Feeding The Picky Elderly Horse.

[Silver_Silence]

Extreme long story short I’ve taken on the care of an elderly (30+ yr old) Saddlebred gelding who was boarded, and then left behind, at a farm I used to work at (and have now stepped in to help manage for the elderly lady who owns it). He is a basket-case on the best of days, he has not been a “show horse” for well over 10 years… he is not very trusting of humans & he is in an almost constant state of worry.

Needless to say he’s gone for a number of years without the extras he could have used to keep him in good shape. He is thin and he is also picky. He still has a spark for life, and as long as he tells me he wants to keep going - we will fight the good fight. In the fall he was finally starting to eat well, starting to fill out a bit. Huge problem is that he DOES NOT LIKE SOAKED FEED. I was fine with this until he choked, twice (benefit of the doubt that the first time was a one off, but it wasn’t). He refuses to eat beet pulp, he refuses to eat hay cubes. He will not eat any “complete” senior feeds. He was eating “Teff” hay well for a bit and has now decided he doesn’t like it, I’ve now resorted to feeding him the softest grassy second cut hay I can get my hands on (his turnout buddy is a Mini, so they get first cut while outside and he munches on that fine during the day).

So now his feed is soaked regardless that he hates it, and that’s where most of the problem is stemming from… he was originally eating the Purina Evolution Senior “Ok”, then he went off it. I then tried him on Brooks “Fibre O”, and it was a win for a while, then he decided he didn’t like it anymore. I’ve tried the Buckeye Ultimate finish 40 and 100 top dressed on his grain for a while, and it doesn’t seem to entice him anymore (if anything he doesn’t like it). Last week we spoke to a Purina rep at our feed store, and they suggested we try the Integri-T and the new Pur-Athlete. He ate everything… for 3 days.

Now, he has a lot of indicators that he has cushings, and rather than test him I put him on a round of pergolide at the advice of our vet (who knows he is a charity case of mine) to see if his coat condition, etc improved, which it did. And so he’s been on the Pergolide since the fall. He also is on a daily dose of Previcox for his old creaky joints. His feet are messed up from having years of weighted shoes on, my farrier is slowly rehabbing a severely deformed/clubbed foot on his front end.

At this point I am ready to give up trying to feed him a low sugar, low starch diet and just letting him eat whatever the hell he wants to (which already started with the second cut hay)… two days ago I bought some molasses and drizzled it over his grain before I soaked it, then mixed it all in. He ate it well, but who knows how long this will last for :o

SO I’m at a loss, I’ve pulled out all the stops for this guy, he truly deserves it. I am willing to buy whatever he needs (we’ve done the rounds of pre and probiotics, he’s had his teeth done, he’s also on “Equinety”, and he gets his two daily pills shoved into a stud muffin because he loves them and would eat a whole bag if I let him).

Give me all the ideas you’ve got for your picky-as-hell oldies (for reference, we are in Southern Ontario).

[freshman]

Good on you for taking on this oldster and trying to make the rest of his life great. His improved condition is obvious in photos! Sorry that he is so picky and also hates soaked food, complete feeds, etc. It makes it really tough, especially when they are prone to choke.

Glad he likes the soft hay. I know it can be a problem to source consistently. Have you tried any of the commercially available bagged chopped hay/forage diets? They are spendy, of course, but a lot of senior horses that can’t otherwise have traditional hay do well on them. And most seem to be like horsey crack, very palatable.

So what “grain” DOES he like, if any? What did he eat or not in his previous life? I realize that it clearly wasn’t working for him, given his condition, but so many factors involved. He’s medicated for his cushings disease now, getting some amount of good forage that he can eat and use, etc. He doesn’t sound like a truly metabolic horse that has previously foundered or any other issues with laminitis that would suggest true insulin resistance. So if he likes and will eat cheap, sticky, store-brand sweet feed, just feed it to him in some amount if he can safely eat it without choking It’s not ideal, and is less digestible, of course, but it is also less of a choke hazard than pelleted feeds. At some point they just need to eat something versus nothing. Yes it’s sweet, so more tasty in some ways, but also just a texture thing. Given his strong opinions on all pelleted and soaked feeds, I suspect he is a texture guy. If he will eat the dry sweet feed, try slowly mixing it with small amounts of soaked senior and see if you can work him up to a decent amount.

I am sure others will chime in soon with other ideas. Best of luck with him. What a lucky old horse! Please keep us posted.

