Tell me about Alfalfa pellets/Timothy pellets/Cubes....for older toothless horses

[LookmaNohands]

[QUOTE=Iride;5519343]
Thanks for all the stories, keep them coming. All helpful to hear, and interesting.[/QUOTE]

Okay so I am a bit befuddled with my haysnob-persnickety-perfect-as-ever-tooth-challenged-owes-me-nothing-old-gelding. Last night he hardly ate any of his soaked hay and let me know he didn’t like it by pooping in it–he is normally fastidious about where he puts his poop.

Tonight I gave him; one flake of soft timothy/alfalfa, and one flake of orchard/alfalfa(heavy on the alfalfa) soaked, chopped hay (both of the above plus another soft orchard/alfalfa chopped in the new Toro blower/vacuum/shreader). And, soaked Hay Stretcher Pellets!

He nibbled at the wet hay, didn’t seem interested in the chopped hay (but I think he will eat it later), and absolutely scarfed down the soaked Hay Stretcher Pellets!!

I should have known they were tasty, Alexandra Kurland uses them for treats in her videos. They take quite a long time to soak–at least 25 minutes in hot water. I could try boiling water to see if that helps them along.

I am so glad he likes them!! i was afraid he would get discouraged and depressed about eating (it looks like he can eat grass just fine.) I need him to be happy and healthy as I use him when training the green beans.

He is VERY special!! Here is a bit about him: http://theexcellenthorse.com/_catdisp_page.cfm?LID=129

[crthunder]

My old guy (34 in June) won’t eat hay cubes of any sort. He was quidding his hay but we let him have a flake or two per day to keep him busy. Then he had a choke incident and that was the end of the hay for him!

He gets a beet pulp shreds and equine senior mash for breakfast. More equine senior for a midmorning snack? Eq senior for lunch and dinner. And I make him his super mash at night with beet pulp shreds, senior, and a today’s special of treats. I try to keep a variety of goodies like raisins, graham crackers, cereal, oatmeal, and apple juice. Keeps him happy. His favorite is definitely the graham crackers!

I think he looks better now than last spring and he kept his weight better over the winter.

I think we need pictures of our elderly ponies! (Now if I can figure out how to add one myself!)

Becky

[My_Two_Cents]

We had a 30 year old choke badly on the hay he was quidding.
He was on day 3 of choking and we were on the verge of putting him down when it finally passed. The vets actually had drawn the drugs to put him down when he gulped and the blockage moved. He lived quite nicely for the next 7 years on soaked beet pulp shreds and alfalfa pellets. He also got some soaked senior feed as needed for weight. We fed him twice a day. He got to where he paced himself on how much he ate at a time like a grazing situation. We had to put him down last fall because he slipped in the mud and couldn’t get footing to get up. There were bad storms coming and we just couldn’t stand the thought of him lying in the mud and the cold rain. His passing had nothing to do with what he was eating. Good luck with your feeding plan!

[fourmares]

Impaction colic is a very real issue with the horses that can’t chew. One of the horses that I know that ate nothing but pelleted feed colicked several times before we figured it out and switched him over. He lived about eight or nine years. I don’t think we even soaked his feed for most of that time… I think he was on Equine Senior or LMF Senior. It is better if you can split the daily ration into several feedings. I’ve always done four feedings with the old ones.

[system]

feeding old toothless horses

I think I have been feeding Patsy about 6 or 7 years. I called the vet to come and check her teeth, she had gotten thinner and thinner. The vet said that she did not have hardly any chewing teeth. I don’t know how I even thought of it but I started feeding her 2 scoops of alfalfa pellets and 3 scoops of an inexpensive pelleted sweet feed from our Co-op. To the above 5 scoops I add about 4 1/2 gallons of hot water. Two or three times a week I add 2 tablespoons of a biotin supplement made by Farnam. If Patsy gets ONE bite of unsoaked feed she chokes. She appears to be grazing but I find MANY wads of grass that she has spit out. Sometimes I add 1/2 cup of corn oil and in the summer about 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar. Patsy is 33. She really looks pretty good and does not seem to have swollen joints. I have had her all of her life and I had her mother all of her life. I am 71. I bought a 2 wheeled cart that came with bucket to carry water. The buckets have indentations that she can’t get the feed out, so I use a tub that comes with 3 hooks on it. I have 2 tubs and as I take one out I pick up the empty one. Patsy is a Tennessee Walking Horse and is about 15 hands or a little more. Patsy cannot eat soaked cubes. I use to sit and pull them apart as I soaked them but she spit them out. The little bit of oats and corn that are added to the pelleted sweet feed come through in her manure. She wears a very expensive waterproof blanket if she seems cold. SHE DOES NOT LIKE TO BE PUT IN THE BARN. You would not think that such an old horse could throw such a fit, nickering, running around, rearing, kicking, so she wears a $300 blanket that has a neck piece and a liner if necessary.

