My two retirees have moved back close to home after several years in another state, so I can have more of a hand in their care, and I am worried about the condition of one–who has very little left in the way of teeth.
She is 34, a lifelong serious cribber, and her incisors as well as her molars are worn way, way down. She has trouble with both hay and pellets (likes to nibble a little but not ingesting much) and has been turning her nose up at mashes of pelleted food and/or hay cubes in the few days she has been back. Again, she plays around with the food a bit but not much gets in. Her body condition is far from satisfactory, as you can imagine. About 6 months ago, when I last saw her in person, she seemed to be getting along much better and was in decent flesh.
The vet will be out shortly, and I will get a consult from a nutritionist if the vet thinks it would be useful. And I’m researching away online.
But in the interim, I would really appreciate hearing from anyone who has had experience putting weight back on a basically edentulous horse.
I am very worried about my poor old mare and feel terrible about her condition. Thanks for any thoughts!
Soaked hay cubes or pellets are your friends. Any feed you choose should also be soaked, as in making a nice gruel or mash. If your horse doesn’t have any Metabolic issues, Purina equine Senior is great for making mush out of. I’m not a fan of Purina, but Senior is high enough in calories and palatable enough that your horse may decide that it is some OK stuff to eat a bunch of. And that’s the name of the game. Best of luck!
Music (34) has regained her condition by supplementing her grain with soaked (with HOT water) hay cubes. You say she turns her nose up at " mashes of pelleted food and/or hay cubes ", but was it made with hot or cold water?
Janet, ASB, many thanks.
No metabolic issues that I know of, knock wood. She has been getting TC Senior in past, but TCS soup doesn’t seem to be appetizing!
And Janet, hot water may certainly help. That should have been intuitive, I missed it.
Nutrena ProForce Fiber ~ has brought two of my seniors (with few teeth) back to “shape” … top line and generally body shape
and returned the ‘sparkle’ back to their eyes !
They are also on Standlee chopped alfalfa and a chopped Timothy.
ProForce Fiber is a textured beet pulp feed… looks UGLY :eek:
but highly digestible … they love it and IT WORKS beautifully for my seniors. 
Good Luck ~ Jingles & AO
- adding my seniors refused soaked hay pellets and cubes
Try mixing in a little Cocosoya (oil) to her mush–most horses can’t resist the smell/taste of it, plus oil is the most concentrated form of calories.
My toothless senior hated having his food made into soup. He was fine with it soaked until fluffy, though. I’d use hot water and soak to the point where all the water was soaked up and nothing was left. The food got wet, soft and fluffy, but not a messy porridge. The pellets were still pellet shaped, just very swollen. He would turn his nose up at it if it was too wet, but medium-wet was just fine.
His feeding went through phases. He was on Triple Crown Senior and hay at first. The hay was replaced with TC safe starch chopped forage for a while, until he started eating only the softest half of that. Then, he got a mixture of hay pellets and beet pulp with no molasses, soaked as described above, to replace the hay portion of his diet.
I’ve found that the solution to this varies a lot from horse to horse. Each one seems to have feeds they will and will not eat; you just have to experiment and hope you can find something they like.
I’ve got two boarders that are pushing 30, they were doing “ok” on soaked TC Sr but gradually would eat less and less of it. After trying a few different senior feeds they settled on Seminole Wellness Senior (soaked of course).
Because they can’t chew hay, they also were getting soaked TC alfalfa cubes twice a day, but they put on a significant amount of weight when I added soaked TC timothy cubes. Right now they each get a 4 qt dry scoop of alfalfa cubes and a 4 qt dry scoop of timothy cubes twice a day in addition to three feedings of the Senior.
I feed the hay cubes in separate feeders from the grain and add enough water to make it really soupy.
I do think having separate feeders for the grain and hay cubes helps - they will finish their grain and then work on the hay feeders little at a time.
Three or four feedings a day has worked better for my guys than two. These old folks often will only eat a certain amount at any one feeding, but will eat that amount 3 or 4 times a day which allows you to get more nutrition into them.
ETA: What Mango20 said re soaking!
OP, have you tried Blue Seal? Maybe the taste is better, and it’s cheaper by $5 or so per bag. All of their Sentinel line formulas are cooked like senior so digestibility isn’t an issue if you use something other than Senior. Their website has a full description of each one including ingredients and nutrition. They are fixed formula. I use the Performance LS for my 25 y.o. gelding. His teeth are not a problem yet. LS is high fat, high fiber, low carbs.
As mentioned, you may need to try a smorgasbord of offerings to see what she prefers. I had great luck with shredded beet pulp, Equine Senior, and All-In-One mixed with a lot of water. and I let it soak for about 10 minutes It was the consistency of oatmeal, so not too soupy. Some horses really don’t like that consistency. I fed two buckets of this daily to our elderly mustang who couldn’t chew hay for several years.
