January 2002

Can Tiny Become An Easy Keeper?

Tiny is thin, but his fat intake is way too high. The healthy road to weight gain begins with his hay and concentrate.

I have a 15-year-old Thoroughbred. Tiny is 17.1 hands and weighs about 1,250 pounds. We bought Tiny a year and a half ago. He was thin and since has put on weight, but he gets a lot of fat.

According to your October 2001 article on feeding starved horses, this may not be the best solution. He eats six to seven pounds of Purina Senior, 12 cups of Satin Finish rice bran, four cups of corn oil and a multi-vitamin supplement. We split this into three meals. He has free-choice grass hay all day. He was on a daily wormer last year, but we switched to a paste wormer. His…