Help with Hay Pellets & Increasing Water Intake for an Older Horse

[MustangTwist]

I have an older horse whose teeth aren’t in great shape. We’ve slowly been replacing his hay with pellets over the past year, but the more servings of pellets he gets the less he seems to find them appetizing.

For breakfast he gets 1 serving of pellets, for lunch he gets 1 serving of pellets, and for dinner he gets 1 flake alfalfa hay with his grain (triple crown senior with supplements).

The pellets are Elk Grove Milling’s Timothy Hay with Rice Bran formula. They’re soaked before feeding in a 2:1 water to pellets ratio and they tend to break down pretty quickly, but they’re not really wet/soppy when fed, just a slightly moist mash.

Lately two things have happened -

• 1. as we’ve increased his volume of pellets and decreased his hay, he’s been less wild about eating his pellets (though he hasn’t lost any weight, so perhaps this isn’t a huge issue), and
• 2. he’s had 2 fairly serious colics in the last 4 months (and a few less serious events in between), with the only explanation being ‘maybe dehydration’ ().

I’ve owned this horse 15+ years and he never colicked before this year, so it’s pretty disconcerting, esp. not knowing the reason why. They did pretty extensive workups both times, and the general advice was to encourage more water consumption.

Since the first colic, we added an extra water bucket to his stall, got him a new salt block (which he never uses), and feed him electrolytes. If anyone has tips for increasing water intake, esp. during extreme weather or big temperature shifts (which is when both colics happened), please let me know!

The only change this year - aside from him getting older - is putting him on pellets. None of the vets who treated him think the pellets caused his colics, and they’re probably right, but they also suggested switching him over to pellets completely and making them very wet before feeding (like a soupy mash consistency) to try and ease the burden on his digestive system and get him more water. I’m totally game to try a wetter consistency, but I’m worried that if we increase his pellets he’s going to get even sicker of them.

Does anyone have good tips for making pellets more palatable? Things to add in, or different formulas that don’t primarily feature alfalfa? Or should I not be concerned that he’s not finishing them since he doesn’t seem to be losing much, if any, weight?

I’m sure he would like a pellet with a higher alfalfa content more (he’s tried the EGM Senior Stable Mix pellets and seemed to like them), but I’m worried about him developing stones since he’s already had issues with colic. But maybe I’m overreacting and the alfalfa content in the Senior Stable Mix isn’t high enough to worry about?

He seems to enjoy the TC Senior he gets at night, and I know that can be a complete feed as well, but it’s more expensive and less convenient (e.g., doesn’t come in barrels and isn’t stocked as regularly by our local feed store) so I’m holding that out as a last option.

Anyway, if you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking with me! Really appreciate any advice you can provide.

Edit: I talked to my vet today about feeding hay cubes or chopped hay instead of pellets, and she thought the pellets would be better for his digestion considering the chronic colic situation. She did suggest trying the senior stable mix formula for at least 1 meal a day to mix things up, and said adding apple juice/molasses to the water was a good idea to try. If he keeps colicking in a few months, she said we should try the cubes/chopped hay then.

[trubandloki]

Can you add something like molasses or applesauce to the mix to make it more palatable?

[SusanO]

The only problem with the pellets is that you are not getting long stem fiber from them. Can you try adding soaked hay cubes? Mine always liked the alfalfa/ timothy and the alfalfa/ oat better than straight alfalfa cubes and these soaked up softer than straight alfalfa cubes. Mine did not care for timothy cubes that much but you could soak them and mix them with a feed the horse liked.

[MustangTwist]

I was a little worried about adding too much sugar since I know that’s not good for older horses, but maybe I can try some low sugar applesauce to see if he likes it!

[MustangTwist]

That’s a good idea. Are the cubes pretty easy to eat if they’re soaked?

[SusanO]

Yes the alfalfa/ oat or alfalfa timothy ( Standlee) soak pretty soft with warm water after about 10 minutes or so. I had a very old pony with no grinding surface on his teeth do well on this for years.

[gailbyrd]

For getting more water into him, perhaps use soaked beet pulp along with the pellets. He can eat on that all day (or all night) and gives good roughage. Get the beet pulp with no molasses if you are concerned about sugar.

