Hello all! I currently own a 5 year old haflinger gelding a 11 month old quarter horse gelding. We will be discussing primarily my haflinger today.
Back when we were doing a PPE for him in 2024, my vet told me that I was to keep him off of grass due to his breeds natural tendency to develope metabolic conditions and the fact that at the time he was a 6 BSC.
A lot of shit went down as this was my first horse and I learned first hand how horrible boarding facilities can be. (Skip to end of paragraph if you don't want context/random info that might help)
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To summarize, barn #1 was a shit show and the beat the crap out of him, wouldn't turn him out, only fed high calorie feed in the amount they wanted, and thats only the tip of the iceberg.. It took a few months to find a new barn as all barns were either full or I've heard equally bad things about. In his few months there he gained a lot of weight (I assume due to a lack of mobility, sweet feed, stress). Towards the end he was easily a 7.5 BSC. Barn #2 was awesome. Great people. 24/7 turnout in a small dry lot. I fed my own grain (Essential K). They didn't handle my horse since I was there daily. It felt like heaven after the first barn. However it was still in my goals to bring my horse home. A bit before I was set to bring him home the EHV-1 virus epidemic hit and I wasn't able to bring him home since the weanling I was buying was on a precautionary quarantine to avoid getting any of the breeders horses sick. During the wait the boarder who's horse shared a pasture with mine started feeding loads of loose hay, which is fine. But my horse went from a 5.5 BSC he achieved that summer, to a 8 BSC in only 2-3 months (this did start a bit before the virus). By the time I truly noticed (which took a while since I see my horse every day and couldn't tell until I looked at photos) I was already leaving in 2 weeks so I let it be. Now my horse is at home and just changing his diet slightly (haynets only/Mad Barn Omniety) he has lost a lot of weight since December and is now a 6 BSC.
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Since my horse isn't permitted to have grass, I have to keep him in a feild small enough that it doesn't grow grass. Him and my quarter horse are on 1/4 acre. They seem happy but I can't help but get a bit sad when I see other people's horses running around 20 acre fields when mine are stuck in a dry lot. I was wondering if there was any way to keep my horse on grass.. whether that would be moving to an area with sparse grass, somehow destroying grass, etc. I know a grazing muzzle is technically an option but my horse gets pissed at them and, quite frankly, acts like hes rather be in a dry lot than have a muzzle on.
Any advice is appreciated. Thank you all in advance 🙂