Hi Help,

I've always found Rosehip and Copra to be great for coats, tails and manes as they are full of vitamins and minerals (Rosehip is also a natural anti-inflammatory and anti-biotic). Copra (which is essentially ground up coconut) is full of loads of natural oils which promote healthy hair growth and is the added bonus of a filler. I have a beautiful dark pally and he is only on Lucerne hay (1 biscuit a day) 2 hard feeds which only consist of:
1 x 5kg size bucket of wheaten chaff
average size scoop of economix
1/4 scoop of copra

Vitamins are: Rosehip (tablespoon daily), Garlic (1 tablespoon a week, 1 cup of vegetable or canola oil a week, 1 tablespoon daily of Bio Glance (because we don't have a lot of minerals in the soil here)

That's it. Very cheap and easy to maintain (I'm in Australia so not sure where you are or what your equivalents would be)

Im in Perth, Western Australia. Ill have a look into it! thanks

Hi, Haflingers are beautiful aren't they?! This is potentially a more complicated question that it first seems! Did the previous owner give you any explanation as to why the tail was so short? Did you have a pre-purchase vet check done by any chance, if so what was her/his observations? What were the reasons given for selling her? Anyway there are three sources of coat and tail problems: external and internal. First, external: itching from scurf or 'sweet itch'(a nuisance condition that needs a lot of management and can reduce the value of horses due to the management issues associated with it), mites, scratching her tail on a post will have made the hair fall out. when the tail was very long she may have been standing on it (my little fella does that so I have to make sure I trim it regularly) and that can pull it out. Other horses may have been bullying her a bit and taking nips out of her tail. A few things to think about. Regarding her coat: being in Australia I'm wondering do your horses develop full winter coats? The fluff may be the start or end of a winter coat which is of coure much less shiny (depending on what season you are in over there, I get mixed up with the time differences lol!) Second, nutritional (alongside external/environmental)if that is the case a nutritional 'package' as Denea suggests may be the answer and is quite straightforward however, you need to be patient, you cannot make a tail grow any faster than it can so she won't be showing until next season! So the third possibility is internal - this would be much more worrying. One of the early symptoms of Cushings disease for example can be a 'fluffy' coat and loss of condition/shine(as the disease progresses this gets a lot worse). Other signs might be the hollows above her eyes are no longer hollow and are 'fatty'/spongy to touch, is there a 'fatty' pad over her shoulder blade area? Does she drink a lot? etc. etc. I'm not trying to scare you or be difficult but as you have only just bought her you have the chance to find out these things and send her back if it turns out she has the early stages of a serious health problem. Cushings is not curable and is expensive and difficult to manage and virtually impossible to maintain show quality in terms of presentation. The risk of associated laminitis is high. You could invest in a full vet work up where you take blood samples and skin samples in order to assess whether it is internal/external/nutritional - this could be a wise investment that could save you a fortune in the long run. For both your sakes, I hope its an external/environmental/nutritional issue. Good luck.

no we didnt have a vet check, but i have an idea of how to pick a good horse. She was for sale because she was a stud haflinger, she came from a stud and they had too many horses. they had 3 broodmares, 4-5 weaners (under 1 yrs old) and an upcoming stallion all on a 5 acre property, so he is trying to sell a couple of his mares in which he has already bred 2-3 foals from. Oceana has bred 2 foals, so he is selling her on first. One of the young ponies im training has cushings and has had a full winter coat even with a rug on. I dont think she has scratched her tail out from rubbing as it is very thick, but just short to the hock. Her coat i think is very fluffy and curled up as the stud owner never rugs his horses through winter and in Australia, to you coming from the U.K it wouldnt be cold, but to us 6 degrees celcius is very cold, and without a rug, their coat grows very long, and another cause is that he doesnt feed his horses vitamins or minerals in the feed, just weener pellets and meadow or oaten hay. here in australia, we dont have much minerals in the soil or the grass, so we have to feed our horses some sort of mineral mix, ours is called Equimin, which is what we feed our horses, along with oaten chaff, sometimes garlic, shandy, pony pellets etc. and alot of oaten hay. with stockier breeds, yes you have to be careful how fit they are as there is a high risk of laminitis if they get too overweight. atm this horse is overweight, but not enough to get laminitis. One way of seeing whether her gaits are proper and not going to cause problems in haflingers is how much flex and movement the fetlocks have, and she is very flexy, so she has very good conformation. I just need to know how to get rid of her fluffy and not at all shiny coat, and how to grow her tail back.

Sorry, I meant the laminitis is a high risk in horses with Cushings - apologies if I wasnt clear but you are of course right about the weight issue too :-) Short tail? - as I said, you just have to ensure she is getting the right food, which you are doing, and wait - the follicle produces the hair but the hair itself is dead - just look after it and make sure it doesn't break off, there is no way to make tail hair grow faster! I am still worried that you say her coat is thick and curled up (curling is another sign) but as you can see it and I can't I will shut up about it and leave it with you though you could put a photo on the facebook page if you like. :-) In the meantime, I guess you will have to clip her coat off and then rug her to keep her warm - not a process I favour persoanlly but I appreciate that she is for showing so compromises are made. Good luck, let us know how she progresses.

yes im getting clippers very soon in a couple of weeks so yes i may clip her, but its coming into summer so a rug will not be needed. I think it is curled up from nutrition reasons and perhaps from worms? as ive seen her tail is quite fluffy aswell? I will keep you posted about how shes going.

M-T-G (mane tail groom) can be used to make horse hair grow faster and thicker, it even works on human hair, but smells like campfire lol Just be careful not to mix with other products and don't use on cuts/wounds. The barn manager swears by it. Good luck :-)

Yes, good point, worms can cause a patchy messy coat too

You're on the right track to make a good start with worming first, that is a must & a balanced vitamin & mineral mix; very often, if they have been lacking in minerals, once they start getting the right balance, the coat changes to a richer colour.

Pinworm will make them rub their tails a lot as they cluster round the anus itching like mad.
If i were you, i'd target the worming for small encysted redworm & Tapeworm as they are the some of the most serious ones, a wormer with the ingredient Moxidectin is the one for that if you have it Aus, i would think you must have. Brand mane here is Pramox.

It doesn't sound like she's had the best of care & having the foals will have taken it out of her to, so getting the basic nutrition right & giving her time to improve may present you with a beautiful butterfly as her summer coat comes in.

Obviously, if you are concerned about more serious health matter, the vet is the first step.

hope she works out well for you.

Hi Help,

That's great. Jump on the Uni forum group on facebook and find me if you want. I can help you out if you get stuck looking for places for feed. :) Plus it's always nice to meet / speak with other members

Oh and there is another form of Equimin which is Advantage I think that has a slightly higher nutritional benefit than the Equimin. They are both made by Advanced feeds and are great as they are made for WA horses and we seem to have less minerals in the soil than some of the other states.

good news!!! her coat is absolutely beautiful!!! It has gone from white and fluffy to dark rich and golden, shiny and silky!! I put her on normal feed, which is half a chaff bag of hay in the morning and hard feed at night. Hard feed has 2 scoops of chaff, 1 scoop of pellets and half a cap of equimin! her coat is gleaming now! now her tail to get a bit better and she will be off!!

Glad to hear she's doing so well, haflingers are beautiful ;-)

Just out of curiosity, what pellets are you feeding?

just plain pony cubes. :)

Have you considered Economix or Coolmax? I found they are better all round feeds if you don't mind feeding pellets and such. (Some people are going 'natural' at the moment and removing pre-mixed foods and feeding all of the vitamins, supplements and grains that go into them.) Just an idea for you.