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Discussion on Brood mare going back to riding
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Member:
Mleeb
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov 29, 2006 - 11:38 pm:
For the first time ever, I'm buying a brood mare. She's spent 8 years in the brood mare band, and had 3 foals in that time, every other year. Prior to that, she was a good riding mare with 2 years of show experience. She now has that lovely brood mare belly, and I'm wondering if exercise will eliminate it, or only improve it a bit? I don't plan to breed her, just ride trails and work some cows now and then. She's apparently quite fast, and was started on the barrel pattern before becoming a mom, so I might take her in that direction as well.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Thursday, Nov 30, 2006 - 6:14 am:
Assuming she did not foal recently this may be more about the forage than the foals. I think a diet designed to trim the middle, primarily a diet that is lower in roughage , in combination with regular exercise will return her to a more lithe look.
DrO
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Member:
Mleeb
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Posted on Thursday, Nov 30, 2006 - 8:59 am:
Her last foal was this past spring.
Our horses have it pretty casual here, 24/7 on pasture, hand fed grass hay twice a day in the winter (a minimal amount) and then on their own to paw under the snow. In summer, the majority are still on pasture 24/7, with a few in dry lot with 12 hour turn out every other day.
To my mind, grass and hay ARE roughage. Did you have something else in mind, or were you just thinking the amounts should be restricted somewhat?
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Member:
Mrose
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Posted on Thursday, Nov 30, 2006 - 11:21 am:
We've had success getting horses back in shape by cutting back on grass or grass hay and feeding less higher quality hay or feeding cubes and increasing exercise.
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Member:
Aannk
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Posted on Thursday, Nov 30, 2006 - 11:23 am:
Michelle,
Just my experience, albeit limited (only two mares with babies). Their bellies never do get back to the pre pregnancy look. Of course, they do get better as they get farther from when they gave birth, but I guess it is the same as with a human. Some can get back pretty close (movie stars with lots of either surgery or training), some stay larger the rest of their lives, some are more average.
I would start with in hand work, light lunging (walk and no more than 5 minutes trot) or round pen work for at least two weeks building up to no more than 15 minutes trot each direction, then get on and start with no more than 15 minutes walk, add 5 minutes trot each week, then add canter when she has gotten to about 30 minutes of trot with no problems. That is what I did when my mare had two years off to have her baby.
Alicia
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Friday, Dec 1, 2006 - 8:19 am:
No Michele, it is better to look upon grass and hay as "forage" because there is a large amount of variation in the amount of roughage depending on maturity. Roughage is the structural carbohydrates that are not digestible by either the horse or the microbes in the cecum. However it is important for normal digestion and behavior effecting the horses feeling of satiety and help regulating bowel motility.
Horses eating feedstuffs with large amounts of roughage respond with enlarged bowel segments and a more relaxed abdominal musculature to accommodate the bowel: what we call a hay or grass belly. By providing all the horses necessary nutrients with feeds lower in roughage content the abdominal segments become smaller and the exercise helps tighten up the muscles. For more on all this see the article on Forages in the Nutrition topic.
Concerning Alicia's comment, there are mares out there on large quantities of poor quality hay who have never had a foal with bellies that are huge and on the other hand there are some mares out there 11 months pregnant that it is hard to tell if they are pregnant at all. There is a lot of variation in bellies out there but you can get pregnant mares back looking "not pregnant" with diet and work.
DrO
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Member:
Frances
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Posted on Friday, Dec 1, 2006 - 8:40 am:
DrO, does a hay belly cause any physical problems to a horse (can't be extra weight on the joints because air doesn't weigh anything), or is it only aesthetically undesirable?
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Member:
Kthorse
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Posted on Friday, Dec 1, 2006 - 8:56 pm:
I am not sure what Dr O has to say but I have seen geldings with bellies that look like they are heavy in foal. One particular one is 30 plus years and is so healthy and fit but looks like he will foal any day. This horse has never been on grain just unlimited hay. I see him going on for many many more years. What Dr O says is true. mares with proper diet and exercise can loose the belly. We have one here that was a brood mare and had a belly for about 5 years, she is now trim and fit and is also in her 20's no more belly.
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Member:
Kthorse
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Posted on Friday, Dec 1, 2006 - 9:00 pm:
PS all the broodmares we have owned and it is quiet a few all lost the belly if they had a year off from foaling, with diet and exercise.
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Member:
Imogen
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Posted on Saturday, Dec 2, 2006 - 6:36 am:
It depends on the mare but it is quite possible to get them back pretty much to "before" looks except that the more foals they have usually the more they develop a slight dip in the back which is also sometimes age as well.
