Another New Horse - It's Bo!

[ThreeWishes]

Bless you. I rescued an old horse years ago.

He looked like this. He quided grass and hay but ate soaked cubes and adored Seminole senior soaked.
After a dental the vet said he had about 12 teeth total. He bloomed to this

It takes time for sure. He shuffled around my pasture for almost a decade. I put him to sleep 2 years ago when he had trouble getting up. Vet thought he was likely about 35 at the time. Bottom line is you are an angel for helping this horse. No matter what happens thank you for giving Bo a chance. Im not going to lie thinking about that sweet horse eating rocks and sand to assuage his hunger made me so furious and sad.
Ps hot water dissolves cubes faster. And maybe you can pull them out before they completely turn to mush.

[Displaced_Yankee]

That makes sense. I knew it was “on the docket” so to speak.

I am hoping the vet or dentist can advise on forage that Bo deems agreeable (We know Bo longs for the ponies’ hay and alfalfa).

[ThreeWishes]

Also I let that old horse quid the leafy parts of really nice alfalfa. He never choked. I think he consumed the shake and sucked on the bigger pieces and spat them out. He adored his alfalfa.

[rubygirl1968]

That poor boy. I can’t imagine how anyone can let something get so hungry they eat rocks to try to stay alive.

Yes, I can. I fostered a mom and two kittens that showed up at a house and they wouldn’t feed them. Two of the kittens died and the mom and the surviving two kittens looked like aliens with the narrow chin. Nothing but skin over bone.

People suck. I’m glad you have Bo now.

[2DogsFarm]

@Heinz_57

(complete with flinging the tub back at me).

My first TWH did this when I made him & my TB a warm mash one really cold Winter night.
Put his nose in the pan, grabbed an edge & it came flying back at me
TB looked at him like Dude! That’s a Nom!

[Heinz_57]

@ThreeWishes

Ps hot water dissolves cubes faster. And maybe you can pull them out before they completely turn to mush.

I’m experimenting to figure out the exact amount of warm water and soaking time before they totally disintegrate, but aren’t hard either. Your boy turned around to look great! I am still trying to come up with a way that I can separate the alfalfa leaves from the stems re: hay - If I could offer him a tub of just alfalfa leaves I think he would eat it, but he seems to have no awareness of his lack of teeth so if I give him a flake, even broken up, he just grabs a big wad of stems and leaves and it comes back out all balled up.

@Displaced_Yankee so far the only stuff he wants is the stuff he can’t eat! Although he was tentatively eating the soaked cubes-drizzled-generously-with-molasses I just gave him a few minutes ago. I don’t bring out the molasses jar unless I’m desperate. I’ll be checking on him in a couple hours, will see if he actually ate it. Earlier he very purposefully rooted up a cube out of the tub that wasn’t fully soaked, clunked it around in his mouth for a while and finally spit it back out. It makes sense that he’s looking for the harder clumps IF someone used to feed him unsoaked hay cubes. Can chewing dry hay cubes contribute to tooth loss? I wonder.

@rubygirl1968 if we are to believe the trader’s story, unfortunately ignorance is probably the biggest culprit. A good reminder that we should probably all have current directions written down on care & feeding of the equines in case we die or are incapacitated!

@2DogsFarm That sounds exactly like Bo’s move, plus he does the nose shove. He can fling unwanted grain out of the tub, a good 6 or 8 feet across the pasture. In my head I can hear him going ‘Don’t want this. Take it back. Now. Bring me good stuff.’ For a starving creature he sure is discerning now. I am happy to bend over backwards playing chef.

[hoopoe]

I mentioned sand ingestion before but the rocks certainly could explain his teeth!!! dogs who chew rocks wear down their teeth to nothing. I bet that is part of the answer

[BatCoach]

WOW! That poor, poor horse had to literally eat dirt he was so hungry. I would be alarmed too. Get some sand clear STAT.

[BatCoach]

@Sdel

They are doing daily scopes and tubing down a liter and a half of Diet Coke a day.

Curious, what does the Diet Coke do?

[Sdel]

I think it is supposed to dissolve the calcium/limestone in the sand to help break it up.

[BatCoach]

Wow you did right by the old fella. Bless you guys for taking in these hard luck cases!

[Heinz_57]

Two victories -

I was able to get him to accept the probiotic pellets by ‘marinating’ them in grain. I usually dish up the next meal bucket ahead of time, so I tried adding the pellets in between two scoops of senior and letting it sit for the few hours so it would lose the weird smell and take on the smell of the senior. He seems to approve.

AND, he has twice eaten his soaked T-A cubes with a generous top-drizzle of molasses. Longer-stem fiber! Hooray!

[OnAMission]

I have an old horse right now that shouldn’t eat the stems of the alfalfa hay we have. We have big squares so I’ll pull part of a flake onto a stall mat and fluff it with a pitchfork until the “gravy” as we call it, the fine leaves and good stuff, fall to the mat and I can toss the stems to the other horses. It doesn’t take long with this hay before I can then take a scoop shovel and get the gravy to the right horse. Might work for you?

[Heinz_57]

Good idea! My alfalfa flakes are pretty tightly packed, but maybe I can work something out that won’t make a huge mess. At $37/100lb I must be careful with the green gold. LOL

For those that were asking about a wish list for Bo, I’m still working on it. He has a TSC wish list now, but it requires you to select the appropriate store location and put in my name and email for pick up.

[Christa_P]

You could shake it into a muck bucket or water trough. That should contain everything.

[Bluey]

Goat dairies get what is called rabbit alfalfa hay, small bales with very small, soft stems and very leafy.

If you have some close, may be able to buy a bale or three from them and see if he can eat it well enough?
We had a goat dairy and that super fine rocket fuel alfalfa was good for them.
When we had a mare with a foal that needed more nutrition than her milk we feed her some of that, as per our vet’s recommendation.
We were lucky that our old vet was raised on a goat farm, he knew all sorts of animal husbandry tricks.

[Heinz_57]

Out for walky walkies this morning, somebody isn’t moving around enough in the pasture now that he’s getting plenty of food, so his hind legs are starting to stock up a little.

He’s put on a few pounds. Long ways to go still. But there is progress!

[JBCool]

A true gentleman takes a morning “constitutional” walk

[chestnutmarebeware]

I think he already looks a lot better! He won the lottery with you, that’s for sure!

[SpicyPRE]

that poop pic strikes fear into every horse owner. Bo is a warrior.