I know this is the dog health board so if this should be in Idle chat or foo then I apologise and please feel free to move it mods.

My daughter has a welsh cob cross who is around 20 ish. We have had her for two years now and she has always been very healthy apart from an arthritic knee. Recently she seems to have lost a lot of weight and we are not sure why. She is still quite well-covered so we are not desperately worried about her but I wondered if anyone on here had any ideas?
She lives out (full grass livery) and has done so for a good few years now, she is in a 17 acre field with 3 other horses so plenty grass - although the quality isn't fantastic yet as the spring grass is just coming through(we are in Scotland so it is still quite cold). She has two hard feeds a day and eats the lot as well as a pile of carrots when we visit. One of her field mates died very recently, the two of them were great friends ( the other horse was a 32 year old Arab) and I'm wondering if she is pining for her friend. Also the lady who owned the horse who died used to visit the field every night come rain or shine so I wonder if Molly is missing her visits? I know horses like routine so would this be enough to make her lose weight? We always thought that Alpha hung out with Molly but maybe it was the other way around?

Her teeth get checked every 6 months and the vet is coming out on Wednesday to do her teeth and I'll get him to check for anything else then. Has anyone had experience with anything like this before? Is there anything I could be doing to help her?

Forgot to add that her coat is gleaming and she isn't cold as she is well rugged for the weather. She is also Ok when being ridden (she just does light hacking)

What are her hard feeds consisting of?

Horses do sometimes grieve for a companion, some of them are quite sensitive souls, though they dnt usually grieve to a point of losing weight.
I would ask your vet to run full bloods (though they will prob want to anyway).

You may find she starts to put on weight and condition in the next few months anyway, as the spring grass comes through.

She is on sugar beet, barley, pony nuts and chop (I think) with garlic and cod liver oil and superflex Qwerty.

I'm actually now wondering if she was eating some(most) of Alpha's feed as well as her own and now that Alpha (and her food) is not there...

Alpha used to get a senior mix I think so I might need to look into getting some of that for her.
My daughter put the weight tape on her again today and she is now just under 600kg from about 650kg - 675kg last summer (when she was a bit porky admittedly).
Will be glad when the vet sees her I must admit although the stable owner who looks after her day to day ( and really knows horses and Molly well) is not too worried about her as she doesn't look ill at all.

This is worse than the dogs as at least i have a better idea of what I'm dealing with there and I can always pop them in the car and take them to the vet!

Well, if the vet rules out anything health wise then i would certainly look at putting her on senior feed. Or possibly conditioning mix, though with spring grass coming through and always the risk of laminitus i would go with senior. Is she worked at all? If so, be careful she doesnt have an extra spring in her step if given more feed!! :D

She isn't really worked beyond light hacking and the occasional lesson, I was thinking she should be on a veteran mix now as she must be nearly 20. Especially if she starts to lose condition over winter as she certainly hasn't before - although this winter was much worse than even last year which was pretty bad. The new grass seems to be taking forever to come through too!

Hi. As a Welshie she should err on the side of overweight as i'm sure you know. I agree a full blood count is the first approach. You say her teeth are done 6mthly but you don't mention her worming program ?
She should certainly be on a veteran mix tho more important is ad lib hay (fibre) Do be aware tho that equines can develop laminitis when they are thin and stressed. On 17 acres i presume the grass is not short and horse sick.
I wish you the best that the cause is found.

Thanks qwerty and peanut for your help.
Vet was out today to do her teeth and thought that she was looking the best he has ever seen her! He checked her heart, temp etc and did her teeth which were not too bad this time - she has missing teeth so gets spikes where there is nothing to grind on. She is due to be wormed now and has to get a wormer that includes tapeworm just in case. We have to keep doing the weight tape and if she continues to lose weight then he will be coming out to do bloods for kidney and liver function.

> As a Welshie she should err on the side of overweight as i'm sure you know

She certainly isn't skinny Peanut, which is why we are not panicking about her weight loss. I do think that the fact she isn't getting all the extras she used to get, along with the harder winter has caused most of her weight loss, when I think about it her previous owner used to give her most of a packet of sugar free polo's every second day whereas we tend to give her carrots and apples for treats.  She is quite a laid back mare - nothing bothers her usually. She always hung out with Alpha and we used to assume Alpha stuck with her but I think that they really were company for each other so it is a huge change after 9 years together.
I'll update if I have any more news.