Restricted Diet/ Excercise

[chocolatecakeystuff]

Hi guys, It's been flipping ages since i last posted, been a stupidly busy what 7 months or something?!?!

For any of you that remember (and those that don't) i have a 14 year old Mare, bought by my Ex who also owned the yard i kept the horse on.... she was on & off lame and finally diagnosed with Inflamation around the Navicular bone (not full blown navicular) over the summer due to poor shoeing before i got her - anyway, after having pretty much a year off work, she had got more than just a little porky.

She's now sound, after changing farrier & getting her feet in much better shape - and back in work, on a different yard with more facilites and even better my Ex doesn't own it haha :-D She's not losing weight as quickly as i would have liked despite working (I don't want to over work her for her to go lame again as obviously carring the extra weight is putting strain on her joints)

So Anyone got any good hints/tips etc for our weight loss plan.
Atm, she is strip grazed in a small paddock between 9am & 2pm and in during the night having approx 8-10lb's of soaked hay at night. Obviously no hard feed.
She uses a horse walker for 20 mins, (10 mins each way)
and then is ridden most days for 30-45 minutes. (mostly walk work, but we do a small amount of trotting too (trying to built up slowly) and a little canter on each rein
Im so worried with the spring grass that she's going to end up with lamitus. It's not possible atm to turn out at night on our yard.

[Pixel]

When you say strip grazing have you actually got grass and how often do you move the fence?

[chocolatecakeystuff]

Ok for lack of a better word 'strip grazing' I can't really call it a starvation paddock, as we've only had turn out for 2 weeks, so theres a little bit of grass in there, but not loads (they've been stuck in for a while due to the flooding & stuffs) The fence was moved for the first time yesterday by about 2 ft so not really added much grass, (the whole yards fences got moved as they were fertalizing or something (was out fence juding at p2p @ the time)

[Pixel]

Oh right so she hasn't really got a lot of grass then. I just wondered because if she had then 5 hours is quite long to be munching and then of course she is out during the part of the day when the grass is sweetest but you haven't got a lot of choice if she can't go out at night instead.
Well I think all you can do is carry on as you are, limit the intake of grass as much as you can and the weight will come off eventually. That's how dhorse went down two gullet sizes on his saddle last summer it just takes a little time.

[chocolatecakeystuff]

I guess so, we have managed to move down a girth size from a 54 to a 52 (could probably get away with a 50 to be fair) and she's gone downfrom weighing in at a mahoosive 600 in January to 574 so we are getting there slowly. (everyone else is getting hay in their paddocks so she's a wee bit grumpy with the distinct lack of food lol) I'm hoping that we should be able to turn out at night in a few weeks (once all this frost malarkey is over & done with) in which case i'll probably switch to night time turn out (minus any rugs lol) and bring her in during the day time.

[frostyfingers]

I think it's a bit like people - the longer it takes to come off, the longer it stays off. Slow and steady is probably the safest way, and it sounds like you are doing the right thing with her. Dpony, who has a tendency to be a porker but isn't laminitic, was in a small area last summer which was effectively bare with only a double handful of Safe & Sound twice a day - no hay, nothing..... I felt terrible but he was in the best shape he's ever been. Lunging is a good way to get exercise into them, dpony hates it but it's a good workout.