Feeding Help for Picky Senior!!!

[Freddo]

Hi Everyone!!
I’m calling on all you savvy feed and nutrition smarties!

long story below short version here: 23 year old doesn’t want to finish her grain. Wondering if it’s a volume issue and if I should try to feed less volume with more fat added for calories.

My 23 year old mare is in full dressage work and thriving. However, we’ve started to become a picky eater. We’ll start from where the picky eating started: in April we found out she had PPID levels were not crazy- we definitely found it early and she IS NOT insulin resistant. She only needed 1/2 tab of prascend and I knew that she’s a diva so went ahead and put her on APF.

However, we had to switch her feed because she was eating sweet feed. So we switched her to TC senior. She ate it well enough but definitely didn’t love it. If she had hay around she’d eat that first. Wouldn’t eat it out of your hand- but generally finished it by the time it needed to be gone.

Fast forward to September we moved from PA- WI. She now has 24/7 hay and seems more relaxed. I’ve had her on preventative ulcer treatment and we’ve been weening off without issues. However before we started weening she stopped eating. She would eat maybe 1/2 then only eat hay. She wanted everything else: treats, alfalfa, chopped hay just not her grain.

I decided to switch from TC senior to Tribute Senior sport which she has been eating well. We started with 1/2 and she was immediately gobbling it all up. We’re now back to her full volume (3.5 lbs AM and PM) and she isn’t wanting to finish it. Is there any way I could decrease the volume and add extra fat and protein so that she’s still consuming everything she needs with less of an amount?

OR I would love to hear if there are cushings friendly ways to make things tastier. She isn’t currently losing weight, but I’m trying to figure this out before she does. I’d also love to stop wasting so much unfinished grain.

Thank you so much in advance!!

as a note: she’s schooling 3rd level dressage and is doing superbly well other than this distaste for more than 1-2 lbs of grain per feeding.

[kashmere]

My super picky eater mare really, really loves molasses-free beet pulp. I was shocked to see her gobble it down like the world’s best treat. That’s a cheap and easy way to add calories on its own, and you could always try mixing your grain into it.

Also - what is APF? driving myself nutty trying to decode it!

[WildGooseChase]

I have an older, but healthy, somewhat picky eater mare on Tribute Senior Sport as well. She can’t eat more than 3lbs of it at a time really.

I would bump her down to 3lbs a feeding, and then see if she will eat a pound or two after your rides. Unsweetened beat pulp is a great alternantive like @kashmere pointed out. It’s all digestible fiber.

[BoyleHeightsKid]

@kashmere

Also - what is APF? driving myself nutty trying to decode it!

https://www.smartpakequine.com/ps/ap…n-formula-2285

@Freddo I might just go ahead and treat for ulcers if this were my horse. A preventative might help with symptoms and help make them feel better but will not treat. Are you familiar with the espomeprazole thread here? It should be on this page or the next because I just bumped it up for someone else yesterday.

[Freddo]

@BoyleHeightsKid

https://www.smartpakequine.com/ps/ap…n-formula-2285

@Freddo I might just go ahead and treat for ulcers if this were my horse. A preventative might help with symptoms and help make them feel better but will not treat. Are you familiar with the espomeprazole thread here? It should be on this page or the next because I just bumped it up for someone else yesterday.

That’s what I’ve already been treating with. I’m confident the issue is not ulcers at this point.

[luvmyhackney]

How much does she eat and if you leave it overnight does she go back and finish it? Might need to feed a smaller amount and add a third feeding.

I would still treat for ulcers and see if it makes a difference on her finishing her grain. Can’t hurt anything.

[walkinthewalk]

Are you sure she is actually eating her Prascend? I would be more concerned about that.

My Cushings horse never has “cleaned his plate”. I take a small piece of apple, drill a hole in it with a pointed steak knife, put the Prascend in that and hand feed it. That way I know he has received his pill. He also only gets 1/2 pill but I quarter it and give him a quarter pill 2X/day:).

If your horse is home, try dividing her feed pan stuff into three feedings instead of two.

He is also not rideable so does not need more than 1/2 to 3/4 measuring cup of timothy pellets to mix his supplements in. If I mess up and give him a full cup, he can’t finish his meal. He was like that before he was Cushings, which is why I suggested dividing your horse’s feed pan stuff into three meals:)

He hates beet pulp - even the pellets - my neighbor’s goats thanked him profusely for hating beet pulp - they got the whole bag minus a couple of cups:)

Is his feed pan clean? Most people don’t bother to wash out feed pans. Then the “stuff” builds up into sour yuck. When the horse gets close to the bottom they stop eating because it tastes awful. That was one major flaw when I had to board, those wood feed pans were nailed to the wall and never got a good solid cleaning. They got wiped out periodically but never got scrubbed. I have poly-hard plastic feed pans, wash them after every feeding and Clorox them every Sunday.

