Ideas for old, PICKY, hard keeper horse?

[LadyBug]

First I should say that I spent some time attempting to search old threads on this, but I find the search feature on this forum to be wonky. Thus the new post on a much-discussed topic, but maybe someone has a suggestion I haven’t thought of or tried yet.

I have an old gelding that can’t eat much hay anymore. I don’t know his exact age, but he’s in his late 20s to early 30s. He is on 24/7 turnout because that’s what keeps him happy (unless the weather gets really severe), he has a shed, and I blanket the heck out of him in the winter to keep him from burning unnecessary calories. He’s still spunky and has the worst manners in the barn. When he’s with “his girls” he’s still the boss, but he’s mostly in a field by himself these days so that I can monitor his food intake.

I offer him soft, quality grass hay, but he quids and only picks at it, so he isn’t getting many calories that way. His teeth are looked at and managed twice a year. He’s scheduled to be looked at in about 2 weeks, so a tooth that needs to be removed is certainly a possibility. Right now he still has grass to graze on, but that’s soon going to come to an end.

Over the past 2 months I’ve been really working hard to get him to eat as much as I can to put weight on him before winter. It was going great, he’s looking the best he has in a few years, and he was cleaning up everything I offered to him. This week he stopped cleaning his buckets, so that’s why I’m here. He has got to keep his body condition up with winter quickly approaching.

Thankfully he’s at home and I work close by, so I can soak and feed and manage this as needed. This is approximately what he’s been eating spread over 4-5 feedings per day:

~10lbs Nutrena Senior (was on TC Sr 2 years ago but actually ate more and looked better after switching to Nutrena)
~2 lbs Beet pulp (his manure gets loose in the winter once the grass is gone. I thought maybe this would help his hind gut, but maybe I’m wasting belly space?)
~3 lbs of soaked alfalfa cubes
~1lb Nutrena Empower Boost (rice bran/flax nugget)

• Supplements: loose salt, Buteless, MSM, HorseTech GutWerks, and ground flax

I am going to pick up some applesauce in hopes that maybe that will make his food more tasty. He won’t eat the Triple Crown soft chopped hay. Overall the challenge with him has always been getting him to eat ENOUGH. He will eat. He just won’t eat as much as I’d like to keep him in good condition.

[DinkyDonk]

I have a picky old senior–his teeth are still fine, but he prefers his “mush bucket” over hay–he cries for it: 2 1/2 lbs of alfalfa pellets mixed into 1 lb dry weight soaked beet pulp (final rinse is HOT water in cold weather) with salt, whole flax, and and a mix of Cocosoya and canola oil (3 oz per mush bucket) twice a day. Morning bucket has his vit/min, supplements, Equioxx, etc mixed in. His mush fills up half a 5 gallon bucket, and he eats every morsel of it. I used to use soaked alf cubes, but it increased the volume too much, and mush would start to freeze before he finished it–the alf pellets work out much better. For him, the addition of the Cocosoya over plain canola oil is what made the difference.

[suzyq]

My picky eater (not as old as yours though) LOVES Purina senior active feed. This is the first feed that he licks the bowl clean, no matter what I mix with it. He also loves alfalfa hay (can your guy chew that?). My horses in general won’t eat much grass hay until the pasture grass is gone.

[kande04]

Just last year my old toothless Halflinger stopped being able to get enough calories from grass so I upped her pelleted complete feed. She has a good appetite so I can feed her any kind of pelleted complete feed. It just has to have enough fiber, and be ground finely enough so she doesn’t have to chew it.

She grazes and eats hay, but quids so I don’t know how much she gets down, but she can maintain her weight on 10 to 15 lbs of pelleted complete feed a day. She doesn’t have a problem getting the dry pellets down so I don’t soak them because I don’t want to have to soak them in the winter.

I did have a TB/Trak who was a hard keeper with a poor appetite, so I kept her separated from the others so that she could have free choice pasture, second cut hay, and grain all the time. She liked the coarse sweet feed better than anything pelleted, so I just kept that in front of her all the time. She’d eat about 10lbs a day and the rest pasture or hay. I just had to be careful to leave someone in the pen next to her so that she didn’t run the fence while they were gone.

I’ve maintained several old horses over the years, and separating them has worked the best. I keep them somewhere they can roam around the farm and visit everyone, but still have access to their feed whenever they want to pick at it.

[NancyM]

The soaked beet pulp is always a good idea, don’t think that it isn’t! Cooked oats can be added to the beet pulp, some horses do really well on them, and they do tempt a horse to eat. Use good quality whole oats, cook them for a few minutes until they have boiled and are softened. If this is acceptable for your old guy, any other manufactured feed that you and he like can also be added to this, and alfalfa cubes (also soaked).

[Angela_Freda]

Do you soak all of it, or just the alfalfa cubes?