So I would not worry too much about the belly, that will come off, but I would look at the spine. Can you post a picture?
Imogen
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Saturday, Dec 2, 2006 - 6:43 am:
No, a hay belly in itself is fine as long as the overall condition is around the moderate range on the Henneke scale and the horse appears healthy and feeling good. It should not be interpreted as a fat condition. You will notice in the condition scale there is no mention of abdominal girth.
DrO
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Member:
Mleeb
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Posted on Saturday, Dec 2, 2006 - 1:44 pm:
I don't have her here yet, and the only recent pictures are too foggy to be worth posting. This one was taken one or two summers ago, and seems to show a good topline, as do her more recent pics. The recent ones just show a bigger belly. I'm told she has high withers as well, which is not as obvious in this "head down" picture.
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Member:
Imogen
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Posted on Sunday, Dec 3, 2006 - 4:52 am:
Lower legs are a bit fine for the rest of her conformation and perhaps front legs a bit short?Otherwise looks great, kind face from what I can see which I always consider important... nice rear end. I think her back looks fine and you should not worry about the belly.
Good luck!
Imogen
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Member:
Mrose
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Posted on Sunday, Dec 3, 2006 - 10:02 am:
She's beautiful. It's hard to tell about her front legs, imo, from the angle of the picture and if she had less belly her legs wouldn't look so short. She's very fine boned for a QH; is she appendex?
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Member:
Dres
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Posted on Sunday, Dec 3, 2006 - 10:22 am:
Look at the SHEEN on that mare... someone has taken very good care of her..
On the first day God created horses, on the second day he painted them with spots..
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Member:
Mleeb
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Posted on Sunday, Dec 3, 2006 - 12:36 pm:
No, not appendix. One side of her papers is the same as a gelding I own, and he is even more fine boned than she is. That common lineage is what first caught my eye, as I wasn't shopping for a horse. The gelding is such a wonderful horse, I just had to check and see what this one was like, too. The seller tells me she does move like a thoroughbred, though, something you notice in a very flat kneed movement, and in the motion when she walks. I have no thoroughbred knowledge whatsoever, so I wouldn't know. Some of the other pics she sent, the fuzzy ones that I won't be posting, she does look more thoroughbred in the well defined withers.
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Member:
Maggienm
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Posted on Sunday, Dec 3, 2006 - 4:51 pm:
The mare i bought this sumer had been a brood mare with about three years in the field.
this summer with light but regular riding she has lost her belly and is starting to rebuild a nice top line.
Probably just like people it is easier for some mares than others.
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Member:
Mleeb
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Posted on Sunday, Dec 3, 2006 - 11:32 pm:
I've read through the nutrition topics Dr. O recommended, and I've thought of another question. How would you go about providing the proper amount of nutrients, and decreasing the roughage in a mare with previous history of founder? I have such a mare and have been told no oats, no sweet feed, no alfalfa. I would like to decrease her hay belly, and she already gets as much riding as we have time for.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec 5, 2006 - 8:34 pm:
No hay belly AND no founder, you are trying to make this tough aren't you? The secret will be utilizing oils and fatty acids for energy AFTER the other nutrient requirements are met. Start with the the Nutrition Overview article and be sure to follow the links to fats for energy.
DrO
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Member:
Mleeb
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Posted on Wednesday, Dec 6, 2006 - 8:56 am:
 Just trying to keep your brain challenged!
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Member:
Mleeb
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Posted on Monday, Dec 11, 2006 - 10:57 pm:
Well, I've finally got her home and all I can say is, there's not going to much problem with the hay belly. Looking at her in person as compared to the photos, she's actually got very little belly at all, and I'm not at all concerned with getting her back into shape. Surprisingly, she's actually a little underweight, so instead of putting her on a diet, I've put her on the "Skinny horse" side of the fence and am feeding her up. She'd be rale thin if she spent the winter with my fat geldings and their diet of "3 flakes twice a day and go paw under the snow."
Also on the plus side, she is a very friendly horse, calm and quiet, will come find you when you're in the pasture and hang out for a while. The farrier was here today and had no troubles with her at all.
Sara, you wondered if she was appendix. Still not appendix, but my goodness, it was a shock to see her in person for the first time. I was expecting a quarter horse and she looks nothing like one. Very thoroughbred in appearance, more so than the picture I posted, and she definetly moves differently from the rest of the bunch. It's going to take a little getting used to not seeing the big QH bubble butt on her.
