Anyone have experience of very old ponies?

SNORKEY

SNORKEY

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My mother in laws pony is now 35 bless him, this year his teeth are a bit worse and he cant eat hay or chaff, he's being fed 3 times a day with grass nuts and Baileys nom.4 conditioning cubes, but he's still not putting on enough weight.
He has lots of grass and is in at night, and well rugged, has anyone got any idea's what else we could feed him?
Im worried he's in at night but with no hay to eat or anything.
Cheers
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Sugar beet is good for oldies! Why can he not eat chaff? Our old girl (34) didnt have many teeth left in her later years so we used to feed her soaked alfa chaff, which she always seemed happy to eat! You could also try linseed for condition
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We had an old lad who had hardly any teeth and we fed him on Baileys No1, sugar beet and a conditioning mix twice a day. He lived out as he hated to be kept in. He was given hay which he mouthed and also he got Molichop. He looked amazing and unforunately had to be pts with cancer.
 
Hay replacements are like chaff though are'nt they? he just cant chew it any more, and she's tried sugar beet but it gave him the runs!
And he also has his feed as a warm mash at the mo.
 
My friend's pony is nearly 34yr, she is still living out at the moment with loads of grass and very well rugged up. She has a feed of hifi alfa oil, spillers senior conditioning mix and sugar beet. When she comes in next weekend she'll have a hay replacer as she struggles with hay now, she'll have hifi senior, ready grass and fast fibre which we saw at your horse live last weekend and it looked fantastic for oldies.

She looks amazing and acts about four, there is lots of clover around the stables so vet said to let her graze on that for 1-2 hours per day which seems to of helped massively.

Hope this helps, give the feed companies a call. Especially Allen and page, they make the fast fibre xxx
 
The oldest here is a horse who is 37 - he struggles with hay but does very well on Equijewel and Mollichaff Veteran. As a chaff it is short and soft - also contains linseed, mint and nettles so smells yummy!! Just dampen with water.

Maybe give them a call to see if they can send you a sample - they do sample bags at shows so worth a phone call.
 
Yes, mine is 34 and has no chewing teeth! I phoned the D&H helpline and they gave me the exact amount of feed/fibre for his height and weight. I was previously feeding baileys cooked cereal meal and conditioning cubes and he was losing weight, now on virtually all fibre he is in cracking condition. However, this winter he is on a small amount of calm & condition (as he lost weight in September) which has really made him bloom.

One thing to note is that my chap spent a lifetime as a good doer and even now remains sensitive to grass and cereal. Even if he looks thin it would be possible to trigger laminitis if I loaded him up with these.

All his feed is weighed so the amount he gets remains constant and he is weighed monthly so I can adjust things quickly up or down.

The Calm & Condition has made him quite wizzy though!

Hope this is helpful, well done that Pony for getting to 35 your MIL must take good care of him.
 
Hi Moomin, when I was trying to put weight on my oldie, I used high fibre cubes with grass nuts. They say you don't need to soak, but I did, as unsoaked he colicked. I also put him on Pink Powder, which did improve him a lot, but if you can get micronised linseed and Brewers Yeast, these are said to be better, as the larger amounts are more effective.
 
what is he having at night?

He could have forage replacement during the night like allen and page fast fibre mixed with a large amount of hi fi (or lite) and non molassed sugar beet (speedi beet). Say 1/2 large tub trugs worth or 2 full standard feed bowls and then adjust if he doesnt eat it all
 

Simple systems may be worth talking to. They do a good range of forage replacement type products that can be soaked so very easy to chew/digest. Also, may be worth adding some linseed to his diet. Sugar beet is also great for oldies (the low sugar types like kwikbeet or speedibeet). If it is giving him the runs I would suggest some sort of herbal supplement to help balance his gut flora - brewers yeast would be an idea.

Heres a link to simple systems:

http://www.simplesystem.co.uk/products/ourhorsefeeds.asp
 
I've put my donkey who is 30+ on Readymash as he was losing weight and didn't seem keen on his normal food. It has made a real difference, he has put condition on and now calls for his feeds (which isn't such a good thing with a donkey :
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) and licks his bowl clean.
 
If its forage replacer you are needing then I would say fast fibre, and mix in lots of veteran hifi. My oap shetty who has close to no teeth gets on very well with this.
 
we hav 2 oldies (one 30+,the other 37) the 37yr old stil has plenty of teeth & holds her weight on 16+, alfa a oil & sugarbeet, & grass but eats very little hay.
the 30+ is hard to keep weight on as at the last count he had only 4 molar teeth left, but we hav found a diet of 16+, alfa a oil, sugarbeet, & flaked barley keeps the weight on amazingly! he also gets additional oil & a digestive supplement. he also gets access to hay which he rolls into balls rather than eats! he comes off the barley in the summer to allow us a back up feed for winter & even tho he can get a little loopy on it id rather that than a hat-rack pony! (hes retired due to arthritus, so tryin to ride him isnt an issue!) & is currently lookin good for the start of winter!
goodluck with your oldie!
 
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