[bdj]

If you can find them, you might try to find another brand of the chopped forage. My old guy did. not. like. the Triple Crown stuff, but would happily work on Lucerne products. (Not sure exactly how much he got out of it, but it gave him something else that he could/would eat.)
I also gave him soaked alfalfa pellets, rather than cubes (his teeth were bad) and he loved his giant bucket of mush.

[carman_liz]

@LadyBug

First I should say that I spent some time attempting to search old threads on this, but I find the search feature on this forum to be wonky. Thus the new post on a much-discussed topic, but maybe someone has a suggestion I haven’t thought of or tried yet.

I have an old gelding that can’t eat much hay anymore. I don’t know his exact age, but he’s in his late 20s to early 30s. He is on 24/7 turnout because that’s what keeps him happy (unless the weather gets really severe), he has a shed, and I blanket the heck out of him in the winter to keep him from burning unnecessary calories. He’s still spunky and has the worst manners in the barn. When he’s with “his girls” he’s still the boss, but he’s mostly in a field by himself these days so that I can monitor his food intake.

I offer him soft, quality grass hay, but he quids and only picks at it, so he isn’t getting many calories that way. His teeth are looked at and managed twice a year. He’s scheduled to be looked at in about 2 weeks, so a tooth that needs to be removed is certainly a possibility. Right now he still has grass to graze on, but that’s soon going to come to an end.

Over the past 2 months I’ve been really working hard to get him to eat as much as I can to put weight on him before winter. It was going great, he’s looking the best he has in a few years, and he was cleaning up everything I offered to him. This week he stopped cleaning his buckets, so that’s why I’m here. He has got to keep his body condition up with winter quickly approaching.

Thankfully he’s at home and I work close by, so I can soak and feed and manage this as needed. This is approximately what he’s been eating spread over 4-5 feedings per day:

~10lbs Nutrena Senior (was on TC Sr 2 years ago but actually ate more and looked better after switching to Nutrena)
~2 lbs Beet pulp (his manure gets loose in the winter once the grass is gone. I thought maybe this would help his hind gut, but maybe I’m wasting belly space?)
~3 lbs of soaked alfalfa cubes
~1lb Nutrena Empower Boost (rice bran/flax nugget)

• Supplements: loose salt, Buteless, MSM, HorseTech GutWerks, and ground flax

I am going to pick up some applesauce in hopes that maybe that will make his food more tasty. He won’t eat the Triple Crown soft chopped hay. Overall the challenge with him has always been getting him to eat ENOUGH. He will eat. He just won’t eat as much as I’d like to keep him in good condition.

My mare had to switch to timothy alfalfa pellets vs cubes bc she couldnt eat the cubes anymore she would just quid them like her chopped tc forage in the field. When she switched to hay pellets(tractor supplies dumor brand) i went ahead and switched her beet pulp(standlee) to pellets as well. She was on nutrena senior and those pellets. I vould soak all three together in a big tub and she would eat that no problem. Good luck!!!

[Postandrails]

Have you had a chance to check whether there is one thing in particular he has decided he doesn’t like? I had a horse who would periodically stop eating beet pulp. I have no idea why, he just seemed to get sick of it. After a break of a couple of months he would happily eat it again. It would be worth seeing if eliminating anything you are currently feeding makes him happy.

This is a longshot, but we were talking about it in another thread. There is an Australian brand who has apparently starting selling into the US. They have a pretty unique fibre product which (while not cheap) is great for the oldies, and they love it. I have no idea how difficult it is to find.

https://www.hygain.com.au/feeds/fibressential/

[mmeqcenter]

I agree with postandrails - I would experiment and feed one item at a time, and figure out if he has developed a distaste for one in particular, or if his appetite has reduced overall. If he leaves some of just one of the items and cleans up the rest, well then, just eliminate that item and increase the quantities of the others. If he leaves some of everything, you could try an appetite stimulant.

Do you leave him with access to his food all day, or do you remove it after each feeding even if he leaves some? If the latter, I’d try leaving it out all day. Some horses just won’t eat volume at one time, but if allowed access to it will go back and pick at it throughout the day.

Also - beating a dead dragon on the forums but… - you can treat for ulcers and see if that helps. Ulcers/pain can suppress appetite.

[firefoot]

My horses aren’t as old as your guy (16 and 18) but I recently switched from TCS to Buckeye’s Safe and Easy Performance Pellet. (There are several “Safe and Easy’s,” the S&E Senior extruded pellet might also be a good option for you – 14/10/20 and I think extruded is more bioavailable for the oldies) The one I use if 14/10/20 with a NSC of 13% I believe. If you are feeding the Nutrena Safe Choice Senior, the Buckeye will give you a good bit more fat and whether you’re feeding Safe Choice or Pro Force, the Buckeye is 8-10% less NSC.