[Silver_Silence]

@freshman Thanks very much. I’ve actually known this horse for most of my riding career… I just can’t believe that the same people who owned & showed him since he was 3, decided to abandon him like this. He did also have a mini-bestie that was his previous buddy who was also around 30 who sadly passed away in August. We went for a month with him moping (though he has a shared fence line with other horses, no one was suitable to actually go out with him), so I bit the bullet and went on a mission to find him a new bud. New mini-bestie is 15 year old “Morty”… the old man is “Rocky” they are hilarious together :o

Funny you suggest mixing in a regular old sweet feed with some of his current, because that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. That’s exactly what he was eating in his ‘previous life’. I agree about him eating something, is better than nothing… I will try this out for his lunch tomorrow and see how it goes.

I have quite a bit of the second cut on hand for now, and so he will get as much as he’d like of that. I will look into this bagged chopped hay/forage though, thank you!

[walkinthewalk]

Can you get copra (cool stance)? It is high fat calories without the edginess of sweet feed or some other feeds.

https://stanceequineusa.com

if not, you might try going back to beet pulp and loading it up with coconut oil. Coconut oil is the consistency of Crisco, so it has to be liquified in the microwave close to enough to feed time that it doesn’t solidify again. I wrap the container in a warm dish towel and carry it to the barn.

i bought mine at GNC as they had a big sale but these days WalMart has jumped on the coconut oil wagon and has more brands than you shake a stick at, in the baking area.

just be sure to buy “cold pressed” and do NOT buy anything that has something else blended into it.

this article talks about horse and coconut oil, plus down at the bottom she gives dosages ---- it’s the only fairly credible link I could find that talks about dosage.

https://www.coconutmybody.com.au/blo…oconut-oil-too

i feed 30ml - to 40ml daily to both of my seniors but you can feed more than that. My guys have a lot more fun eating their Timothy pellets & supplements since I added the coconut oil, lol

best of luck with the old Gent and many kudos to you for caring enough to spend your own money:)

[Mango20]

My old guy hated soaked feed, but was okay with damp feed. A delicate balance was reached. I’d soak his feed in hot water until it soaked up all the water, so it was not soupy at all, but was wet enough to combat choke, and help with his missing teeth. He ate the bagged, chopped forage for a while, until he was leaving the harder stems and it was too wasteful for the price. After that, he ate damp TC Senior, beet pulp, and hay pellets (and was also on pergolide). With these opinionated old guys, you just have to keep trying until you find what works. If what works is some sweet feed, then that’s better than not eating enough.

[theresak]

If you can do a round of nexium to treat ulcers and see if that perks up his appetite.

My horse is not old but is incredibly picky about his hard feed - it’s a texture issue and he doesn’t like powders. I’ve had to sell or give away multiple bags of feed and fat supplements after 10 days. He even went off TC Senior a year ago after eating it for almost a year.

I’ve found that he likes the cheap sweet feeds, Buckeye Gro-n-Win, and rice bran pellets (using Ultimate Finish 25). HorseTech custom makes a supplement for me and that is the hardest thing to get him to eat every day. A splash of oil to get the powder to stick to his pellets helps. The Ultimate Finish 25 pellets also seem to attract the powder and help carry it into his mouth better. If I wet his feed, it has to be just slightly dampened and consumed right away before the pellets dissolve.

[poltroon]

Calories are important. If he’s not eating he can’t heal from any malady nor feel good. I haven’t dealt with any cushingoid types but in general I have found that sometimes providing variety in feed is helpful. One of my old dudes LOVES rice bran pellets, go figure. It is the first thing that he eats in his feed, before the molasses stuff even.

Sometimes it has helped to have two separate buckets out with different feeds.

I dealt with a crisis with the rice-bran-eating horse at one point, where he really lost appetite and started having neurologic symptoms. We ended up trying a vitamin E supplement that made all the difference. Because I couldn’t trust him to eat all his food, I give him that and his bute mixed with water and sugar in a syringe once a day. He’s happy to let me do that and it really helped keep his appetite more predictable. As they get older and don’t eat enough, the vitamin supplementation in the feeds is not high enough AND also their efficiency in digesting and using those essential nutrients is lower.

I used to soak his feed but he likes to nibble at it all day, so that doesn’t work for him. He also does not have a choking issue however.

The other thing that has helped this horse is ridiculously frequent worming. I believe he may have had an endemic case of threadworms that was affecting his skin integrity.

Good luck!

[Silver_Silence]

Thank you all for your ideas!! Some really good ones here. Today I will “par” soak his feed and add some regular old sweet feed in there and see what happens. Good idea with the coconut oil as well. Thanks again!

[newhorsemommy]

Some horses LOVE fenugreek powder. Mine does. Others here haven’t had the same luck. I read that it used to be given as an “appetite stimulant” but I suspect the horses just ate more because they like it. I’ve tried molasses, jello powder, kool-aide powder, applesauce, etc., and my picky old guy turns his nose up at it. He scarfed his food down with the fenugreek. I’m not currently feeding it because nothing he is getting now appears to be offensive to him, lol I was buying it on Amazon, but any grocery store with bulk herbs should have it and you could just buy a little sample. My guy also loves the chasteberry powder that he gets (in addition to Prascend). Also, my picky old gelding is quite fond of Triple Crown Sr.

