Alternatives to Regular Long Stemmed Hay

[Roadmix3]

Hello,

My 26 yr old gelding recently had trouble eating hay, I would notice large, chewed up balls of hay on his stall floor. Somehow he was still managing to eat the majority of his hay, just slowly. I wanted to avoid choke, or impaction colic, so I had an equine dentist look at him.

He had three very loose teeth. Two on the bottom right-together, and one on the left top. Besides a couple of points which were floated, his mouth looked good. The dentist recommended pulling the teeth, which we did.

I was warned he may not ever be able to return to regular hay. Which makes sense. While his mouth heals, he’s eating soaked pellets, senior feed and some bagged chopped hay. All of which he is eating well.

The issue is, I don’t know how much to give him… he’s used to being on a mostly hay diet. He gotten very little senior feed daily before this.

Is there a “limit” on how much soaked hay pellets he can have in one sitting? Or do I just make a bunch and leave it out? Hoping he doesn’t try to eat the entire container at once. Do I up his senior feed to whatever the bag says he should get? Or is that too much with the hay pellets given also?

What about chopped hay? Right now I have purchased a couple bags of chopped hay from TSC. But I’d like to eventually get something to chop my own hay. Any suggestions or tips on what to use to chop hay into small pieces would be great!

This is all new to me, he’s really doing quite well for his age, and he’s at a great weight. I’m just now sure how to feed him going forward.

[Scribbler]

He’s going to need a similar amount of cubes or pellets by dry weight as he got in hay, maybe a little less if the pellet moisture is less. How much he will eat at one feeding of mash before it goes rancid or freezes is dependent on horse and climate.

[K_VanOlst]

I know several people who regularly chop hay with either a weed eater (plastic blades, not string) or a large mulcher/shredder, and it works great. Can be a pain in a boarding barn situation, but doable.

[K_VanOlst]

The round barrel type ones are easier to put hay into than the ones with smaller openings.

[goodhors]

The above leaf mulcher is just a string weed trimmer on legs. It can do a nice job, though might be dusty. Wear protective safety glasses in case of kickback throwing hay back at you. Maybe also a face mask to avoid breathing any dust. Put a trash can under it for collecting chopped hay.

The hay cubes soaked, are good for your roughage factor. A little experimenting will show how much he will consume in X amount of time, so you can prepare the correct quantities. I prefer some roughage over an all soaked pellet diet. Hay lengths are very short, not likely to choke even poorly chewed. My old horse got soaked beet pulp and soaked hay cubes, grazing in warm weather. She also made quids of chewed hay, some grass, then spit them out when the flavor was gone. Other horses LOVED eating the spit balls!

I fed the timothy, or timothy/alfalfa cubes when plain timothy hay cubes were not available. We are not alfalfa feeders because horses here get the runs with it. Alfalfa also skews our mineral balances, which skews the supplementing, so we feed grass hay. A bag of cubes lasted a while, was not terribly expensive for one horse.

Her chewing ability got bad as teeth fell out, but she maintained nice condition, good hair with the wet diet. She got plain oats and cracked corn for flavor, a small amount of Old Kent Senior feed for grain. The Old Kent had the lowest sugar/molasses content of the various brands of senior feed we tried. She did NOT need sugar calories, was not used to getting sugary feed. Plus the sugary brands got moldy fast in our high humidity. Some bags were moldy when I opened them! A number of senior horses get the runs, founder when fed the recommended amounts of super sugary senior feeds when the “GOOD” owner tries to keep seniors well fed.

Experiment a bit, learn what he likes, feed in moderate amounts he will clean up before the next meal. Our beet pulp is plain, no molasses. Has been a great forage product for all age horses. They eat it up readily. Molasses in feed is for people to feel good, horses never got sugar in the wild. Molasses also sells feed, “He loves this mix! Cleans everything right up.” Ours clean up their plain oats and cracked corn too. Doesn’t need molasses to get consumed.

Good luck with your old guy!

