Any elderly horse experts on here? help!

SNORKEY

SNORKEY

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Hi, my mother in Laws little pony is now 37, and for the past 6 months has been a nightmare to feed, and he's now getting thin.
He will eat his feed for maybe 2/3 weeks and then go straight off it and wont eat for about three days until my MIL then goes and buys another brand of feed to get him eating again, sometimes he turns his nose straight up and that's another bag of food wasted.
It seems if we can find a feed he likes we can only get him to eat it for a few weeks max.
He is still eating grass, but he hasn't had chaff or hay for a couple of years now because of his teeth. He's currently on Pegasus cubes soaked and did like it for the past few weeks until yesterday, and now he's stopped eating again!

Has anyone got any idea why he does this or what we can do to keep his weight on?

It's now got to the stage that we are going to have to get a vet out and I expect they will want to put him asleep :(
 
Fast fibre is a good fibre based feed, that you can add different things to, which might keep him interested.
37 is a fine age to get to, and shows how well you have done to still have him, but you might have to face the fact that he isn't going to be around forever, and maybe letting him go whilst he still has some dignity would be the greatest kindness of all, especially if its something the vet recommends.
 
my lad is younger than your (24) but he does the same thing, the only thing that he hasn't gone off is AP Veteran vitality he has been on it since it came out in oct/nov time and loves it. not saying yours would be the same but my lad absolutely loves it and he has gone off so many feed (showshine, hifi senior, fast fibre, topspec conditioning flakes, maintenance mix, old faithfuls the list goes on and on)
 
Hi, tried Fast fibre, he didn't like that at all, not sure if AP veteran has been tried, although I think he has tried nearly all of them.

I think a visit from the vet is needed, but her vet is rubbish and wanted to put my mums mare down for having a touch of light colic, i refused and by the afternoon she was fine!
So need to use another.
 
I have just started to feed my veteran with Allen & Pages Veteran Vitality. It looks the same as Fast Fibre and soaks in about three minutes. My boy can be very fussy with his feed and takes his time to eat it. He will go from feed to haylage have a snooze then come back to his feed again. If I did'nt stable him overnight he would'nt eat a whole feed. You could try sprinkling dried mint or grating carrot /apple /swede over his feed to add interest.
 
Hi Im sorry I cant offer anything constructive but I sympathise with you as im struggling with a similar situation, but I have a 40 year old pony who also over the last 2 winters also seems intent on starving herself. She has always been a fussy eater and has a dust allergy but used to happily eat alfa a as a hay substitute. Last year she decided she didnt like that so I switched to redigrass, this year she doesnt like that either, so im still experimenting with trying to find something she will eat. She is given 3 big feeds a day but only eats about a 3rd of them. I do manage to keep some weight on by feeding build up and super conditioning flakes, together with sugar beet when she will eat it. My vet does her teeth and bloods regularly, which are ok, but like you im getting to the stage where I might have to call it a day shortly as I hate seeing her getting thin. She is so bright and well in herself its a hard decision. I wonder if it is just their metabolism slowing down as they are such a big age. I hope you find something that works for you.
 
My old horse (33) used to be like this, he never touched hay but somehow ate grass, we got his teeth done and it made somewhat of a difference but he was still skinny. Yes, I know your not supposed to, but we fed him bread! Ovcourse we still soaked cubes for him and turn it into a mash, cod liver oil for his arthritis and some vitamin supplements, that kept him going :P he didn't pass away from starvation that's for sure :) his arthritis it the better of him unfortunately, he was such a good horse (who loved his bread!) xx
 
I have an elderly donkey who was very picky with his food. I have fed him on Soft n Soak Ready Mash for the last couple of years and he does really well on it, it smells lovely and he licks the bowl clean.
 
Our horse have a home for life, so we have had several elderly horses over the years. Our oldest atm is nearly 30. She lost weight last year because she didn't cope well with the wet weather. She is doing better this year. The dentist did say that she needs her teeth doing every 6 months, rather yearly as previously. She is currently eating a mixture of soaked grassnuts and Graze-on dried grass as a bucket feed, with various supplements and a splash of molasses, a big trug of dried grass as a hay-replacer and as much haylage as she will eat (which isn't much). We are pleased that she is maintaining her weight.
We have fed A&P weight-gain/A&P veteran/Bailey's number 1 with Alfa-A original/senior/oil to different veterans at different times. IMO it really is a matter of trial and error.
 
