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Expert
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Location: In the land of peanuts and cotton | My mare started having trouble keeping weight on a few months ago before we weaned the baby. We upped her feed and she put it back on and looked good. Now we’re in the process of weaning and she’s loosing weight agin. She’s still getting the same amount of feed so I don’t know what could be causing it. We wormed her about 3 weeks ago Incase that was it. Is it normal for her to loose weight while weaning? |
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Extreme Veteran
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Location: lone star state | if she is really stressed about the weaning. i had a mare this year loose weight but she really paced and nickered for her baby. after a month or so she began putting weight back on. |
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 A Somebody to Everybody
Posts: 41354
Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | Hows her teeth? And has she dryed up yet? I would keep an eye on her udder so to make sure shes drying up, sometimes they can get so tight while weaning the babys that they can get milk fever.. |
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Expert
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Location: In the land of peanuts and cotton | Southtxponygirl - 2018-12-13 8:33 PM
Hows her teeth? And has she dryed up yet? I would keep an eye on her udder so to make sure shes drying up, sometimes they can get so tight while weaning the babys that they can get milk fever..
Teeth are good. She just had them done. She appears to be dry. If she isn’t completely dry she doesn’t have much. |
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 Reaching for the stars....
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I have an older broodie (22yo and preggers again!) who has always been a challenge to keep weight on during pregnancy, lactation, and then weaning. She is high stress and a hard keeper by nature. I have to up her feed before foaling without upping the #'s of grain, so she doubles her alfalfa. Then I up her grain a bit after foaling and keep adding hay until she doesn't clean it up during lactation. She still drops over 100# during lactation, and then drops another 50-100# when I wean because she is so stressed she doesn't eat much. But after 30 days or so she will start cleaning up her feed again and I can get a bit on her topline by winter. I also add every kind of fat to her diet after weaning to try to plump her up. The heaviest I've ever seen her is barely a 5 on the body scale, and she ends up a barely 3 after weaning.
Give her some time to de-stress from weaning. Add alfalfa if you can, and fats will put more on them quicker than straight out bagged feeds. |
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A Somebody to Everybody
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Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | TessBelle - 2018-12-14 7:02 AM Southtxponygirl - 2018-12-13 8:33 PM Hows her teeth? And has she dryed up yet? I would keep an eye on her udder so to make sure shes drying up, sometimes they can get so tight while weaning the babys that they can get milk fever.. Teeth are good. She just had them done. She appears to be dry. If she isn’t completely dry she doesn’t have much.
Thats good on teeth and drying up, is this her first baby? How old is she, like some were saying maybe its the stress and as time gos by she will get back to normal weight. She may have developed uclers  |
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| Our TB mare is somewhat of a hard keeper, and she was looking great just before we weaned her foal, so we thought her feed intake would be about the same/if not less after we weaned, since she wasn't needing to produce milk anymore, but the stress of weaning hit her harder than we had expected and we gradually had to almost double her Strategy and free choice alfalfa/grass hay. She dried up after a month and was back to her normal healthy weight, and now she's looking fantastic going into winter. |
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Expert
Posts: 1477
Location: In the land of peanuts and cotton | Southtxponygirl - 2018-12-14 9:04 AM
TessBelle - 2018-12-14 7:02 AM Southtxponygirl - 2018-12-13 8:33 PM Hows her teeth? And has she dryed up yet? I would keep an eye on her udder so to make sure shes drying up, sometimes they can get so tight while weaning the babys that they can get milk fever.. Teeth are good. She just had them done. She appears to be dry. If she isn’t completely dry she doesn’t have much.
Yes. First baby. She’s 16. She’s always had ulcers. Kept her on meds daily until she was bred because I couldn’t get a straight answer if they were safe for the foal or not. I can’t belive I haven’t thought about that. I’ll start her back on it just as soon as I can get some ordered. |
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A Somebody to Everybody
Posts: 41354
Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | TessBelle - 2018-12-14 2:43 PM Southtxponygirl - 2018-12-14 9:04 AM TessBelle - 2018-12-14 7:02 AM Southtxponygirl - 2018-12-13 8:33 PM Hows her teeth? And has she dryed up yet? I would keep an eye on her udder so to make sure shes drying up, sometimes they can get so tight while weaning the babys that they can get milk fever.. Teeth are good. She just had them done. She appears to be dry. If she isn’t completely dry she doesn’t have much. Yes. First baby. She’s 16. She’s always had ulcers. Kept her on meds daily until she was bred because I couldn’t get a straight answer if they were safe for the foal or not. I can’t belive I haven’t thought about that. I’ll start her back on it just as soon as I can get some ordered.
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Mare loosing weight after weaning foal?