Arab experts? Condition.....

[jumpthemoon]

Is anyone on here an Arab enthusiast/expert? I was talking to someone on the yard last night who has an arab, and to me it looks too thin (and to the girl who has it on loan). I would score it at between a one and a two going by the dodson and horrell fat scoring sheet. http://assets.cdn.earthgazer.net/b99abc4...fat-scoring.pdf

Basically, I can see it's ribs from across the yard, all of them, it has a sunken rump, hollows behind it's elbow in the girth region and one of the worst ewe necks I've seen.

The girl on yard has it on loan (from outside yard) and she bought it some conditioning feed yesterday (the winergy stuff - it's currently on the low energy but they are having to feed loads of it so swapped to the conditioning one).

Anyway, YO went nuts. She said that arabs aren't like normal horses and shouldn't carry any weight - if you can't easily see the ribs it is too fat and this horse is apparently just right. She told them not to swap it to conditioning feed and not to try to put weight on it.

Now, all the arabs I've seen look like normal horses weight wise - I've never seen them looking like this one? Is YO correct? (She has two arabs herself so I would normally assume she knows what shes talking about).

[amycov]

YO is wrong. No animal should have clearly visible ribs. Arabs are lightly built but should not be skeletons.

[BobbyMondeo]

Ive never heard that before....yes arabs are fine boned and yes they shouldnt carry too much wieght or they do actually go nuts lol, but they shouldnt have clearly visable ribs and ewe necks.

[zizz]

soe arabs are lightly built but not to the extent that you can see thier ribs from a distance!

[Ruth_Cymru]

I'm not an expert but I am an enthusiast and what you are descibing sounds much too thin to me. It does depend somewhat on the type of Arab as to how large/small a build they are, but the YO saying you should easily see ribs does not sit well with me.

[jumpthemoon]

Funnily enough on YO's two arabs their ribs aren't visible so I don't know if she had a moment of temporary insanity?! I get the feeling that she wants to be in control of them as they are new to horse keeping and anything they do off their own back is wrong She even went to the extent of telling them that it will get laminitis and have to be PTS if they put any more weight on it!

[Ruth_Cymru]

It may be worth the owner/loanee taking a look on arabianlines website, there are a lot of different types on there and all lookng well (as far as I have seen). It may give them a better view of what a typical arab weight should be.

[Silverspring]

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She even went to the extent of telling them that it will get laminitis and have to be PTS if they put any more weight on it!

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Does the horse have a history of lami? Even if it did the poor horse sounds far from the correct condition! I don't like to see fat Arab and I think so people can see Arabs as being slightly undercondition because they naturally have bones that stick out a bit but ribs and rump should always be covered like a normal horse.

I have a light weight Arab, she's got a boney croupe which makes people think she's underweight, he back legs are a bit too long for her front legs which doesn't help the lean look. At the moment I can only just feel her ribs and her bottom has a firm but round feel, she is over weight due to the grass but not so over weight that I'm worried (they are out with lots of horse which should get the grass down soon enough!)

This time last year she was under weight and being fed oats, barley rings and oil to try and get condition on . When she was underweight (due to stress and lack of grass) you could see the line of her ribs at the back but not her ribs, her rump looked slightly sunken but did not quite dip away from her croupe, I would have scored her a 2 at this stage and I was taking action to get the weight back on!

Not sure what the YO's problem is but if you can see ribs across the yard then she needs something extra, they don't always gain weight quickly either so when they get under weight it can be a long haul to get it back on (part of the reason I don't worry about getting the little bit extra off my girl, put a saddle on an she just burns calories at the though of galloping about )

[Grey_Arab]

I'm not entirely sure what ie 'normal' for an arab, but he does sound a bit on the skinny side, my boy is an arab and isn't like that...

[hussar]

Doesn't matter whether it's a lightly-built Arab or one with lots of bone - you shouldn't be able to see its ribs from a distance and its rump should be well-covered. The ewe neck might just be a matter of conformation but most Arabs do have a natural arch (like Grey_Arab's photo above).