[4horses]

Can you get perennial peanut hay? It’s very similar to alfalfa and is mostly leaves. The hay I bought this year is so leafy you can’t put it in a hay bag because the leaves just fall out. It’s great for seniors but sometimes you have to shake out the stems for the older horses.

[4horses]

Some of the farmers even bag the leaves if they can’t bale it all because of this issue.

[Roadmix3]

Interesting, I’ve never heard of this type of hay. We are located in the Midwest, so maybe that’s why? It sounds great for older horses

[Roadmix3]

This is so helpful, thank you

[Pico_Banana]

I think you need to play around and see what works for your horse. My senior has next to no chewing teeth left, but she can still eat hay quite well. I do feed a soft second cut. Some of the bales are steamier and she doesn’t eat those. I also feed her through a hay net with about 2 inch holes and not only does she seem to prefer it, I like that it makes her take small bites at a time. And I feel like she eats about the same when I give her hay in a net versus loose. Yes, she quids some, but most of it she eats just fine.

I supplement her hay with 9-12 lbs Triple Crown Senior, given over three meals at breakfast, dinner, and night check. I adjust the amount based on her weight. At dinner, I also give her soaked timothy/alfalfa cubes - I use a 6 gallon feed pan with high sides and it ends up about 3/4 full once the cubes are soaked.

In the summer, she’s on grass all day. No trouble at all with the grass.

This works really well for us. Her manure is healthy looking and regular. Every once in a while she’ll have more of a cow pattie poop, so I give her psyllium for a couple days and she’s fine again.

[cayuse]

Can you Triple Crown Safe Starch Forage. It’s fortified chopped hay. My old timer loves it mixed with timothy pellets.

[Roadmix3]

Update: I’m going to try chopping my own hay. He initially ate regular hay pretty well a couple days after his dental procedure. That’s after a few days of eating only soaked hay pellets to replace his hay. But today we aren’t eating regular hay well, lots of hay balls being spat out. I’m wondering if his mouth may still be tender? Not sure.

Anyways, I’d like to try that trimmer on a stand, but I noticed it uses basically the same type of cutting string that a weed eater would use…. Doesn’t this break off occasionally? I’m hoping the pieces would be large enough to see/find?

If this doesn’t work for him, then we are going to soaked hay cubes. I really appreciate everyone’s help and suggestions.

[Mango20]

Can you feed him more times per day? I had an old pony who finished the last few years of his life on a combination of chopped hay, senior feed, and soaked hay pellets (at first), then graduated to replacing the chopped hay with beet pulp when he started leaving a lot of the hay behind. I fed him four times per day to spread out the buckets of stuff he ate: AM, as soon as I got home from work at 4, regular dinner time, and right before I went to bed. On weekends and days off, I’d move the after work feeding a bit earlier in the day to more evenly space out the feedings.

[lenapesadie]

FWIW my pony was very sore in his mouth / jaw muscles for several days, almost a week, after a regular dental floating. He wouldn’t eat regular hay at all he was so sore. And he has all of his teeth!

Are you able to give your horse a bit of Bute or something to see if he’s just muscle sore?

[Roadmix3]

I’m glad you mentioned this. He was given bute for three days following his dental. He was definitely more perky and wanted regular hay (he was on soaked pellets, he did eat them but he was bored and acted hungry). I’m starting to think he is still tender/sore. I hate to give him more bute, because he also is prone to ulcers and Hindgut issues.

[Pico_Banana]

You could try Tylenol for the pain. Won’t help with inflammation but it is decent for pain and doesn’t affect the stomach like NSAIDs.

[whhisperbaby11]

I don’t know about the trimmer on a stand, but I tried chopping with my hand held weedeater and I found so much chopped up string I tossed the hay.

I now use a WORX leaf mulcher, a bit more time consuming to use, but it has metal blades and chopps hay great.

[K_VanOlst]

@whhisperbaby11

I tried chopping with my hand held weedeater and I found so much chopped up string I tossed the hay.

They make plastic blades that you can use on weed eaters, in case anyone else wants to go that direction.