percypony
Grand Prix Poster
Horses are life.... the rest, just details!
Posts: 1,082
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Post by percypony on Dec 22, 2005 8:42:39 GMT 1
If she hasn't got a sweet tooth how about something like Garlic. (I know it always makes my mouth water!!! ;D) Also try making the feed warm? Have you tried making it sloppy, with loads of yummy sugar beat water? One of my boys loves to drink this! Maislow suggested Bailey's No 1 which I use too. Lovely easy to eat and tummy smelling feed. Great for some slow weight gain too if you add it slowly to the feed. Good luck, feed is such a mine field these days isn't it!? S x
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Post by Friendly Native on Dec 22, 2005 11:52:58 GMT 1
Pepermint cordial just a little in each feed,
FN*
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Post by joandlad on Dec 22, 2005 16:10:16 GMT 1
My old boy (33) went through a spell of not really eating his feeds a couple of years ago. Got the vet out after a few days and he said, as he walked up to his stable door and saw him - without even touching him, that it was his teeth that were the problem. He said that he'd lost the chewing muscles at the side of his face as he obviously hadn't been able to chew properly for quite a while. Bit worrying as I'd had his teeth done by yhe vet every 6 months since he was 10! Vet (new to my practice thankfully) gave me phone number for an Equine Dental Technician and she has been absolutely fantastic. Showed me the way the vets in the past thought they were doing the right thing for him but in fact where making matters a whole lot worse. He also had one loose tooth which she said was probably putting him off eating too. After 3 visits and 1 extraction he was much better. She told me a good way to see if your horse might have teeth problems is to look at their droppings. If you can quite clearly see bits of undigested grass it means that they haven't been able to digest it because it hasn't been chewed properly.
She told me not to feed him anything hard. By the time they are about 25 their teeth will be worn down to soft tooth and will have virtually stopped growing. So he has his feeds mixed up to an almost soup consistency and left for half an hour before I give them to him. He always had loads of carrots in his feeds so I bought a food processor and shred these up and mix in with his feed.
He did stop eating his feeds again in the summer but that time it was down some sort of problem with his carrots - don't know what though. I put the various different feeds that he had in separate buckets and put them all in front of him and said "OK tell me which one you don't like then". Straight away he got hold of the carrot bucket and threw it across the yard and then ate all the other buckets! Umm, "perhaps its the carrots" I thought. ;-) Bought some different carrots and he was back to normal.
Hope you manage to sort it out.
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moose
Novice Poster
Posts: 0
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Post by moose on Dec 23, 2005 12:27:52 GMT 1
Thanks for all your suggestions Luckily she is still eating a big net of haylage every night so hasn't lost too much weight. Thats so funny about your horse throwing his carrots across the yard, if Simone doesn't want something she has to fling the bowl away too! She keeps changing her mind, eating something one day but not the next so I'm a bit concerned about her digestion. At the moment she has a 'feed wheel' in her bowl of different things to pick from. My arab is soooooo jealous - she will eat anything and is fascinated by all the different types of food on offer to her friend. Roll on spring grass................................................
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