Advice with my horse and cushings

[claireree]

I am currently living in Spain and run a rescue centre for horses and donkeys, in May I took on a 15.2h 18 year old ex spanish police horse.

He is lovely but does have ringbone and recently has had the tests done and confirmed he has cushings as well.

He is very healthy and I am also feeding him chasteberry in his food as well.

I am jsut after any advice that anyone can give me on feed etc for him. He is currently on sugar beet and Dodson and Horrel pasture mix. The other horses also have alfalfa but I have been told he cant have that as it has too high protein.

 

[xxRachelxx]

You need to feed low sugar/starch feeds to a cushings horses so I would take him off the D&H Pasture Mix as this is quite high in starch. I would use a high fibre pencil that is low in starch and sugars.

 

[claireree]

Thanks for that, silly question though what about protien levels and where does it tell me the starch level in the packaging.

 

[BlackRider]

The feed also depends on their weight too, how does he look weight wise?

Dodson and Horrell don't have all their starch contents on their website, but if you contact them and ask they will tell you.

They advised me to feed their 16+ cubes, although I am looking for weight gain.

If your horses weight is ideal, then maybe a feed like high fibre cubes will be fine.

 

[xxRachelxx]

The horse will still need good quality protein (I think less than 12% is usually recommended). You should find protein levels on the bag or on website. A lot of bags/websites don't state the starch levels so you might have to ring or e-mail the company for the exact %