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> > The Barn Ladies I talked to said not to decrease her feed until the
> > winter was over
>
> You're in California.  There won't be any winter unless someone back  
> east
> ships you some in a box.  Start the diet now.


hey, it was COLD yesterday!  There was some FROST on my car and the  
high was only something like 58!

<grin> I used to live in the northeastern US so I know what you mean.   
I still feel like fall just goes directly into spring here.  I'm still  
raking my leaves, and around New Year's is when the last of the leaves  
get raked just as I see the first spring blossoms, and by mid January  
or so the birds are singing and it smells like springtime.  After 12  
years out here it still is weird.  But I will say, "winter" here feels  
cold to me now and the concept of calling a rainstorm a "winter storm"  
doesn't sound so odd.

> > But I wanted to
> run her diet past you folks.
>
> Cut the supplements entirely, give her a plain white salt block, and  
> cut her
> hay so that she's getting a pound and a half for each 100 pounds of
> bodyweight, split into two meals.  At lunch, if you feel strongly  
> about it,
> give her a handful of grass hay, and by "handful", I mean what you  
> can get
> all your fingers around with one hand, so that your fingers and  
> thumb touch,
> not what you can hold together with both arms wrapped around it.   
> Ride her
> at a walk with a little trotting three or more times a week.  She  
> will not
> die.  She will lose weight and start getting fit, and then you can  
> give her
> a little more.  She's a BLM mustang and anything better than sagebrush
> counts as a feast.

Let me think... 1.5% of her body weight is 13.2 pounds and I figured  
she's getting between 12 and 14 pounds daily right now.  That said,  I  
can cut out the 2 pounds of lunchtime hay easily to get it down to 10  
- 12 pounds.  I don't feel comfortable cutting out the ration balancer.

I'm riding her 4 - 5 times a week right now, between an hour and two  
hours.  This is way more work than she had before I got her, so it  
might be enough for her to get on the right track.   How often should  
I weight-tape a horse to see what's going on?

Thank you,

Betsy


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