[JB]

@Freddo

Is there any way I could decrease the volume and add extra fat and protein so that she’s still consuming everything she needs with less of an amount?

A ration balancer for nutrition (almost all are about 3c/lb), a fat supplement for low volume calories, and if she likes them and still needs a calorie boost, maybe 1lb (around 3c) alfalfa pellets

[suzyq]

Maybe try ultium? It’s more calorie dense. Also my horse hates tc senior but loves tc complete. Not sure if that is too high of starch for your horse though.

[Freddo]

@walkinthewalk

Are you sure she is actually eating her Prascend? I would be more concerned about that.

My Cushings horse never has “cleaned his plate”. I take a small piece of apple, drill a hole in it with a pointed steak knife, put the Prascend in that and hand feed it. That way I know he has received his pill. He also only gets 1/2 pill but I quarter it and give him a quarter pill 2X/day:).

If your horse is home, try dividing her feed pan stuff into three feedings instead of two.

He is also not rideable so does not need more than 1/2 to 3/4 measuring cup of timothy pellets to mix his supplements in. If I mess up and give him a full cup, he can’t finish his meal. He was like that before he was Cushings, which is why I suggested dividing your horse’s feed pan stuff into three meals:)

He hates beet pulp - even the pellets - my neighbor’s goats thanked him profusely for hating beet pulp - they got the whole bag minus a couple of cups:)

Is his feed pan clean? Most people don’t bother to wash out feed pans. Then the “stuff” builds up into sour yuck. When the horse gets close to the bottom they stop eating because it tastes awful. That was one major flaw when I had to board, those wood feed pans were nailed to the wall and never got a good solid cleaning. They got wiped out periodically but never got scrubbed. I have poly-hard plastic feed pans, wash them after every feeding and Clorox them every Sunday.

Yes! We check to make sure she eats her prascend. It’s always on top and she doesn’t pick it out. She for some reason it didn’t get eaten, it goes into a pill pocket and she gobbles it up. Her feed pan is clean, I board her but I scrub her feed bucket once a week (it takes almost an hour since it’s mounted to the wall)

[Freddo]

@JB

A ration balancer for nutrition (almost all are about 3c/lb), a fat supplement for low volume calories, and if she likes them and still needs a calorie boost, maybe 1lb (around 3c) alfalfa pellets

I was hoping you’d reply to this thread. Are there fat supplements that you recommend? Would the alfalfa pellets need to be soaked? Also, are ration balances palatable? Sorry I honestly know so little about this stuff because I’ve never had a feed issue. Are there ration balancers you recommend? Please educate me I am so behind.

[JB]

There are lots of fat supplements from Renew Gold to Coolstance Copra to 3 different Ultimate Finish products to rice bran to oil. It’s mostly about convenience to start and adjusting for palatability

Soaking is a personal need, and depends on whether you get the large hard pellets (definitely yes), or the smaller softer ones.

All balancers are palatable to most horses, some are less palatable to some, and some horses are very picky.

I always recommend Triple Crown as a starting point because it’s lower iron and higher cu and zn than most, and fairly widely available. But the first question as to be - what brands can you reasonably get?

[sassy]

Oof, I just went through this with my horse and it was terrible.

He’s a 19 year old warmblood gelding in light to medium work with PPID. His last blood test levels came back very high so we had to increase his prascend dose…as a result he stopped eating his Triple Crown Sr almost entirely. I started by pulling him off all supplements to see if he was objecting to any of those. No difference. After some trial and error, we landed on the ProElite Senior. It’s actually very similar to the TCS in nutritional values and is beet pulp-based too, but for whatever reason he has decided he likes it :rolleyes: I also started him on 10mL of the APF Pro daily when he stopped eating. Another thing I did was basically cut his serving size in half. He went from 4 lbs of TCS twice a day (which he really wasn’t eating) to around 2 lbs twice a day. He finishes that amount consistently and if I notice he begins to lose weight, I can always try to increase it a bit.

My horse is hard because he objects to all types of ration balancers and low starch pelleted feeds, so unfortunately none of those feeds worked for us. Another thing I found was quality of hay makes a huge difference. If he’s getting good quality hay (sometimes alfalfa, sometimes a Timothy mix) he consistently eats it all with helps with weight. When he was at a farm with crappy grass hay, he wasn’t eating any of it and in turn wasn’t getting any of that nutritional value.

Some feeds to consider as alternatives to the Triple Crown are the ProElite Senior, Hallway Fibrenergy, Pennfield Fibergized, and McCauley’s Alam.