My gelding is 24, gray, with melanomas (visible ones i can see are near tail/anus and sheeth area)
His teeth were done in April, we have know for some time that he has pretty much ground down all his back molars. (Vet advised chopping his hay, but with a history of severe chock, we haven’t resorted to that and he eats his hay fine) His grain is soaked, and is Kalm N Ez, with some Essential K, alfalfa pellets and his supplements. I have cut back on the amount of feed, because as Spring approached he was leaving quite a bit. It seemed to help and he was back to cleaning up his feed tub. Now for the last few days he has been leaving all of the grain. yet he will eat hay happily and has 24/7 access to a grass pasture.
While he hasn’t been losing weight, he hasn’t been gaining either. He has never been a horse who gets fat, and while not a hard keeper, just has been more of a runner build than a linebacker. He seems happy enough, but I am just worried at his age, that maybe his melanomas are catching up with him, possibly something internal?
Am I just being a worry wort? we grow our own hay, so the hay quality is very good, but I feel like maybe he isn’t getting all his nutrients/vitamins at his age from just hay?
The grass is really good and rich right now, he may not really be that hungry and it very well might be he has to work too hard to comfortabley chew it. Not worth the effort if his belly is full.
[USER][/USER] I’m hoping that might be part of the reason, but yesterday he was just begging me for hay. I repeatedly showed him his grain ( which is soaked and basically the consistency of a bran mash) and he just kept nickering for hay. So I just gave him hay which he happily ate.
A drastic change in eating habits would trigger a teeth check for any age of horse in my care. Even if they were just done recently - perhaps a tooth chipped, something got wedged in his gums, or maybe the vet/dentist changed the bite surface too much and it needs an adjustment to be more comfortable.
How much did you cut back the grain, perhaps the ratio of grain:supplements is no longer palatable? Also, my senior refuses feed that is too wet - she prefers a little bit of chew (whereas my other horse will eat anything and everything from rock hard to soup.)
I have a 20+ year old mare (not sure exact age as she’s a kill pen rescue) who started doing the same thing recently. I hadn’t thought about pasture filling her up. Good point. I have the equine dentist scheduled to do her teeth too in two weeks, it’s been just under a year. I figured it was a teeth issue. However, she started eating as normal again? I barely give her anything honestly, just enough to get her supplements into her which is why I want her to eat it. No colic symptoms, just wants hay! And pasture.
Yes, but in a much trickier situation. I am a BO and the horse is a boarder’s. I do what I can, but she does not provide dental care to my standards (uses an old time vet that sticks what basically looks like a rasp in the mouth, shoves it back and forth a few times, and calls it good). I have found teeth in the mare’s feed tub so no doubt her teeth are horrible, what is left of them. She’s in her 30s and has never had her mouth opened and visually examined so who knows.
She CAN’T eat hay well (quids and drops most if not all of it) but her owner insists we keep giving it to her. I think it’s a huge choke risk, but anyway. . . mare seems to like playing with it at least.
But she is the WORST eater. She doesn’t like her grain wet. She doesn’t like her supplements. She picks at her grain most of the time and we end up throwing it out. We make her a separate “mush bucket” of soaked roughage and beet pulp (she refuses to eat soaked hay cubes). Often she doesn’t finish this either. I want more calories in this mare SO BAD but she just won’t consume them. The owner has actually in the past asked us to cut back her grain because her 30 something horse was so “crazy” (she was pawing because the owner was loading up her other horse with treats and ignoring the mare). It is so frustrating to deal with an owner that won’t provide appropriate supportive care to an old horse when my business partner and I are the ones that care for her day to day and have to see the poor thing.
We try to get her on grass as much as we can (in southern Ontario so there is a long stretch of time where there simply isn’t any grass to be had). She grazes a bit but is by no means stuffing her face. We often find her standing in the shade waiting to come inside to stand in her stall and not eat there either.
But this mare nickers constantly at me as well when I pass her stall. She has grain she doesn’t want, hay she can’t eat, and her “mush bucket” that she mostly ignores and still she nickers like she wants something. I have actually begged her to tell me “what do you want, horse???” because it is so frustrating.
The only thing she will eat consistently is carrots, if we break them up for her.
Definitely. But he didn’t get what he wanted. My sweet old Good Horse had a hard time with flaked hay (stopped him up good) but he loved it
What he got was Purina Senior Feed soaked with hot water (he usually ate this) and bagged denji hay (alfalfa tim) also soaked. And yes, he didn’t like it soaked/soaked, he liked a little dry. The Purina was great for keeping weight on him and masking the taste of his other meds. And lots of green grass when available (he couldnt’ really chew it either but he enjoyed it!)
I have an old boy now who gets the same general thing. Lot of green grass/ soaked senior and chopped hay (soaked) he doesn’t always finish his plate but he’s relatively good about it!
So frustrating trying to get those calories in and they don’t cooperate!!! 
This ancient one might be getting confused, disoriented, something similar to early dementia or might be in some discomfort/pain internally. If the owner doesn’t want to explore that, don’t know what to tell you. Hope you upcharge her on the board for the extra time and care. Couple of BOs I know won’t take these long term special needs seniors on unless the owner participates at least a few days a week in the extra care and keeps up with vet care plus spending a little more to cover the cost in time as well as unique feed for the special needs extras, even at retirement barns. Example, asking for soaked feed nothing else in the barn eats every four hours might mean barn needs another person there to do that, one should expect an extra charge if that’s the case.