I second the suggestion of the blue seal sentinel line. Because it is an extruded pellet you might be able to get away with not soaking it, or barely soaking it.
Otherwise, have you tried a beet pulp that has molasses in it? Not usually what I’d recommend but it increases the palatability. You might be able to mix something sweet in with the hay cubes as well.
I started out feeding the pelleted complete feed dry because I didn’t want to have to soak it in the winter, and my old Halflinger has always eaten it dry (for 3 or 4 years now). If there’s water in her feed tub and some of it gets wet she’ll sometimes leave the wet pellets, so I’ve never soaked it because she seems to prefer eating it dry. She quids hay and grass, which brings me to a question which I’ll post on a new thread.
My 38 year old gelding was dropping weight last fall on soaked Purina Senior and alfalfa pellets. Has picked up when I added 8oz Cocosoya oil twice a day.
But I do have to be mindful to manage his anxiety, so he can focus on eating instead of fussing. Which means I have to manage the anxiety of the other horses around him. Silly boy.
If your mare is in a new place it will take a bit for her to settle I would expect. Also I always think about ulcers when I
transport horses or introduce them to a new place.
I also second whoever suggested multiple feedings per day. With my old guy, I went to feeding him 3 or 4 times per day, depending on my workday. It’s easy enough to do when the horses are at home. Last feeding was right before I went to bed.
Thank you everyone–so much good information!
So we are beginning to offer the “smorgasbord” as stressgirl calls it. Tried the improved soaking routine and that did seem to be more interesting, and then added the cocosoya, which seems to help too. She is still not eating much by her old standards but definitely more appreciative of the chow! Will see what happens with her intake in the next few days.
Also assembling a little petting zoo of feed samples. so we can experiment.
Vet saw her and feels she is basically in good shape except for not getting enough calories. Very low worm count, blood values pretty much OK. She mugged the vet’s assistant for peppermints, which is more like the food-motivated pony that I remember!
I recently moved my 30 year old from my parents’ place where he has lived for 20 years or so, to a boarding barn. His appetite and weight dropped significantly in spite of excellent dietary pampering from the barn. Treating him for ulcers picked his appetite up within 3 days of starting. I hate to be the one to make the obligatory ulcers comment, but shipping and the stress of a new barn are major risk factors for ulcers.
I have a boarder’s pony who is ~35, life-long cribber with nubs left for what teeth remain; he quids everything long stem, can’t get any grass, hay. chopped/compressed hay, nor soaked hay cubes down. He gets 16 lbs alfalfa pellets, soaked, and 8 lbs Seminole Wellness Senior Mix, soaked, per day. He’s been here a couple months, we slowly built up to this volume (he’s a little guy whose ideal weight is around 800 lbs) which he is very happy to eat no matter how “oatmeal-y” or “soupy” it is, and he looks great now.
When they quid everything that isn’t a mash, your only choice is a mash, and you’ll just have to keep experimenting with different feeds, textures, water temp and amounts, etc. and hope you find something she’ll eat.
A reputable horse rescue in my area uses fenugreek to encourage their picky eaters to eat their rations. I have yet to try this myself, but I may try in the future (my oldie thankfully still has a great appetite). I have also heard that spirulina can spark their appetite. I lost an old gelding last year who was an incredibly picky eater so I know your pain!
My 34 year old still has his teeth, but doesn’t have any grinding surface left. He is another who dislikes overly wet feed.
He gets a muck tub that has to be tied into place for him to eat out of. This keeps most of his flinging within the bucket and not on the ground.
He has access to his bucket in a separate section of the dry lot that he is able to get to, but it keeps the taller horses out. It is a PVC pipe with a rope going through it the has double end snaps clipped to eye hooks on the gate posts. He walks under, the PVC rolls over his back as he goes in and out. He will go in and eat some feed than go out and munch on some grass or hay and then back to eat his feed. It takes him around 4-6 hours to finish his meals.
During the winter he was getting feed twice a day with the following.
1/2 lb ration balancer
1/2 lb fat supplement
4 lb of a hay replacer cube (main ingredient distillers grains)
3lb of timothy alfalfa hay cubes
This was soaked with hot water until the feed was soft and fluffy, but not to the porridge consistency.
I do think the hay replacer cube was something that he REALLY loved the flavor of. He would burrow his nose to the bottom of the bucket it I hadn’t mixed it well to get to that first. Maybe you need to find something that will get his appetite going and add some hay cubes to that.
Wow, that’s ingenious Jawa, of course it requires that the horse be (the only horse) smaller than the others.
