Any ideas re horse not eating hay?

YorksG

YorksG

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The 17hh ShirexClydesdale appears to have gone off her hay, leaving loads. She has not had anymore on offer than usual and no more hard feed. The field is pretty much bare. She is moulting and seems very itchy. There did seem to be a smear of blood on the wall, as if she had a small cut/graze on her nose/mouth, but no sign of cut or graze. There is no evidence of quidding. This has gone on for a week and she has lost a bit of condition. She is not in work at the moment due to sisters ankle and the weather. Any ideas anyone?
 
Dodgy batch of hay? I'd try buying from someone else and see if it makes a difference. Sometimes they can see something in the hay that we can't
 
How old is she? One of my old ponies started to leave alot of hay in his net so I started feeding it loose on the floor. Next morning it had all gone. His teeth are quite worn at the front so I think he was struggling to pull it from the net?? Whatever it was he's always eaten up on a morning now!
 
might be an idea to get a dentist out to check her teeth, just in case?
Or, as dwi suggests, not nice hay. I know my mare will turn her nose up at dodgy hay even if she is hungry.
 
My boy hardly touches his hay, he dislikes the fine stuff and won't happily eat it unless it's really course. My supplier hasn't any course stuff this year so he's only getting through about 1 slice of small bale hay a night. (He's a 17hh TB)

Is it a different texture that could possibly be a reason?
 
could it be the inside of her mouth that she's hurt? my pony had mouth injury a couple of months back and wouldnt eat his hay, even though the outside of his mouth was healed the inside was still tender.
 
Thanks to all for suggestions, she is a sensetive soul and the texture might well be the issue, the other two are troughing away like mad, but she is much more of a sensetive petal. I think it may be the inside of he rmouth that she has damaged, not a chance of getting to look without vet sedation, sedaline won't do it for her, she seems to think her teeth are very private!
 
if she still aint eating, does sound like summit wrong in her motuth thought,, bulk her out on alfalfa and hifi with plenty of water in.. see if she have that

Lou x
 
Try her on a different type of hay. My big Clydesdale x mare (the black one in my signature) is incredibly fussy about hay - she only likes the coarse stuff. You could try her on high fibre haylage to see if that gets her chomping again.
 
Thanks for that, yours looks like ours! Most odd as she is normally something of a trencher horse! She does drop weight quickly though. Got some haylage yesterday and she has managed more but still not eating as much as usual.
 
This year more than ever the hay has been bad, my yard practically turns its nose up at what i've had to give them this year, changed to haylage and they scoffed the bloody lt againl then just last week picked up haylage and it was bone dry and back to them not eating it. turned out up unitl now haylage company had been using 2006 hay and now they are on 2007 and having problems. i searched the place out and found some decent haylage as they still won't touch the hay. If haylage don't work i'd check the teeth and mouth straight away.
 
My pony is also off his hay too - seems a common problem this year as the 2007 hay is not good. He'd been on the 2006 prior to that but its run out. Luckily we have 24/7 turnout so he is just out all the time now so he is not stuck in without food and he is a very good doer!

I would be worried if you had not changed the hay and if there was blood on the wall and your horse had hurt its muzzle might find it a bit sensitive and scratchy.
 
My ponies are really snooby about their hay,before the shetlands went out on loan (who think their throughbreds) they would refuse to eat anything other than scats hay, and pretend to be starving despite having great heaps of hay
I did find pouring some linseed oil over it helped it a bit, apparently horses use their sense of small to decide if something will taste good, rather than taste buds so much, and well...crystal sniffed it just after id poured the linseed oil in and i tihnk got some up her nose (snorting for ages), but munched most of it up
 
Would you be able to get the vet to sedate her and check her mouth with a gag? You could get her teeth 'done' while he's at it...if he's any good.
If she won't eat hay/haylage and is losing weight then you could feet her unmolassed sugar beet for the cellulose content instead...it is very good for them...and you can feed it in quite large quantities.
S
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Thanks all, she was much brighter this evening and when I left her at 8ish she was eating haylage and trying some hay (we had a delivery of hay today) so hopefully whatever it was has passed off. Thanks for the tip re sugarbeet, we tend to use speedibeet, but will increase amount as she seems ok with that.
 
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