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Why are thoroughbreds such a hard breed to keep fat2007-11-24 21:23:16

...and what can you feed them to keep them fat??..I have a 4 yo tb and I school him everyday and he eats a high quality protien feed and the best hay around but I just cant get him to keep meat on his bones...would mixing alphalpha cubes in his feed help? thanks!

Answers:

I had a 4 year old thoroughbred also, he's now 6 and huge. But until he was about 5 1/2 he still looked like a baby and very skinny. He would get fat and then grow an inch in height. Yours is probably still growing in height so his food and energy is not going towards adding weight yet until he stops growing. I wouldn't worry too much about it now. I gave mine a constant supply of hay and he ate 2 large meals a day and was out in the pasture eating grass a few hours a day. If you wanted to you could put him on a weight builder supplement or a calorie supplement to help him gain weight.

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I'll warn you now my answer isn't going to help much, but my limited experience with thoroughbreds is that they are strung so high naturally, their metabolism is just that high. They burn through feed!

A friend of mine puts some corn oil (2-3oz) in the grain when she's trying to get some flesh on his bones.

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I've tried using a grain/pellet feed with high fat. I ask for the high fat feed at my horse supply store.

It must be a fairly common problem with quite a few horses, depending on the breed or the age.