I ride 5 to 6 days a week. And when Twister gets ridden, it's almost never a walk in the park. But seriously my horse is HUGE! He's more fit than he was before but he has a belly like a freaking rhino. I'm going to have to start putting him up at night and only give him a few hrs of turn out a day.
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| no photo does it justice |
Not just because he's a monster, but because the sweet grass (grass that usually isn't still so sweet in almost freaking July but is because it rains so much!) is making his feet soft and sore and I'm worried he's going to get cresty and try and founder on me. He's never foundered before, but I'm not going to sit around and wait and see if it happens.
Or maybe I should buy a grazing muzzle. I wonder how long it'd take him to lose it? Gah. I have never owned a hard keeper. Even my TB's are easy keepers, even the ones in training. So I don't know what that even feels like to be stuffing as much forage down a horse's gullet as possible. All I know is you can gallop for an hour a day every day and still have a fat pony.
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| Battle of the Bulge |
I'm dealing with a round pony at the moment too. I feel like easy keepers are cheaper to feed, but the trade off is the management required to keep them at an appropriate weight (and those feet in good order!)
ReplyDeletegood luck! my mare gets fat off air so i know your pain. mostly a grazing muzzle works for us, esp since i'd rather her be out in turnout than put up in a stall. might be worth a shot?
ReplyDeleteApollo living in a diet pen right now (with a sad mopey face). We feel your pain!
ReplyDeleteI just bought a grazing muzzle. Will be here Friday. I hate having a horse outside alone, and Rascal is having a growth spurt and needs the grass and he'd be lost without Twister. So this way they can be up when it's hot together and they can both go out all night but Twister will have to slow down his chowing down.
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