Seem to be running into more owners who loudly advocate keeping them forever but expect somebody else to do the dirty work and don’t participate in their daily special needs plus don’t want to pay a penny extra for somebody else to deal with their oldsters health and comfort challenges. Seeing one every few weeks or months, feeding a treat then saying it looks great ( no, it doesn’t, it’s failing) while demanding more special care and complaining the board went up $10 then disappearing for weeks doesn’t cut it.
Off soap box.
Thanks everyone for the input…
Good news he ate dinner last night and this morning, along with hay.
Maybe he just wasn’t feeling well… but he was gobbling up hay , so i don’t really know what is going on. I have an email into the vet who will be at the neighbors in a couple of weeks, so I may have him pop over and check him out and maybe do a blood pull just to see if there is anything that shows up in bloodwork or if he is deficient in something.
I guess I’m just being a worry wort. He is my heart horse and we have been together thru thick and thing. I started him under saddle and took him to the 3’9" jumpers. So i guess I’m having a hard time seeing him age. Though I am grateful I have him at home and can keep an eye on him 24/7 and am able to notice things like this. Can’t imagine having him in a normal boarding situation at his age with his peculiarities.
My most senior senior (about 34) has got quite picky about grain choices. He actually really likes Purina Equine Senior. I know it’s like stuffing him with McDonalds, but he eats it, looks remarkably good on it, and at his age, if that’s what he wants, that’s what he gets.
He’s not big fan of hay–he gets a flake of alfalfa twice a day but wastes most of it, picks the flowers and leaves out and leaves the stems, then goes and tries to steal the pony’s grass hay. But if I give him grass hay of his own, he is outraged.
He still has all his teeth and they are not in bad shape. He just can’t be bothered with the effort sometimes, I think.
This reminds me, I had an elderly pony who for a while would only eat if he thought he was stealing it. He wouldn’t eat his feed from his pan on the floor in his stall. But if I set his feed pan in the aisle and he had to reach under the stall guard, he ate happily. The more inconvenient, the better.
AH do consider how the grain is presented Is the bowl in an uncomfortable position, ( too high too low)
@hoopoe he has always been fed in a feed pan on the ground. So I don’t think that is the issue. It was just weird. He didn’t want anything but hay and now he is back to eating happily grain and hay. And I didn’t change anything with the grain. I guess I can just chalk it up to him being an old possibly senile man. I’m glad he has his appetite back.
My previous horse would sometimes go on a grain strike, and stop eating his pellets. Sometimes I could get him to eat oats, but other times nothing. I’d give him a couple days of a couple large syringe-fulls of people antacid and let him eat his hay. He would be offered handfuls of grain, which, if he ate, he would get a little more. If not, the hay was there. These grain strikes would usually last about a week, then back to normal. Drove me and the BO nuts, but we coped. This was not a food-motivated horse, unlike the one I have now.
My elderly gelding also gets soaked hay pellets mixed with Kalm N EZ. For a while he was eating everything, but now won’t eat at all if the KnEZ is mixed in there too. So for now we’re trying soaked hay pellets with Essential K, which he loves. I also have a small pan of soaked KnEZ, which he won’t touch. I wondered if there was something wrong with this particular bag of feed, like maybe something changed? He’s gotten fussy as he’s aged but to prefer pellets over food was unusual.
He’s 33 and looks a bit too thin right now so after checking Tribute’s website, I’ll be trying Horse Tech’s FB 100 fat supplement for extra calories (he’s got Cushings so low NSC is a must) in the pellet/K meals. He’s not a fan of large meals so this may work…this week anyway.
Dealing with a donkey right now like this. He desperately wants to be in the corral with his mustang buddy, so he can scarf up all the poor underweight mustang’s grain and alfalfa. But when I give him the same food, albeit in smaller amounts, outside of the boys’ corral, he gets indignant. I went in to muck, and he ran right up to me, as if to say, “What is this fresh hell, me having to eat food without stealing it? There’s no fun in that, lass.”
My mare in her 30s was a poor eater. She refused anything wet at all. She really like d Triple Crown Senior, it is softer than many feed pellets. We had to feed her small amounts so several feedings a day. And bless you barn owners who do care for oldsters!
You may have to accept a less robust looking horse, if the vet thinks he’s still healthy and good weight.
Good idea to have the vet’s opinion. Could he have a growth that’s restricting his stomach or intestines so food can’t pass through? I know that is scary but maybe possible with his melanomas.
@pony baloney Sounds like your gelding has bee talking to my gelding… Thankfully he is not cushings, though we do have a mare who is 25 who is, and she sometimes goes on the I’m not eating my whole dinner thing… I’ve heard cushings meds can make them picky eaters. And even before we put her on the meds she is was a picky eater. Though (knock on wood) ever since i started adding Ulc R Aid to her grain she has been cleaning it up.
I do play around with the ratios of Kalm N Ez to essential K and alfalfa pellets. And thankfully he has been eating and cleaning up his servings. I would love to feed him more, but he when he does eat, he won’t finish it, and since its soaked there is no saving it for later. so fingers crossed he will keep eating for awhile.
It is good to hear that this isn’t a completely unusual thing. I guess these old farts are just trying to keep us on your toes.
@FatDinah a possible growth has been a concern for me… and I am constantly stopping to watch him pee or poop… just to make sure everything is working okay. So far so good. I am going to have the vet look at him when he comes over to t he neighbors next Monday. The vet did seem happy with his weight and overall health in April when he did teeth. And he really hasn’t lost any weight… but certainly hasn’t gained any either, but he has never been a fat horse. No matter how much you fed him in his prime. Neither he or the cushings really have any fat,but they both look good and are happy and moving all day on their grass paddock. Now if I could just switch the metabolisms of my two fat mares, who basically get pony rations, I would be a happy camper. I swear I feel like an alchemist when it comes to feed time! lol.
