UPDATE #21 : abruptly stopped eating as much hay

[HoofHeartSoul]

First forgive any typos, i am on my phone and it is hard to type.
My 27yr old is still not eating forage like he should but is still in good weight.

Seems to be overly excited for his grain T.C senior and is eating wood/sawdust.

since it has gotten cold he has been shut in his stall overnight for a week now a d i have added. 2nd cut timothy hay ( very soft), dumor chopped timothy/alfalfa, and T.C balance cubes soaked.

he eats only a little bit of each and most of it is still left in the AM.

I Added a friends standlee alfalfa half flake in there and he eventually ate it overnight but seems to loose interest in whatever after a couple days.

I have had his teeth checked again but nothing major except starting to cup out in some molars.

His 3’s and 4’s on his teeth according to xray may have start of EORTH.

But to me if his incisors hurt he wpuld not chew wood of stall and want to go eat short grass.

I AM TRULY AT A LOSS, he is driving me nuts with worry.

[cnigh]

Went back and read your reply. If he eats soaked hay cubes. then I would give him a bucket full each night.

Senior feed is also a good option since it’s mostly hay.

[Scribbler]

So how was he all summer?

[4horses]

Fractured tooth? as they age their teeth wear out, fall out or fracture. My old mare has lost a couple teeth that just fell out by themselves. One was fractured and had to be pulled. Her back teeth are smooth like sea shells. While she can eat hay, she can only eat the first cutting. I filled my barn with 60 bales of first cutting just for her. She gets 8 lbs of hay per day, 9 lbs of soaked alfalfa, pasture grass, and beet pulp/grain. I have to ration the hay because I can’t store more then 60 bales at one time. That has to last until May.

[carman_liz]

If he is eating sawdust that could cause colic. My dads tb back when I was a kid 30 yrs ago had to be switched to straw, I would try that asap?

I also second soaking everything he eats, and a rectal and tube wouldnt hurt. My mare did the same thing on previcoxx after about a year. She had both stomach n hind gut ulcers, we had to treat for both before she would start eating again. Please dont make the mistake I did and let her be on IVs for almost a week before carting her to UT to be scoped because a vet would not just treat her. (She was 33ish, at that point I wouldve tried anything scope or not) For that matter if you have a good vet, they may just go ahead and prescribe ulcer meds to be safe.

UT said when they treat for stomach ulcers they always treat for hindgut as well. Another thing that was found on my mare and then ultra sounded and xrayed was a stricture. Basically a narrowing, of her colon, the vet could barely go elbow deep, she was already eating only wet feed and then pasture grass but after that she was on all wet feed period and dry lotted.

Unfortunately she passed a couple months after that due to stifle issues and the previcox wasnt working anymore, we think it was probably a bone spur. But the pain of that combined with the previcox may have caused the ulcers and then she went from there. We were able to get her eating well again within 1.5 days of treating both types of ulcers.

Good luck, please try straw bedding, a rectal and once around tubing, and ulcer treatment for both types if your vet will skip the scope and just prescribe the meds. Merian usually has rebates, and with cvs and their gold rx plan you can save almost 100 bucks on the misiprostol for the hind gut. Hugest of jingles to your senior!!!

[HoofHeartSoul]

@Scribbler

So how was he all summer?

He was pit eating grass all summer 24/7. Never touched hay, chopped hay,etc. Except his grain and his weight was good.

He is getting shut in now because we have had temps almost into the single digits at night ( he had access to grass even with temps into the mid 30’s).

Him not eating any hay,chopped hay, soaked cubes now I oniw is going to be a problem as he has no access to grass once it goes dormant ( he is out in the daytime for about 8 hours)

[HoofHeartSoul]

@cnigh

Went back and read your reply. If he eats soaked hay cubes. then I would give him a bucket full each night.

Senior feed is also a good option since it’s mostly hay.

That is the problem, he is barely nibbling on anything I am giving him, which included the soaked balance cubes, chopped dumor hay and alfalfa.

I have even tried the Manna Pro Hi fiber chooped forage ( with the molasses) as a last ditch effort to see if he would eat a full serving of that and he ate it the first time but only nibbled thereafter and now won’t touch it.

[HoofHeartSoul]

@4horses

Fractured tooth? as they age their teeth wear out, fall out or fracture. My old mare has lost a couple teeth that just fell out by themselves. One was fractured and had to be pulled. Her back teeth are smooth like sea shells. While she can eat hay, she can only eat the first cutting. I filled my barn with 60 bales of first cutting just for her. She gets 8 lbs of hay per day, 9 lbs of soaked alfalfa, pasture grass, and beet pulp/grain. I have to ration the hay because I can’t store more then 60 bales at one time. That has to last until May.

I have had my regular equine dentist check him and he said no fractured tooth the last 2 times * although I thought he said there WAS a fractured tooth a time before these but then he never said anything about it again)

THEN when being very unhappy about an answer he gave about some things I pointed out about my horses’s gums that alarmed me, I had a 2nd opinion from a equine dental specialist who came from 2 hours away and charged near $200 for the farm call do xrays and a very thorough exam ( he even cleaned and filled gingival pockets)

and that is when they said a mild case of EOTRH in 3’s and 4’s but never mentioned any fracture or any major molar cupping that prevents him from chewing.

