Making a 'syrup' to top off boring timothy pellets- cane syrup

[Djones]

Y’all, I freely admit this is me pampering my gelding, Chip. Due to allergies he’s been switched onto timothy pellets and California Trace minerals for dinner, and timothy hay. The rest of my herd gets Safechoice Maintenance. For several years these geldings have come in from the pasture and put themselves directly into their own stalls without a hitch. With this change, Chippy is racing to get into Archie’s stall for dinner

I bought a jar of old timely cane syrup. He LOVES it. But it’s messy and sticky. I want to scoop up his pellets and top dress it with the syrup in some sort of solution. I got a big pump jug for dispensing it if I can figure out what to mix it with. I think with just water the syrup will largely settle. Before I make a big mess, do you have any ideas what to add to the syrup/water mix to help suspend it? He cannot have corn, carrots, flax, soy, cottonseed.

[Sdel]

Use hot water. Water dissolves sugar the best when it’s hot. Just be careful about how much you are giving….

[trubandloki]

Get a squeeze bottle, like you can get honey, jam, mayo in and then just squeeze a thin line of syrup/molasses/whatever you are using under the pellets in the feed tub. Like they do at restaurants when making the food presentation all fancy.
Then they will (most likely) eat thru the pellets to get to the yumminess underneath.

[Djones]

I will try that again. He slung the boring pellets everywhere to get to the goods. I’ve swapped him to a big ‘tub’ that’s trapped in a corner, floor level hay feeder. He can’t sling anymore.

[sascha]

Hot water. When you’re done with the cane syrup, another idea to try is hot water and a small handful of Scotch mints.

[Calvincrowe]

I’d try a looser syrup type-- maple syrup or maybe watered down molasses in a squeeze bottle. You could simply dilute the cane syrup with hot water in a bottle then shake like hell every time you feed. Might work! Definitely give the pellets a good stir/toss to maybe distribute the sweet goodness over more surface, like shaking popcorn when you butter it.

[Victorious]

You could just make your own huge batches of simple syrup-1 part water, 1 part sugar, boil til sugar crystals dissolve-very shelf stable and can easily be poured into a gallon jug dispenser. 1 swizzle pump halfway, the other swizzle pump on top. Maybe a quick stir

[Scribbler]

I feed beet pulp and alfalfa cubes in a mash. That makes the feed homogenous enough that supplements disappear into it. Also if you wanted to add molasses or syrup it would dilute and flavor the whole thjng

[sascha]

@Calvincrowe

I’d try a looser syrup type-- maple syrup

Please send me some of your money

[Janet]

@Djones

I think with just water the syrup will largely settle.

I think it will dissolve (especially if you use hot water), not “settle”.
When you mix sugar with water it doesn’t “settle”.

[luvmyhackney]

Just use pancake syrup that is already packaged and bottled.

[JB]

To use what you already have, as mentioned, use hot water to more fully dissolve and mix things. When I use cane molasses to flavor things to entice drinking, I use 2-3 parts water, to 1 part molasses. A little of the sweetness goes a long way, and the watery nature makes it much easier to mix around.

[Peggy]

Adding hot, as opposed to cold, water will make it dissolve faster. It will also somewhat increase the amount of sugar that will dissolve. Any “extra” amount of sugar that dissolved at the higher temperature will come back out of solution (“undissolve”) when it cools off, but this mustn’t be a big issue since I don’t think it happens with great regularity when making sugar solutions for things like lemonade.

[Peggy]

For the truly nerdy, here is the solubility of sucrose in water at various temperatures:

Sucrose | Thermal and oxidative degradation

If you’re going to add water to the syrup you may as well just add water to granulated sugar, assuming that’s cheaper, once you’ve used up the syrup.

[colorfan]

When I wanted to make the pellets number I used apple juice.

[Djones]

Yall are awesome sauce. Chip extends his gratitude.

[Scribbler]

Molasses can be messy but I find horses love the taste beyond the pure sweetness factor. The flavor persists as the product gets diluted.

[Victorious]

I say-make the simple syrup I mentioned earlier and then make yourself a nice old fashioned with it while you wait for his hay pellets to absorb! Just a thought!

[lenapesadie]

For a bit of variety, soft peppermints dissolve nicely in hot water. My oldie is bonkers for it.

[StormyDay]

In the winter when my molasses freezes I use brown sugar instead. They LOVE it. Mainly probably because I give everyone a 1/2 cup. So maybe try that?