Feeding the extremely picky hard keeper

[tessasereyna]

Hello all!

I am in need of some feeding help. I have a four year old starvation rescue who I am still putting weight on (got her last October). Problem is, she doesn’t like to eat. She eats maybe two flakes of hay twice a day (alfalfa/grass mix) but often leaves that as well (and she can’t have free choice because she is out during the day and night with our other two horses, who are both fatties). She gets grain twice a day, and was previous on Triple Crown Senior, but won’t eat more than 2lbs a feeding and isn’t getting enough overall with that amount.

Buckeye Grow n’ Win combined with Renew Gold was suggested, and she has been on Grow N’ Win now (combined with about 3/4lb senior) for a few days and is eating it well. Problem is, she will not touch the Renew Gold. She also will not touch Amplify, or any other rice-bran containing products I have tried. She is very sensitive to taste. She also doesn’t like soaked beet pulp, and doesn’t like soaked Fibre-Beet (beet pulp/alfalfa mix) by Emerald Valley. Haven’t tried straight alfalfa cubes yet.

My hope was to get her off of the TC Senior and onto just Grow n’ Win with something added for calories (since she will only eat small amounts per meal and Grow n’ Win is fed at 2lbs total per day). However, the problem is getting the extra calories in. ANY suggestions for picky eaters?

We have ruled out any medical issues regarding her not wanting to eat. Her teeth have been done recently, and four weeks ago she finished a month of GastroGard to treat likely ulcers. So it is truly just her being a very picky mare. She is not being ridden or worked hard (dealing with off and on lameness issues and back issues resulting from her starvation early in life), and is free to roam 24/7 on 12 acres (not much grass as we are in dry NM, but there is some).

Would love to hear what you all feed your picky horses, and if there is any fat supplement you have had luck with which tastes good.

Thank you all!

[dungrulla]

Have you t scoped her for ulcers? This is decently common in starvation cases and can affect appetite. They often don’t go away with a single treatment of ulcergard.

If she’s truly just picky, I’m a huge fan of putting fenugreek and anise powder on feeds. The fenugreek I do at home at a tablespoon for feeding. Don’t get a horse specific product for either–you can get them both at your local Indian market or on amazon as a cooking spice for much less money.

[Simkie]

Have you considered hind gut ulcers, or treated for them? Running through a succeed challenge might be useful (and you get your $$ back if it doesn’t work) or equishure is pretty inexpensive.

My go tos for my picky hard keeper are alfalfa and CarbCare Performance. The key is really the alfalfa, but the CarbCare is really dense, so it’s easier to get supplemental calories into her in a small volume package. I also add oil for additional calories.

But really–the problem is the horse isn’t eating enough hay. If you can figure that part out, the picky part becomes a lot less of an issue.

[candyappy]

She doesn’t need to roam 12 acres with nothing to eat. She needs 24/7 hay in front of her if she is going to gain the weight she needs.

If your other horses are easy keepers than ( if possible) fence off a good sized area for her alone ( with shelter) and provide excellent quality hay that she can consume as she wishes. Sadly the best and easiest way to get weight on most horses is good pasture, but sadly you don’t have that.

I had luck rehabbing an older TB broodmare who needed a good 150-200 pounds by feeding free choice alfalfa/grass hay and Strategy( years ago–my vet recommended it) He didn’t recognize her 5 months later

It may not be that she is a picky eater at all, but just needs the freedom to eat at leisure as sometimes suffering starvation changes the way an animal eats.

[ReSomething]

Ok so I had an ASB, historically hard keepers, and he was also in his 20’s. You can see in one of my other posts that we had 16X16 panel pens, and those pens were expressly made up to get the two horses apart so he could eat in peace. The other horse (pony) was an aggressive eater and would chase him off.

After much trial and error I made up two muck buckets of hard feed, about 8 lbs of TC Sr with Canola oil in one and soaked till fluffy alfalfa cubes plus another pound or two of the Sr in the other, plopped them in the pen with him and let him eat them overnight.

He paid too much attention to the pony in the daylight and would fuss because the pony might go out without him. Not had gone out, but might. Or possibly he wanted some grass but he was an inefficient grazer, would find other things to do. Hay ad lib is very good for them but he preferred to root through his hay and walk on what he didn’t want to eat.
There is a table of calories per pound for various horse feeds put out by the people at laminitishelp.org http://laminitishelp.org/CalorieFeed.pdf and Grown and Win has 200 less calories per pound than Sr. Try the Canola, 2K per cup so a quarter cup will bump it up a little bit.

[lesson_junkie]

I have a horribly picky TB that is a bear to keep weight on. He has definite preferences in feed. My best luck has been with Proelite Sr. He will eagerly eat good quality hay, so that’s a good thing. I just kept trying decent feeds until I found one he would eat. He is very frustrating-he has no appreciation whatsoever for the money I’ve spent to accommodate his finicky tastes!

As we did scope and treat for ulcers on this horse, I elected to stay away from grain, like corn and oats, and stick with pelleted, beet pulp heavy concentrates. If that’s not a concern, maybe try that.

A hundred yeas ago, I remember poor horses being fed Calf Manna-do people do that any more?

[kande04]

Two pens, with the fatties restricted enough so that they have to stay near enough to the hard keeper so that she’ll be calm enough to eat. That way the fatties can get the amount of feed they need, and the skinny girl can get what she needs. If necessary, put her on pasture with the extra feed she needs and lock the fatties up and feed them hay.

I had a Trak/TB mare who was a hard enough keeper that I just fed her free choice hay and grain–whatever kind of grain she wanted. She still came out of the winter lean, but at least she wasn’t a rack of bones, and then she put the weight back on when the grass came in.

[mmeqcenter]

She needs a separate pen and free-choice hay. Often times picky eaters aren’t necessarily super picky on what they’re eating, they just can’t/won’t eat large amounts in a short time frame. Being by herself enables her to eat in small quantities throughout the day at her leisure.
Other than that, I’d just cycle through all grains that are readily available to you until you find one she seems to like more than the others.