Feeding the Hony

After four years of keeping thoroughbreds, keeping a half welsh kiddo at an ideal weight caused a bit of panic initially. JT said he was generally a work six days a week kinda dude, okay I can do that. But how do I feed him? Or not feed him, really.

Butterball was pretty happy in the feeding system at JT's barn - in during the day with the world's tiniest hole slow feed hay net (that his owner kindly gave me) and then out at night with minimal grass and a round bale of tifton. But he moved up to my home barn with LOADS of grass in October, so I entered the world of grazing muzzles. 

Per recommendations, I got a GreenGuard Muzzle and then pretty rapidly their specific halter since he removed it rapidly without their halter. Even once I got the halter, it took quite a few nights of modifying before I got it adjusted so that he could eat but not rub it off on the fence. Now he's wearing it most of the time unless he can talk Ben into taking it off over the fence. 

I spoke with my BFF in NJ and asked if he really needed to be wearing a grazing muzzle every night. She said the short answer was probably yes, but the practical application of muzzles is difficult. She recommended submitting an insulin level after a night out on grass, using the grass as a glucose tolerance test essentially. If it wasn't high after a night on grass, then he could go out without the muzzle, but just keep an eye on his weight. I had submitted an insulin level when I ran blood as part of his PPE and it was 21 (reference range <20 uIU/mL). The day before Milton I pulled another after he chowed down outside the whole night without a muzzle, and it came back this week as 22. Woohoo! Pony can go out free! We're still going to do a MWF with muzzle, other four days without so that he doesn't get fat, but overall I was pleased with this approach. And I think it will make him much easier to manage over the summer. Our soil is so sandy and he looooooves a good roll, so the combo of sweat and sand was really setting him up to get rubs if he had to be in it every night. 

HALP! Report pony abuse! 

Grain wise, he switched to Seminole brand with the move, but still gets a small helping of ration balancer twice a day. He also gets OneAC and Relyne GI. For hay, he is on two flakes of orchard grass in the teeny tiny hole hay net. He still has it finished after about six hours, but without that net, he'd inhale it in less than an hour. I'm considering one of the portagrazer type things, but now that he doesn't have to be muzzled every night, I'm a bit less worried about his teeth dealing with soo much in the way of his food. 

I also baked him a tray of Low Starch Apple Cinnamon Horse Treats and he thinks they're pretty great. They were super easy to throw together. Ben also likes them, but Goggles was pretty sure they weren't food. 

Those of you with experience with easy keeping critters, any tips of tricks to share?