She's fitting in well with the rest of them, had her first turn out with the entire herd this afternoon and they all took turns pretending she was very uninteresting, and she did the same. Tonight when I opened the gate to let the skinny crew back in for extra feed, she stepped right up to the gate as if she'd done it a hundred times before. I love it when they fit in so easily. They usually turn out to be keepers.
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Member:
Erika
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec 12, 2006 - 2:30 pm:
Michelle, she's a beautiful mare! Have fun with her.
You know, there is a lot of Thoroughbred in the modern quarterhorse, so even if it doesn't say it in her papers, I'd be willing to bet it's in there a few generations back.
Read an article a while back(I don't know where, maybe Equus? )that said most warmbloods are "near-Thoroughbreds" too.
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Member:
Mleeb
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Posted on Wednesday, Dec 13, 2006 - 9:34 am:
Well, like many QH's, she does have Three Bars just one line off her papers, top and bottom. I'm sure there's others just one line beyond that.
I didn't know about the Warmbloods, though. I do have a neighbor who has QH's with lots of appendix, as she recently crossed in a TB stud for a few years. They also own Percherons, and every once in a blue moon, they cross that in to one or two mares. One such cross resulted in a QH-TB-Percheron cross mare who is 17.1. So, the TB would be quite close to the surface in that particular warmblood. The mare does dressage, and has done a small amount of jumping as well, I believe.
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Member:
mleeb
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Posted on Thursday, May 8, 2008 - 12:32 pm:
Well, 1 1/2 years later I thought I'd post an update on this mare.
Her name is Roxie. She spent the first winter here doing nothing, and then I sent her to a friend of mine for 3 weeks to get her riding again. I had climbed on her a couple of times before that, but the only way to describe the experience was like waiting for the bomb to go off. She was so tense! So deciding that it was beyond my confidence level to try anything with her in that state, I let the friend do it. She'll ride anything, and was up for the challenge.
She spent 3 weeks there last spring, and they report the same feeling of her being very tense. She was headshy, too, and would startle easily when you were standing near her. They said you could be sitting on her back in the yard, not moving, and she would suddenly jump straight sideways. She was hard to move off from a standstill, but once going it turned out she neck reined very well, responded to the slightest leg pressure, and had a ground covering walk that would leave everyone in the dust. She was not the slightest bit herd bound, and would go anywhere you pointed her. So, she finished her three weeks much improved, still a little sticky at times, but never a buck or a fight. I phoned the former owners with regards to getting her to move off, and found out that she had been trained to never move forward from a standstill. They taught her to stand still until told to move, and then always moved backwards or turned, never walked straight. Well! That solved a lot of things once we knew that.
I only rode her three times during the summer, and she was very nice. I had no complaints, but she still felt tense, so we kept it to a walk and a trot only.
So, here we are, one more year down, and she's just returned from 5 weeks with the same friend again. I asked them to use her with the cattle during calving season, as I would like to take her team penning this year if possible. Turns out she's reluctant to offer up the needed speed to be a great penning horse, but she has no concerns with the cattle. I rode her again when I picked her up, and she's very relaxed now, the tense feeling is gone. She's no longer spooky, and the headshy thing disappeared last summer.
My daughter (age 12) rode her in our arena last night for the first time ever and fell completely in love - one more horse she's trying to "borrow" from me! From the moment Roxie came out of the pasture to the end of the ride, she was completely relaxed and unconcerned. Watching them ride together was like watching an evolution. I could just see the gears turning in the mare's brain as she remembered how to collect herself and to tuck her nose, and to extend her gaits. Her rhythm is still a little off, but much improved from last year. For me, it feels like riding a 2 yo who doesn't know how to carry a rider yet, and yet can do everything else perfectly.
Anyway, I'm thrilled that the brood mare shell is falling away to reveal this great horse. I hoped it would happen, I just never thought it would work this well. She's going to be my main riding horse for the next few months - I can't wait to see what she'll be like by then.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Thursday, May 8, 2008 - 8:23 pm:
Delighted to hear things are going so well but where are the pictures?
DrO
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Member:
mleeb
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Posted on Friday, May 9, 2008 - 9:19 am:
LOL! Ok, I'll take pictures!
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Member:
mleeb
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Posted on Wednesday, Jun 18, 2008 - 10:06 am:
Here's a picture taken at 4H team penning last month. This is my 12 yo daughter on Roxie on the right.
Since this was taken, I've put a lot of rides on her, and she continues to improve with every ride. We did a 3 day clinic together and learned a lot about getting collected. She's turning out great, one of those horses that doesn't fuss about anything, just waits to see what you want and then goes and does it.
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