I know feeding older horses, at some point, is just feeding them what they will eat, but if Buckeye is available to you, it might be worth a try? And it might be able to take the place of some of your beet pulp and/or empower with its extra fat and fiber. FWIW, the whole barn switched from TCS to this feed (5 TBs and one TBX ages 4-22) and have found it extremely palatable and still look very well (been about a month). At least in my area, it was $5 cheaper than TCS and about the same as the Nutrena products.

[LadyBug]

Thank you for all of the responses! Lots of food for thought (pun intended). I had all of the horses in last night because of some crazy weather. He cleaned up his first bucket of alfalfa cubes but left the second mostly untouched. He picked at about half of his Senior food/alfalfa pellet/beet pulp mixture and also some of his hay. As a general rule he eats better outside than when he’s stuck in his stall. This morning he didn’t want breakfast at all and took off like he’d been locked inside for 3 months when I turned him back out :lol:

I leave his food for him so if he decides to pick a little, take a break, and then go back to it he has that opportunity. But I’m pretty sure that once he walks away from his bucket he doesn’t go back to it.

I like the idea of feeding one thing at a time, so I’ll give that a go. Usually he gets beet pulp/senior food for breakfast and dinner with buckets of alfalfa cubes or beet pulp as his extra meals at lunch and night check. Then if I happen go be around I’ll throw him an extra scoop or 2 of plain senior feed. He can definitely be picky and goes through phases of not liking things so it’s very possible that he’s “over” something in his mix right now.

Pellets vs cubes for the alfalfa is also a good thing to try.

I stopped soaking his senior food because I found that if it was too wet it would get caked in the bottom of the bucket and then he’d quit eating it. He prefers it dry, but with adding the beet pulp it could be making it too wet for him if it hasn’t absorbed all of the soaking water.

I picked up a bag of Purina Senior and added a little into his food, but it looks very similar to the Nutrena so I don’t know if it will make a difference. And I also got a bag of the chopped DuMor brand hay, which I haven’t tried offering yet.

@firefoot I think there’s a feed store around us that sells Buckeye. If I’m remember correctly that’s a different texture than other senior feeds? If so that may be worth a try to throw something completely different at him. It also looks like Chewy carries it.

@NancyM what kind of oats are you talking about cooking? Like buy a bag of whole oats at the feed store, or buy a bag of non quick-cooking oats at the grocery store?

[NancyM]

Yes, whole oats from the feed store are usually the ones that are cooked. Just get them boiling for 5 to 10 minutes, until the water is absorbed. They smell wonderful when cooking. Very popular at racetracks everywhere, when stressed horses may not be eating as well or as much as is necessary. You can put a drop of molassass in there too if you (or he) likes. Good luck!

[DinkyDonk]

@NancyM

Yes, whole oats from the feed store are usually the ones that are cooked. Just get them boiling for 5 to 10 minutes, until the water is absorbed. They smell wonderful when cooking. Very popular at racetracks everywhere, when stressed horses may not be eating as well or as much as is necessary. You can put a drop of molassass in there too if you (or he) likes. Good luck!

This sounds so delicious! Wish my senior wasn’t PPID or I’d boil him up a batch today!

[firefoot]

@LadyBug

@firefoot I think there’s a feed store around us that sells Buckeye. If I’m remember correctly that’s a different texture than other senior feeds? If so that may be worth a try to throw something completely different at him. It also looks like Chewy carries it.

Yeah I think the extruded pellets are a different texture. I’ve never soaked them, so I’m not sure how they soak (doesn’t sound like you need to do that now?). A friend got a different brand of extruded pellet once and they look like rat poops :lol:

The one I’m feeding, the S&E Performance Pellet, is a really “soft” pellet – it easily crumbles and isn’t dry. I wouldn’t really have said the TCS was dry either but this is a nicer pellet. Maybe the fat content (or something)? It also soaks great – stays really fluffy and hasn’t caked so far. So it might be a different enough texture, also, in case you can’t find the senior.

[mmeqcenter]

@LadyBug

I stopped soaking his senior food because I found that if it was too wet it would get caked in the bottom of the bucket and then he’d quit eating it. He prefers it dry, but with adding the beet pulp it could be making it too wet for him if it hasn’t absorbed all of the soaking water.

Ugh I feel your pain. My mare historically won’t touch soaked grain. Haven’t tried in a while so maybe she might now but, it’s not needed.
She gets soaked alfalfa cubes + her grain at each feeding. If I mix the alfalfa and grain, it’s a no-go. If I put the alfalfa on top of the grain, it’s a no-go. And by no-go, I mean she straight up walks away and never looks back. Doesn’t even have a taste. I MUST put the soaked alfalfa in the tub,then the dry grain on top. Drama.

Good luck!