No not me!. My horse.  My 23ish arab mare has trouble keeping weight on during the winter, and I guess fly season too.  Right now, and we try throughout the winter, we are feeding her a grain mix for horses.  She is not super skinny now but she often gets that way during the winter and her super fuzzy coat hides it really well.  So in spring when she sheds out she is a lot skinnier than we thought.  So I was just wondering what you do to keep weight on harder keepers.  Background info: she doesn't have trouble eating, she just eats slow. Our other horse (although totally attached to FA) can get bossy and sometimes kicks her away from the feed in the winter, but I try to spread it out as much as possible.

fastarab:

No not me!. My horse.  My 23ish arab mare has trouble keeping weight on during the winter, and I guess fly season too.  Right now, and we try throughout the winter, we are feeding her a grain mix for horses.  She is not super skinny now but she often gets that way during the winter and her super fuzzy coat hides it really well.  So in spring when she sheds out she is a lot skinnier than we thought.  So I was just wondering what you do to keep weight on harder keepers.  Background info: she doesn't have trouble eating, she just eats slow. Our other horse (although totally attached to FA) can get bossy and sometimes kicks her away from the feed in the winter, but I try to spread it out as much as possible.

I think your Background Info sums up part of your mare's problem.  If there is anyway possible to have extra time to stand there and "babysit" this mare's grain pan until she's done eating her grain, I would do it.

14+ years ago, I rescued an Arab that was a head attached to a skeleton for just this reason.  The folks were suburbanites that "wanted horses".  They had a big, fat, aggressive Appaloosa mare that obese because she wouldn't let the little Arab eat his grain or his hay.  Had they separated the two for feeding time, he wouldn't have been a head attached to a skeleton.

That sweet little Arab is now 21+ years old and has four molars missing, has been on probitics ever since I brought him home, and also gets chiropractics for a vertebra injury that he had when I bought him.  Even when I didn't have stalls, I stayed with him (he is also a very slow eater) until he was done eating his grain.  I would spread the hay in more piles than I have horses so he could always have a hay pile to eat from.

He's not the easy keeper he should be for an Arab, but I blame it on his poor health when I found him, but he has a shiny healthy coat, is plump, sassy and loves to play tricks on me

So if it's manageable, separate your 23 yo at least for grain time

WalkintheWalk beat me to it. I was going to suggest the same thing. When I got my first horse and had her boarded in a pasture situation, where the owner fed them each day with grain, it took me a while to figure out why she was losing weight. The owner's Arab gelding would scarf his own grain down and then proceed to dine on everyone else's feed. All he had to go was put his ears back and pull a face and they would back right off and let him eat their grain! After we started feeding the horses, in the stalls, in the barn, my mare at the time finally started putting on some weight.

wet her feed so it gets moist and have your vet check her teeth. Eating slowly is not totally normal. Give her a digestive supplement, one that has live bacteria in it (yeast is commonly used). Monitor her weight by feeling her ribs weekly, or use a tape. Its always better for a older horse to be a little fatter in the winter than skinny (but not obese)

I have a hard keeper at my place, my best friend's 26 y/o thoroughbred, Ren. He gets more hay than the others, equine senior, Source Focus Sr, and beet pulp. I also have to ONLY allow him to have horses around him that are MUCH lower in status than he is, so that they cannot touch his food. That meant dividing up my horse area and putting in a nother shade, but it made a big difference for his weight! :) I had him with my Friesian, and it took me "babysitting" him so he could eat wtihout her taking his food. THen I ordered a feed bag so he could eat his extra stuff while I continued feeding and cleaning, but instead I just moved him back to the smaller area (I had my TB in there until I made sure he and the friesian and my pinto pony would be ok... they are, so I swtiched the TBs).

Jessi

I agree with the others on feeding her separately and start giving her a fat supplement.  There are a ton out there but the cheapest would be black oil sunflower seeds or vegetable oil.  You can also blanket her so that her body doesn't have to work as hard to keep her warm.  Make sure she always has hay to eat.  Hay fermenting in the gut is their heater in the winter.  I can't tell you how important it is that horses always have hay to eat in the winter.  Never let them stand around with nothing to eat.  Horse Illustrated had a great article on how horses stay warm in the winter.  If I can find it I'll post it for you.

Here's the link to the Horse Illustrated article, it's a good read....

http://www.horsechannel.com/horse-keeping/cold-winter-horse-keeping.aspx?cm_sp=InternalClicks-_-RelatedArticles-_-horse-keeping/cold-winter-horse-keeping 

Hope this helps....

Thanks everyone for the advice.  I do try as much as possible to babysit her when she has grain, as for the hay I spread it around in piles.  When I am there Trixie doesn't beat her away but I have no way of know what happens when I'm not, and every once in a while she comes in with new scratches and stuff.  I will look into adding more fat into her grain. Thanks

What is she being fed now?

Start supplementing her on a Senior feed twice a day...Equine Merit has a good one that is a complete feed; she could still have hay, but you wouldn't have to add any extras to the grain, because it is designed for seniors.  Feed her seperately, when you grain her, otherwise the grain will do her no good if she doesn't get it.

If you can't separate and can't stand and babysit, are you still around but doing other things?  Maybe you could tie up the big pig then come back and release him?her? when your mare is finished  We had to do this with a mare/gelding pair that was pasture boarded.  Usually SHE was the boss, but not at feeding time! lol

 I also recommend separating them for feeding time. I would also blanket on cold nights. Our older quarter horse mare is a hard-keeper.  We blanket her at night (light blanket) if the temp. is going to drop below 45 degrees.  Also, if you are concerned she isn't getting enough hay...can you put her in a stall for one hour to be sure she gets a couple of flakes?   This past summer, I wanted my mare to gain a little weight so I put her in her stall for an hour and gave her an extra feeding of hay.  We feed hay 3-4 times a day but...she is in a paddock with five other horses....the Shire gelding and Haflinger gelding get more than their share.  It was a way for me to make sure she was getting that little bit extra.  She is now at a great weight, heading into winter. 

I second faluut42 on wetting the grain and having her teeth checked.  If she has any hooks or sharp edges on her teeth, it could be a bit painful to eat. Horses grind their teeth when they eat, so older horses especially should have their teeth checked atleast annually.  It doesn't cost much to have their teeth floated.  And as far as wetting the grain, I do it for several reasons; so my horse doesn't bolt whole peaces (they might swell in his stomach),  so he doesn't waste half of it (he likes to grab a mouthful, toss his head, and drop half of it if it's dry),  and so that it's easy to chew.  And like the others have said extra hay is important in winter, because the process of digesting hay helps keep the horse warm.

OK, so I'm working on my parents with all the feeding stuff.  For now as far as I can tell she is getting her share of hay.  I should have clarified that my other mare only steals when she is having marish times or when she is hungary, unfortunatly we started feeding them extra hay a little to late this year but we are working on fixing that now.  Right now she is on an equine feed, can't remember the name, from our local feed mill.  I will definatly look into getting her on a senior feed.  As far as her teeth I will look into that as well.  Compared to our mare she eats slow but compared to the gelding she is with for the winter she eats fairly normal.  I have watched her closely when she is eating and have never seen any feed coming out of the mouth at all.  But I will try some of these things and see what happens. Thanks