Keeping pony in during the day

[loachey]

She's bothered by flies and suffers from sweet itch. She needs restricted grazing as she's getting a bit lardy and not getting much exercise at the moment. Exercise will increase over the next few months but until then I am keeping her in during the day and turning her out at night. The paddock she's goes into at night has enough grass, its not been grazed down too much.

Should I be giving her anything in the day though whilst she's in the stable or will giving her hay in the stable completely negate the effort I am going to by bringing her in to restrict her grazing?

Thanks, Tara

I empathise totally re the mixed needs here !

She should def have something to eat while she is in to keep her gut moving...... you could try several things to keep the calorie count down though.

1. soak the hay then put it in vv small holed hay net ( or double / triple net it if you dont have small holed nets)

2 .feed barley straw or a mix of straw / hay

1. put large swede hanging in stable to keep her occcupied

Brilliant, thanks.... I can only get wheat straw at the moment so I will go and buy a couple of extra hay nets and then that will make it harder for her to eat it.

She does like swede apparently so I will also do that.

Is there a recommended maximum length of time they "should" or could be left without anything to graze on....as I presume she will eventually finish her hay net and stand there without anything to eat?

Are these treat balls that give out one treat at a time any good in these circumstances? (However the swede option is probably cheaper and easier!)

Would recomend one of the dribble feeding horse balls, wit some low cal fibre cubes, keeps them entertained & gut moving, plus the doubled hay net, I just use a large hay net with a small amount of soaked hay (has to be soaked for a large period of time to reduce calories) and fold it back on it's self to double up so the holes are smaller. also if you can hang the haynet from a beam on the celing or somewherre free standing so it's not against the wall it's harder to eat from and keeps them amused. unless they're like my fat little pony who can't be bothered with it and eats her bed instead

Excellent, thanks for the tips on how to deal with this.

We soak and feed whatever straw we can get hold of. Last time we had barley straw, the buggers wouldn't eat it!

Yeah some of our barley straw was a bit dusty & musky last year. Dpony still ate it instead of having to pick through her haynet tho little madam! Good job i'm such a pansy and give her a HUGE bed lol