Truly this horse is an enigma.

[HoofHeartSoul]

@carman_liz

If he is eating sawdust that could cause colic. My dads tb back when I was a kid 30 yrs ago had to be switched to straw, I would try that asap?

I also second soaking everything he eats, and a rectal and tube wouldnt hurt. My mare did the same thing on previcoxx after about a year. She had both stomach n hind gut ulcers, we had to treat for both before she would start eating again. Please dont make the mistake I did and let her be on IVs for almost a week before carting her to UT to be scoped because a vet would not just treat her. (She was 33ish, at that point I wouldve tried anything scope or not) For that matter if you have a good vet, they may just go ahead and prescribe ulcer meds to be safe.

UT said when they treat for stomach ulcers they always treat for hindgut as well. Another thing that was found on my mare and then ultra sounded and xrayed was a stricture. Basically a narrowing, of her colon, the vet could barely go elbow deep, she was already eating only wet feed and then pasture grass but after that she was on all wet feed period and dry lotted.

Unfortunately she passed a couple months after that due to stifle issues and the previcox wasnt working anymore, we think it was probably a bone spur. But the pain of that combined with the previcox may have caused the ulcers and then she went from there. We were able to get her eating well again within 1.5 days of treating both types of ulcers.

Good luck, please try straw bedding, a rectal and once around tubing, and ulcer treatment for both types if your vet will skip the scope and just prescribe the meds. Merian usually has rebates, and with cvs and their gold rx plan you can save almost 100 bucks on the misiprostol for the hind gut. Hugest of jingles to your senior!!!

Thank you! This seems like a good plan , I will definitely mention to my vet again.

Vet didnt seem overly concerned as he is still in good weight, but he WAS on grass 24/7 and now if this is how he will continue to eat throughout winter ( just like last winter, I know he will lose it again)

[HoofHeartSoul]

@HoofHeartSoul

He was out eating grass all summer 24/7. Never touched hay, chopped hay,etc. Except his grain and his weight was good.

He is getting shut in now because we have had temps almost into the single digits at night ( he had access to grass even with temps into the mid 30’s).

Him not eating any hay,chopped hay, soaked cubes now I oniw is going to be a problem as he has no access to grass once it goes dormant ( he is out in the daytime for about 8 hours)

[Fharoah]

I would x-ray his jaw jus I would x-ray his job just to make sure that it’s not a fractured tooth t to make sure there isn’t a fractured tooth hiding somewhere. Beyond that I might try a month of gastrogard.

[hoopoe]

Could there be some positional issue? If you feed from net rack or bucket, perhaps try the floor, or up if you use the floor

[carman_liz]

@HoofHeartSoul

Thank you! This seems like a good plan , I will definitely mention to my vet again.

Vet didnt seem overly concerned as he is still in good weight, but he WAS on grass 24/7 and now if this is how he will continue to eat throughout winter ( just like last winter, I know he will lose it again)

Right, that makes sense, i would be more worried about the small fecal balls. How big is he? My mare was 14.2, what about a round of probiotics and electrolytes in his feed? I just used the tractor supply dumor brand and it helped my mare drink more. Granted she had no teeth by then so she didnt like the cold water touching her gums.

Your vet could get you a large tube of probios it looks like light blue jelly lol. But we just got a large tube of it, like caulk gun large, and kept it refrigerated and she got a dose a day for a week. When she moved barns her poops got small and I was worried and the probios helped her with getting larger amounts going again. Even if he isnt pooping as much with not eating as much, wouldnt he just have smaller amounts of large piles? Like instead of 5 large piles a night, only 2 or 3? Idk just morning pondering while waiting to get in the carline

[carman_liz]

Sorry I just read the rest of the posts if he is not eating anything even his soaked feed and barely picking picking up the dead grass I really would just go ahead and treat him for ulcers ask your vet if you find a prescription online that is not crazy expensive and they call it in if he will approve it and go ahead and ask him to write you a script for the hindgut ulcer medication as well I believe it’s called misoprostol pro-style I could be spelling it wrong. Ordering it online usually takes a day or two to get there depending on where you are located your vet may have a couple tubes of gastrogard that he can give you to get you started until your prescription comes in that is exactly what my mare was doing not eating anything and just barely picking up the grass. She dropped weight so quick it was not even funny especially with him being a senior and trying to keep warm with the weather you are having he needs that gut movement to keep his furnace going.

[moonlitoaksranch]

This happened with my mare and it turned out to be mice in the hay. They must have spoiled it with their urine (rodents always urinate on their food). I couldn’t smell it, but she picked at, or just flat out refused, the hay. It was fresh and clean looking. I was baffled and worried until the barn cat left me a present and chased another dinner morsel under the pallets. Bought a fresh bale and she ate it. Flipped the old bales over to expose the pallets and the cat feasted that night. Old bales were thrown out. Mice need a snuggly place when it gets cold. They must have been inside the bales when we stacked them because there were no signs at all.