maintaining healthy weight on TB mare

Question
I recently adopted a 7 year old thoroughbred mare off the track, she looks as though she needs to gain a little weight(sometimes her ribs seem very visible). She is currently getting 12% sweet feed and free choice hay but I am wondering if maybe she should get oats and a vitamin supplement? What would be the best diet to feed her to put on a little weight and to maintain it? She gets turned out for about 30-60 minutes a day weather permitting but the grass is very slim and I just walk, trot, and lunge her a couple times a week. Your advice would be so helpful, she is an amazing horse and I want to do what is best for her. Oh and she does crib, she wears a free grazing muzzle in her stall to stop her and it does work. Thanks, Suzanne

Answer
Hi Suzanne,  I had a TB rescue horse who came to me almost dead.  You could count every bone in his body.  What worked for me and seems to work for other people is you need to put her on a high fat low protein diet.  The reason for the low protein is being that she's a TB off the track she probably has some excess energy so you don't want to create more energy which in turn will cause her to be flighty and burn what fat you put on her off.  She's going to have more energy anyway just from adding the extra pounds.  I would suggest more turn out, the more the better especially with the ones off the track as they've lived their whole lives in a stall practically and need that time out for their mental stability.  I have one now OTTB who loses weight if he's up eating grain and hay but gains if he's out eating grass with no grain.  I like to put mine out at night and up during the day if not out all the time.  The feed I'm familiar with is made by Southern States called Legends Equitech.  It's 10% protein, 10% fat, it is a sweet feed so even the picky eaters will usually eat it.  I also like Legends Complete, it's more of a pellet based feed however it does have some oats and molasses.  It's also 10% fat/10% protein.  If she's used to getting grain, I would start her off at 5-6 quarts of equitech (or something similar) 2 x day.  I would also feed her 3-4 quarts of soaked beet pulp 2 x day with her grain.  I've even added rice bran to all of that also in extreme cases.  You would need to work her up to this and not load it on her all at once if you do the beet pulp and the rice bran.  The beet pulp is a good source of fiber and the rice bran is high in fat.  If you don't want to use the rice bran you can feed her 1 cup of corn oil 2 x day over her grain as this is a good source of fat also.  The more hay the better, or any kind of roughage.  I prefer grass hay as opposed to legume hays in this case because of the lower protein.  Alfalfa is great to put fat on but it also is much higher in protein and can work against you with horses that are prone to be more energetic to begin with.  If you have that one in a million TB mare who is dead quiet then I would try the alfalfa.  Oat hay is great also as it's not as high in protein and they seem to eat it well.  To maintain her weight once she has reached the desired weight, I would back her grain down a bit keep the beet pulp (maybe lower it some) and not feed the rice bran, I like corn oil because it's good for their coat but you could back it down some too or take it out totally.  You can also back her hay down to 2-3 flakes 2 x day if she's really keeping her weight up good.  As for a vitamin supplement, I would suggest that anyway with the weight problem or not.  You can also try a weight gain supplement formulated for graining weight, I've used them and can't really tell a difference.  Cribbing definitely has something to do with horses who can't keep weight on,  I would get her a throat collar that's made for cribbing and use that rather than the muzzle so that eating hay will not be so much work for her.  She should have free choice hay all the time if your pasture doesn't have enough grass in it.  I like to use round bales, that's more cost effective and easier.  I know some muzzles they can eat through but they don't get as much hay/grass while wearing it.  I only use a muzzle for horses who need to not take in as much grass out in the pasture.  Lastly, be sure she has been dewormed as this can delay the weight gaining process if she is wormy.  Without seeing your horse's condition it's hard for me to tell you exactly the rations I would feed but you have an idea now and you can customize this feed plan to work for your horse.  If she only needs to gain 25-50 lbs. then tweak this plan to where it's not as extreme by lowering the rations.  A good rule to thumb to go by in determining weight is if you can't see but can palpate her ribs then she's in good weight, if you can easily see her ribs then she needs to gain weight.  Hope this is not an overload of information, and good luck with your mare!  Regards, Jessica