I just don’t like oil. We think of it this way, we oil horses to get things moving through their system when they colic. So when things are moving normally through their system, and we are oiling them daily with their feed, it’s just going to move things all that much quicker through their system. They are less likely to absorb nutrients.
Feed all fats as solids. Stabilized Rice Bran Pellets are a great option, as well as cool calories.
[QUOTE=yourcolorfuladdiction;7870580]
I just don’t like oil. We think of it this way, we oil horses to get things moving through their system when they colic. So when things are moving normally through their system, and we are oiling them daily with their feed, it’s just going to move things all that much quicker through their system. They are less likely to absorb nutrients.[/QUOTE]
Mineral oil is not the same thing AT ALL as what we feed them to put weight on. Two TOTALLY different things here.
Or do you think adding olive oil to your salad make you less likely to absorb nutrients? :rolleyes:
As far as blankets go, SmartPak Ultimate has a 10 year warranty (apparently even from horse shredding) and the Dover NorthWinds have a “Lifetime” warranty (whatever that means). Not sure if they come in drafty sizes, but you might look.
I’m no expert, but I second the idea of putting him in some light work. He’ll do much better long term if he gains both weight and fitness.
[QUOTE=Simkie;7870633]
Mineral oil is not the same thing AT ALL as what we feed them to put weight on. Two TOTALLY different things here.
Or do you think adding olive oil to your salad make you less likely to absorb nutrients? :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
Our digestive system and a horse’s digestive system are a lot different, and shouldn’t be compared. Horses don’t have a gallbladder to help digest large amounts of fat.
People adding 2-3 cups of oil (I’ve heard of people adding as many as 4-5 cups) to a horse feed makes the feed greasy. And what does greasy food do? It wiggles through the small intestine (where fat, vitamins, and protein are supposed to be broken down and absorbed) and moves on to the next part of the process before all the digestible nutrients are absorbed. Solid fats are treated the same way as grain and hay in the horse and are broken down and moved along the small intestine and absorbed without moving food along quicker.
I, personally, don’t have a gallbladder and I can tell you eating things that are oily or greasy means they move quite a bit quicker through my system.
“Two scoops” tells me nothing! "
Sorry, I should have said “quarts” of Senior. I don’t weigh food. But then, I don’t have picky eaters and high strung show horses, I just have “grade” guys and gals who have free roaming pasture time 24/7 if they want.
I got very good feeding advice from my vet and the website I previously mentioned. Three meals a day (always soaked their senior feed to avoid possible choke and added their corn oil to the soaked feed) and free choice hay allowed them to eat slowly and they gained weight after the first two weeks. The vet actually told me after 4 months on their new food regimen. to cut their 3 daily feedings down to 2 because they were gonna be FAT.
[QUOTE=yourcolorfuladdiction;7870802]
Our digestive system and a horse’s digestive system are a lot different, and shouldn’t be compared. Horses don’t have a gallbladder to help digest large amounts of fat.
People adding 2-3 cups of oil (I’ve heard of people adding as many as 4-5 cups) to a horse feed makes the feed greasy. And what does greasy food do? It wiggles through the small intestine (where fat, vitamins, and protein are supposed to be broken down and absorbed) and moves on to the next part of the process before all the digestible nutrients are absorbed. Solid fats are treated the same way as grain and hay in the horse and are broken down and moved along the small intestine and absorbed without moving food along quicker.
I, personally, don’t have a gallbladder and I can tell you eating things that are oily or greasy means they move quite a bit quicker through my system.[/QUOTE]
EPSM (muscle wasting syndrome) in Draft breeds is well known and oil added to their food is the best way to get them the energy and vitamin E they need. Horses aren’t humans, as you said. So don’t assume their digestive system will act like yours.
Look up PSSM AKA EPSM. It’s a metabolic disorder effecting the muscles. Very common in drafts. My friend who specialized in draft crosses got to the point that she just assumed they all had it, due to the prevalence in the Clysdale breed.
It’s not the same as what your pony has but diet is similar.
