Bolting Food

[TheCurlyPony]

I have a pony who bolts his food. I need to find a way to slow him down. Ive already had an episode with choke and don't want another.

Some one suggested putting stones in his feed but how does this work.

 

[Guinness]

What do you feed him?

 

[TheCurlyPony]

He just has pony nuts and Hifi. But it is very wet.

 

[tangoharvey]

feed it dry, that might slow him down?

 

[BallyshanHorses]

Try to find some larger rounded stones to put in his manger.Then mix well with the feed.he will soon learn to pick around the stones which inevitably should slow down his eating habbits.

 

[soloequestrian]

Years ago one of my students did an experiment wetting feeds. She found that to slow down the horses eating speed, the food had to actually be floating. If it was just damp or a bit wet, they could eat it faster than if it was totally dry. So try adding a few litres of water to each feed, so you make soup.

 

[TheCurlyPony]

Thanks for the suggesions everyone.

 

[hellybelly6]

Be careful about adding stones to horses feed buckets unless they are huge and cannot be got into the mouth.

My horse is undergoing surgery today for a fractured tooth. They have to go in through his skull to knock the tooth out as it has shattered. They suspect he did this on a stone. So please be wary.

Could you give lots of smaller feeds instead?

 

[Peacelily]

or try spreading it over the floor in his stable so he's got to hoover around for it - then there's only so much he can get in a mouthful as it's all over - initially it seems wasteful - but they get it all! especially if they're greedies

 

[AmyMay]

[ QUOTE ]
feed it dry, that might slow him down?

[/ QUOTE ]

Never feed a pony that bolts its feed dry food.


I have a food bolter. I ensure that the nuts are well soaked before feeding them - usually soaked for around an hour. Chaff and whatever else is being fed is then added, and then more water again. So the feed is quite wet. In cases of a bad bolter you could also add a large swede to the feed bowl.

 

[Berkeley]

I was advised to put a brick in feed bowl.

 

[charliesarmy]

Could you use one of the boredom balls??? so his food trickles out??

 

[kerilli]

huge pebbles work perfectly (unless the horse gets impatient and knocks the whole lot over).
really really soupy food as in, standing water, not dry at all, so horse has to slurp/drink it.
as above, please do NOT feed him dry food as he's much more likely to choke on that, that's really not sensible advice at all!

 

[gina2201]

We had a slightly scare with Sid on the weekend with choke. We are going to find some large round stones/pebbles however in the meatime we are using rubber curry comb or two! (washed after of course!)

 

[Ranyhyn]

I used to put great big rocks in Murphys food - it stops them bolting their food as obviously they can't take great big mouthfulls as there are rocks in the way! Make them big and clean them off and away to go

 

[Kallibear]

When does he bolt food? My old STB used to bolt the first couple of mouthfuls then calm down and eat normally.

I found that hand feeding the first couple of mouthfuls helped, or seperateing into two bowls, the first with just a handful in it, the second given as he was eating the first.

 

[Tickles]

They can bolt when they are wanting a 'sugar high' - like us with chocs when having a bad day. You could consider moving to a more forage-based diet. Knew a RS who switched to Simple Systems and ended up not only with healthier but also less restless before feeding/bolting feed horses. They figured out that previously the horses had been having too much of a swing between high & low blood suar levels.

 

[Guinness]

I would put it in a feed ball then it will take him a long time to eat and keep him occupied as well. I do this for mine (he just gets a handful of hifi and pony nuts) and seems to work well.

 

[AmyMay]

[ QUOTE ]
They can bolt when they are wanting a 'sugar high

[/ QUOTE ]

Ooo interesting, I didn't know that.