The 40 year old here was fed trugs of Mollichaff veteran mixed up with Equijewel/Coolstance and Fast Fibre/or soaked high fibre nuts with plenty of water to make sure it was soft enough. The trug was constantly filled up so he always had something to eat as he struggled with both hay and grass (unless really long) due to his teeth or lack of them!! You need to make sure he gets plenty of fibre and energy dense feeds - ie Equijewel or Coolstance.

there does come a time when you do have to do the kindest thing for them though. It maybe that his organs are starting to fail and I doubt any of you want to see him suffer. If the vet finds nothing wrong you just need to try and find a combo he is happy with.
 
Have you tried Equijewel for weight gain - assuming he will eat it of course... It is stabilised rice bran and very fattening. You feed a cup twice a day. It was great for getting the weight on my oldie. He gets iffy about his food, but at least I know he is still getting the calories in a small amount of food.
 
Hi, thank you, ive owned her for 26 years this year, My avatar is Snowy taken last summer. The super conditioning flakes are made by top spec.
Best wishes
 
Get down to a huge livery yard and see if several peeps might sell you for a few p a scoop of what they have, so you can try out new feeds, without having to get a whole bag. Or, as has been suggested on another thread, ask for free samples of everything and anything from all the feed companies. At least you'll have an idea what might go down OK.

My friend's pony gets steroids to kick-start her appetite when she stops eating. Dodgy, I know, but she nearly went away to nothing because she didn't eat, and it was steroids or she'd have died anyway. Eager to see what was in the bucket but wouldn't touch it. She's still finicky, but put the weight back on and it going strong!
 
Years ago, before there were so many options coarse mix wise, we used to feed our oldies a mix of high fibre cubes and stud cubes (quite high in calories see). We basically had to soak them to a porridge consistency for our oldies as they didn't have much in the way of teeth left.

Our little old pony (god know how old he was - we bought him as a 13 yo but were told shortly after by a knowledgeable person he was nearer 30! We had him about 13 + years), did the same as yours and sometimes would not eat. However, we think he may have had internal problems to be honest. He had a growth on his larynx that affected his breathing and also we could see another on his sheath. I suspect he probably had more inside that caused discomfort when he ate so hence sometimes he wouldn't. This could be the situation with yours as I see it is grey so may be more prone to growths.

As far as feeding is concerned, we found feeding smaller meals 3 times a day helped keep the weight on more than 2 larger feeds and, as they couldn't eat hay we would give them alfa a as their 'hay' after dinner. You can get Graze-On which is essentially grass that may be worth feeding her if she can't eat hay. There is a paddock near us that has 3 very old ex riding school ponies in, they are given a manger full of graze on to have during the day (as well as their hard feeds) and it seems to keep them pretty well.

Allen and Page feeds are very good for fussy feeders as well as they smell very nice and do the job - our current oldies are on the old faitful's special blend which is very palatable. The veteran one they do is new so i don't know what that is like and how it differs from the old faithful.

Good luck, she's a very good age anyway - definitely get her teeth checked out though as would be silly if something so simple as just getting her teeth done!
 
MurphysMinder said:
I have an elderly donkey who was very picky with his food. I have fed him on Soft n Soak Ready Mash for the last couple of years and he does really well on it, it smells lovely and he licks the bowl clean.
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Ditto Ive got my 32 year old shire on Soft n Soak Ready Mash he also get it with molly chop, a bit of sugar beet, competition mix, slices carrots and apples and he looks a million dollars vet cant believe his age. Vets conditioning score was - 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest my vets scored mine a 4 so I'm well happy with that.
 
Have you tried Scats High Fibre nuts? It is the only feed my oldies really like and it keeps them all in very good condition. I found the specialist diet feeds didn't agree with one of my old boys at all, he was losing weight and not interested in his meals and I was getting increasingly worried about him, after switching to the Hi-Fi nuts he is back to his sprightly self :)
 
Im sure we have tried scats high fibre cubes as well, he has had quite an extensive list!

Thanks for the advice peeps, I shall pass it on to my MIL.
 
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