Make sure you are supplementing vitamin E/A and selinium,too.
Flakey dry skin can also be a vitamin deficiency, usually A or E, or a mineral defiency. A good,complete supplement, plus extra E/selenium should help that. I suspect he is also protein deficient, possibly due to parasites or simple starvation. Did the vet do an albumin or any other blood tests?
By oil, I mean veggie oil of any kind. The oil used for colic is mineral oil,which is not digestible. That’s why it acts as a lubricant and laxative.
[QUOTE=One Two Three;7870030]
He leaves a lot behind. He gets a third of it am a third mid and a third pm, and each time he has left overs. He goes out on unlimited grass for 12 hours. Is currently eating T/O mix. Will suggest the alfalfa… anything else?
I know it takes more time to put on the weight than it did for him to lose it…but he still looks so pitiful!
Worry about him having trouble keeping the weight now that it’s chillier out. This is Florida so it comes and goes, but when it’s here, I feel like we’re losing a lot of the work we put in. He’s shredded two turn out blankets, and uh, draftie size turn out blankies are NOT cheap.[/QUOTE]
I’m using alfalfa pellets for my gelding. i find, with horses that have gotten to thin for a variety of reasons, hay pellets are eaten in higher quantities, maybe because they’re less bulky than long stemmed hay? The smaller size also makes them easier to digest.
[QUOTE=yourcolorfuladdiction;7870802]
Our digestive system and a horse’s digestive system are a lot different, and shouldn’t be compared. Horses don’t have a gallbladder to help digest large amounts of fat.
People adding 2-3 cups of oil (I’ve heard of people adding as many as 4-5 cups) to a horse feed makes the feed greasy. And what does greasy food do? It wiggles through the small intestine (where fat, vitamins, and protein are supposed to be broken down and absorbed) and moves on to the next part of the process before all the digestible nutrients are absorbed. Solid fats are treated the same way as grain and hay in the horse and are broken down and moved along the small intestine and absorbed without moving food along quicker.
I, personally, don’t have a gallbladder and I can tell you eating things that are oily or greasy means they move quite a bit quicker through my system.[/QUOTE]
Horses have been shown to do fine on 1-2 cups of oil if started slowly. The problem with drafts is that they can’t store polysaccharides ( complex carbs/grain/grass hay) in the muscles, so they end up tying up and losing weight. They need to be on not only low starch but also higher protein/fat, in order to be able to utilize the calories. Even “low-starch” feeds are still basically carbs.
http://www.cvm.umn.edu/umec/lab/PSSM/home.html
Information on PSSM. Common in drafts and stock breeds. There is a diet on this website as well.
Mineral oil is not digestible. Cooking/plant oils ARE digestible. This makes them very different, and that is why they are not interchangeable. MO for a colic horse IS to coat things and help slide them along, because it isn’t digestible. Canola/corn/olive/flax/whatever oil is digestible, and while it might have a little effect of moving things along a little (little!) faster when fed in larger quantities, it is not remotely along the same lines as mineral oil.
Feed all fats as solids. Stabilized Rice Bran Pellets are a great option, as well as cool calories.
Cool Calories is usually a waste, at least economically. The feeding rate is 2-4oz/day, max 3-8oz. 8oz is 1 cup, which is really about where benefits start if you’re having to feed fat. 2oz? Hardly anything.
For horses with EPSM issues (which is not known in the OP case), while some of those solid fats might work, sometimes they do not, as rice bran is only about 40% fat, which means you’re bringing a good amount of carbs in with it, which doesn’t work for some of those horses.
No, horses don’t have a gall bladder, but that doesn’t mean they can’t digest fat/oil. The liver produces bile which injects into the small intestine where it starts breaking down the fat in order to be more properly digested, instead of going through the gall bladder, and from there it’s just like us. It’s just a less efficient/slower process.
It takes them several weeks to “figure out” how to digest increased intake of fat, whether that’s from solids or oils, doesn’t matter.