Good luck, the older horse can be a puzzle.

[MustangTwist]

Good idea! Thank you.

[Scribbler]

My mare loves warm water with molasses and salt. It doesn’t need to be that much molasses. She will drink down a 7 gallon flatback bucket.

On the other hand she won’t touch flavored electrolytes.

She will also be interested in alfalfa cube tea, a small amount of alfalfa cubes dissolved in warm water. I bet shed like sweet feed tea too but no one has sweet feed to try out anymore.

[StormyDay]

First off, I’d try something with no rice bran as some horses decide they don’t like the flavor of it after a while.
When I need to get a lot of fluids into a horse, I buy a gallon of apple juice and pour it plus a gallon of warm water in a bucket. Horses will suck that down. Some horses you can dilute it even farther. I’ve thought about maybe buying some packets of cheap powdered apple cider and adding it to the water instead.

[MustangTwist]

Interesting! Does the molasses or alfalfa cube turn the water sour/rancid after a certain amount of time? For example, if I put molasses in his 5 gallon water bucket and couldn’t refill it for 24-48 hours, would that be ok? He does have a large water bucket in his paddock as well, so this wouldn’t be his only source of water. I board at a stable and can’t get out there every day - my horse is in a full care and training package - so I’m looking for options that are manageable in that scenario.

[MustangTwist]

Thank you! We don’t have warm water at our barn (though we do have one of those plug in water heaters), so I can try this. My only concern would be feeding him that much sugar on a regular basis?

[Scribbler]

Well, we have warm tap water. And my horse will drink this mix down within a few hours. I dump anything left the next day and rinse the bucket.

As far as the sugar amount if horse is very metabolic you probably don’t want to do this. I only use a glug of molasses and it makes no difference to my healthy horse.

[candyappy]

What about chopped hay? I think standlee makes alfalfa , timothy and a mix and some have added molasses to make it more palatable. It would give him some longer stemmed forage . You could maybe try replacing one of his soaked meals with it to break up the monotony and make eating fun again?

[MustangTwist]

I called the feed stores around my area and unfortunately they don’t carry any chopped hay products, but I may be able to special order something. One place said they have special ordered the Triple Crown Safe Forage before, if you’re familiar with that. The recommended feeding is 8-10 lbs, but I suspect if I’m just feeding it for one meal I wouldn’t need to feed nearly that much.

[StormyDay]

I’d just buy a cheap tea kettle to use. And unless he has specific issues with sugars, I wouldn’t be too concerned about it. Just keep an eye on his sugar levels (which you probably should be anyways since he’s older)

[MustangTwist]

No specific issues with sugars, I’m just paranoid these days . We had him tested for cushings last year just to see, but he didn’t have it. I’ll try a tea kettle, thank you!

[lorilu]

My guys are not fans of soaked pellets, they turn to mush. As mentioned above, pellets do not offer the same quality “forage” as cubes. My horses all get soaked cubes with every meal for the water content (they also get hay and live on pasture here in Ocala). I have been using the Seminole T/A cubes but recently changed to the Larsen’s Farm product. CLean, and soak up much faster than the Seminole cubes which can take a while. Warm water soaks in quicker. I bring a gallon of hot tap water to the barn since there is no hot water there.

[Elsari]

I’ve maintained an older horse on a mix of hay pellets, beet pulp, and senior feed for a number of years. He gets primarily timothy pellets, with a little bit of alfalfa pellets to keep it interesting. He’s an air fern that never turns his nose up to food. I throw everything into the same bucket and he devours it.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that he doesn’t drink the way he used to. He’s getting a couple of gallons of water from his food, but will hardly touch the water bucket in his stall. The vet said that it’s because he’s no longer on long stem forage. He doesn’t need as much saliva to consume his food, so doesn’t need to replenish as much water.

Could always add a bit of salt to get him to drink more.

[stb]

If it were me, I would replace at least some of the pellets with soaked cubes. You could also add some of the TC Safe Starch to the diet as well.

I wonder if your lack of long stem forage isn’t causing colic issues. I have an aged pony that currently eats Triple Crown Senior Gold with added soaked beet pulp in the morning and soaked Timothy cubes in the evening. She also gets TC Safe Starch forage to munch on overnight.