ... or especially my Miniature Horses!) can hide a lot, it's important to actually put your hands on horses in the winter to feel for condition.

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thanks Kendra. I think she is a 6-7 on the body score. I am glad she has been able to quickly put on the weight and is happy.

Kendra that is soooo true!! I had a friend who had a horse who looked super fat, but when we went and actually caught him he was very thin

Having previously been somewhat of an expert on Canadians, including owning and breeding, training them, writing numerous published articles on the breed, becoming involved with pushing a bill through parliament to have the breed declared Canada's National Horse, and being a part of the Canadian Horse Association - Rocky Mountain District, I would put your mare at a 4 to 4.5 body score Eileen. They are a naturally stocky breed, and your mare looks slim even with her winter coat. Keep feeding her until you can barely feel her ribs. She has a lot of catching up to do, with having been bred too early, nursing a foal and becoming too thin - she may still have some growing to do, and she needs the extra calories.

How is the weanling doing, Eileen?

Off topic, authenticfarm, but you must know Dan Wilson then, a local here?