[Iride]

kindtoanimalsvirginia, way to go with your older girl! sounds like you know her well and take great care of her kudos!

Anyway, my guy would NOT eat soaked cubes, pellets, or much beet pulp. He loves chopped hay (t&a mix) thank god - and his senior feed of which he’s getting LOTS (triple crown sr.). We’ve recently started adding Purina Amplify as a supplement, as I’ve heard lots of good things about it as a weight builder. He’s eating it mixed into his Sr.

Was a bummer about the cubes/pellets but hey, it’s been trial and error.

[twelvegates]

kindtoanimalsvirginia–

You made my day with your story!

[quarian]

@kindtoanimalsvirginia

feeding old toothless horses

I think I have been feeding Patsy about 6 or 7 years. I called the vet to come and check her teeth, she had gotten thinner and thinner. The vet said that she did not have hardly any chewing teeth… SHE DOES NOT LIKE TO BE PUT IN THE BARN. You would not think that such an old horse could throw such a fit, nickering, running around, rearing, kicking, so she wears a $300 blanket that has a neck piece and a liner if necessary.

Can I say I really enjoyed hearing about Patsy. We have a mostly toothless horse also (pretty good condition - 29 years old ex riding school horse with COPD) pretty much retired with kids grooming sometimes. And one more pony targeting for EOTRH dental surgery to extract his incisors. So looking for ideas.

[GallopHer]

My 38 yo pony (with no grinding teeth) does great on hay pellets along with senior feed. He’s doing so well in fact, I’m still riding him. Walk, trot canter.

Best of luck!

[HenryisBlaisin]

If you can get it, I had a mare who did very well on Triple Crown chopped hay. I used the alfalfa blend, which IIRC has orchard and timothy as well. They also have a grass hay and Safe Starch forage, which has vitamins and minerals (which you don’t need as you are feeding adequate senior feed) I gave her a full bucket of it (fluffed up) every night when the others got their hay and she could eat that.

Interestingly enough, same mare had a bad colic while on timothy pellets–my vet was confident they were the culprit for her, so I stopped feeding those.

Now, she gets a well-soaked ration of TC Senior with some oats and extruded flax a few times a day as that’s about all she can eat anymore. She still enjoys chewing on some grass or hay occasionally, but the TC Senior is a complete feed and can be fed as the sole ration to the oldies. Mare is a big WB and she looks fantastic for her advanced age and toothless state and still takes the occasional trail ride. I’m not sure exactly HOW old she is; best guess is late 20’s, maybe 30.

[Plushpony62]

I have a 10 year old gelding with choke. He’s been choking on his hay. Would feeding a pelleted hay soaked in water help?

[ladymcts]

I have an older horse who has had choke on three occasions. In my experience, whatever you feed, make sure it’s very well soaked. For a long time I switched between Alfalfa and Timothy pellets for him, both made by Standlee. In my opinion, the Timothy dissolved faster so was more “convenient” for me, and I felt probably better for him anyway because of the lower calcium content and his multiple ringbone/sidebone issues.

However, he still has his teeth, and the choke episodes have been few and far enough between that I’ve gone back to regular hay for him, and the only grain/feed/type stuff he gets is a senior feed which also soaks really well and quickly. Currently he’s on SeniorGlo by ADM and I love it. It’s not full of all the sticky sugars that many senior feeds are. It breaks down to a mush very quickly when water is added.

I think that if my guy were to lose teeth or he were to continue having choke episodes related to hay, that I would look more at a chopped hay product like Purina’s Hydration Hay.

[doublesstable]

I too am not a fan of hay cubes… maybe just in my area but the way they are prepared they are cold pressed and can cause bacteria/botulism…

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-11-…49_1_hay-cubes

I realize this was a long time ago but I have heard other cases of this as well… It has always been in my thoughts because it was so close to where I lived.

Pellets are heat pressed and regular bailed hay; how it can have critters in it is exposed to air more and the bacteria will normally not be an issue.

I have had a few older horses with teeth issues and found small Orchard hay pellets soak up nicely quickly. The smaller alfalfa work well but take longer to soften. I do use warm water. I will add Integrity Stabilized Rice bran meal to it and the horses love it. The rice bran makes the pellets taste good.

I feed my current horses the soaked orchard pellets with the stabilized rice bran mixed in… It’s a good way to keep water in their stomachs. They love it and drink it out of the bucket. One of my horses I add some soaked alfalfa pellets because he loves those too. They didn’t like the beet pulp at all… (except when one of my boys opened his stall door in the middle of the night and ate all the beet pulp soaking for other horses morning buckets and then of course opened a box of cookies in the dressage barn)

If you want him to have a bit to do during the day you can shake alfalfa hay in a metal grate and feed alfalfa leaves.

For an older horse Orchard pellets soaked with some stabilized rice bran mixed in and some Alfalfa leaves would be a good diet. You wouldn’t need anything else as long as you feed enough of each depending on his size.