2-3 cups of oil, much less 4-5, is a HUGE amount and should only be done if the horse has serious EPSM issues (and is huge), NOT in order to stuff calories into him. The current recommendations for EPSM horses is about 1lb of fat per 1000lb. Oil is about 1lb/2c, so the 1500lb seriously EPSM horse could be getting 3c. NOT the underweight horse. NOT the horse without EPSM. That’s really not the healthy way to go, as that much fat (regardless of being liquid or solid) does interfere a little bit with nutrient absorption.
So no, I would not be adding fat to this horse’s diet, not yet. He needs more hay/alfalfa, and he needs lots of a good low sugar easily digestible hard feed.
We know this horse has to be nutrient-deficient, so it’s probably a combination of not enough fatty acids, not enough Vit A or E, not enough selenium, not enough protein, not enough copper and zine, not enough of a lot of things. I suspect his coat/skin will improve immensely, and fairly quickly, once he’s been on a good, full spectrum diet for a couple of months. It just takes a while for what’s going in, to present on the outside, for horses like this
1lb of alf pellets takes a lot less time to eat than 1lb of hay, so yes, as with anything being more concentrated, you can get more in less time 
As stated before mineral oil blocks absorption and is just that, part of petroleum conduction and is not digestible.
Vegetable oils comes from , obviously, vegetable or plant sources and are digestible.
“Two scoops” tells me nothing! "
Sorry, I should have said “quarts” of Senior. I don’t weigh food. But then, I don’t have picky eaters and high strung show horses, "Quote- LLee
Quarts does not give any more accurate a picture than scoops. A quart of oats weighs out far differently and has less nutritious value than a quart of pellets, of course the quality of the oats can change weights also.
Knowing the volume of what feed is all we might need, as many feeds have a known (here) weight per quart, and some feeds have it listed on their website.
You SHOULD be weighing the food though. If you’re only feeding 3lb of a feed designed to be fed at 6 or more means you should make a change. If you’re feeding 3lb of something you only need to be feeding 1lb of, you should make a change.
At least you should know if the perfect amount of food being fed is 5lb or 8lb, with both of those being well in the range of “at least and at most”. It makes a difference if you should have to change.
Well, my vet gave me the instructions for feed/oil/hay and the amount, I see no reason to override her advice. Both drafts recovered nicely and look positively gorgeous. If they had shown ANY signs of discomfort or adverse reaction to the food regimen, I would have called the vet right away. She came once per month to check on them while they were recovering, and was quite pleased with their progress.
Tell you what, you show me pics of your recovered, starved drafts, and I’ll show you mine. You do have personal experience in this special instance, yes?:yes:
[QUOTE=LLee;7870860]
oil added to their food is the best way to get them the energy and vitamin E they need. [/QUOTE]
There isn’t any Vit E in oil. But, it is very, very advisable to give extra E when feeding oil (or any significant added fat) for free radical fighting, not to mention that if there is a metabolic issue where a higher fat diet is required, that issue usually benefits from additional E anyway.
[QUOTE=JB;7871106]
There isn’t any Vit E in oil. .[/QUOTE]
My dear JB, if you would just Google “Vitamin E in vegetable oils” you would find out there is quite a bit of info out there. And lots of vitamin E in the oils, too.
As I said before, you show me yours, I’ll show you mine. :yes:
[QUOTE=LLee;7871132]
My dear JB, if you would just Google “Vitamin E in vegetable oils” you would find out there is quite a bit of info out there. And lots of vitamin E in the oils, too.
As I said before, you show me yours, I’ll show you mine. :yes:[/QUOTE]
Huh.
Interesting.
I don’t think I would feed soy or canola for their Vit E.
Are you able to purchase micronized linseed? I add it to my Shires’ low starch, high fiber rations in winter, along with ad lib hay. It is wonderful for their joints, skin, and coats. It is also valuable for putting on weight and maintaining it.
I might have missed it, but how old is your Clyde? In your first photo, it looks as if his feather has been clipped and is just growing back. Does he suffer with mites? If he is constantly stamping or rubbing his legs together, he won’t be concentrating on eating.
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