[Simkie]

How does he do on alfalfa? I have a picky, hard keeping old lady, and alfalfa really keeps her looking very good. I feed her free choice in her stall at night…really, really nice dairy quality stuff. She usually eats the leaves off and leaves a pile of stems (because of course she does :rolleyes: :lol:) She eats grass hay when she’s turned out with the others during the day. Alfalfa is usually low NSC, so it can often work well for cushings critters.

Best of luck, and thank you for taking in this grand old man!

[PeteyPie]

He looks great. I think you should be giving us advice.

[mlb722]

My 27 year old became super picky as she aged. I gave up and eventually fed her sweet feed. At that point I was just trying to keep her quality of life good. She liked some of the chopped hay products with molasses. Sucrafalate helped too.

[Silver_Silence]

@Simkie The second cut ‘grass’ hay that I just opened does have a lot of alfalfa in it, so I was happy to see that and hes eating it super well. Its leafy and soft, he does a real good job on it, the stuff outside he quids a lot of but seems to keep himself occupied ok with it. If the next bale (they are 600lb 4x4 rounds) doesn’t have as much alfalfa I will look to supplement with some small squares of it. But this round will last him a bit.

@PeteyPie well thanks very much! He’s unfortunately lost condition again through the last two months as hes been super picky now that everything’s being soaked, which led me to you guys and your wealth of knowledge. :yes: I know with the spring grass coming up and getting him moving and going on walks and hand grazing will help out a lot too.

Tonight I soaked the “Integri-T” (as it is a must soak pellet anyway), put the Pur-Athlete on top and then mixed it in so it got a little mushy but not sloppy. And then did a 3/4 cup of regular old 12% sweet feed mixed all through the rest. He ate all of it but maybe a handful, so I’ll play around with it and see if I can figure out what the magic amount of water is for him.

[little_bit]

I put sugar free jello (Royal brand 3 for a $1.00) and put 1/2 package over the top of his pellets before wetting. It works for my old picky pony.

[RedHorses]

Try Brooks Fit&Fibre textured. It looks like a sweet feed but is low NSC and soaks easily. My Cushings horse who is also a picky eater who went off Fibre O was quite happy to eat Fit&Fibre textured with Equi Jewel for added fat/calories.

One trick for “soaking” feed for horses who don’t like soaked feed is to set their feed up in a bucket in advance, put a little water in and immediately shake it up so all the pellets are wet but there is no water in the bottom of the bucket. The pellets absorb the water, then dry by the next feeding, but remain easily crumbled when the horse eats them. This doesn’t work for very hard pellets like alfalfa. I did it for my choker when I used Blue Seal Carb Guard. About 25ml water to 1 1/2lbs of feed. With such a tiny amount of water you can see why the shake up must occur immediately; otherwise it gets absorbed by just a few pellets. You’d have to experiment to find out how much water your feed needs.

[Silver_Silence]

@RedHorses thank you for the advice! So far he’s eating the regular grain lightly soaked (was doing the same idea as lightly wetting it and mixing it immediately) mixed with a bit of purina simplicity.

[Mouse_amp_Bay]

I’m not a feed expert but integriti is pretty bland and boring. Definitely not high on the tasty spectrum according to mine.

Double check but I believe that purina ultium/trimax is very tasty and low NSC. He might love that as a top dress and it would get more calories into him.

[stressgirl37]

I feel your pain. I had a mare like this that I took in. She had a back injury and was just a pasture pet. Some days she would not eat what she had eaten the day prior. So frustrating! I got to where I’d put out a “buffet” of various feeds and mixtures to see what tickled her fancy that day. Have you asked the vet about vitamin B complex shot to stimulate appetite?

[Silver_Silence]

@stressgirl37 No I haven’t! We did start him on previcox for pain management as hes a creaky old horse that’s never been afforded any kind of joint support, etc. He seems to be quite happy since we started that. The vet will be back around soon and I will certainly be asking about the vitamin B complex! Thank you

[Silver_Silence]

@Mouse&Bay

I’m not a feed expert but integriti is pretty bland and boring. Definitely not high on the tasty spectrum according to mine.

Double check but I believe that purina ultium/trimax is very tasty and low NSC. He might love that as a top dress and it would get more calories into him.

I missed this post! I did try him on the Trimax as I had it for another oldie on the property who is prone to founder but also needed weight on him. It worked a charm for him and now have him at a good weight and totally sound, and hes just on the Evolution Senior now. Rocky however, didn’t think it was so amazing. :rolleyes: