Box rest diet help

[Hannahbelle83]

My 7 year old ISH has a torn hoof and is on box rest. Before this we competed regularly and he was fed on dodson and horrell fibre performance, speedi-beet (autumn through to end of spring) and ad-lib hay. He has been on box rest for 2 weeks, at the start I gradually changed his diet over to badminton easy rider with ad-lib hay and some haylage. I noticed today he has started to lose a bit of condition, obviously I realise he will have some loss of muscle tone, but his ribs have just started to become noticeable -in a certain light! Other people say he still looks fine, but I want to keep the condition on so when he comes back into work in a few weeks he doesn't lose more weight.

I want to keep his diet fibre based and non heating, I was thinking of adding in some fibre-beet or alfabeet? Does this seem like a good diet for box rest? Any reviews on fibre beet and alfabeet? I just want to keep him as well and happy as possible really.

Thanks

 

[Hannahbelle83]

Anyone...?

 

[Maesfen]

Hay, hay and more hay and possibly something like Lo Cal balancer and unmolassed beet as he doesn't need anything for energy just to help him repair. Hay is far better than haylage too.

 

[Hannahbelle83]

Thank you, yes he has access to hay all day long but he seems bored of it already. He's always been fussy with his hay, all the other horses on the yard eat it fine and he will eat it sometimes and others he turns his nose up at it. I've been dampening it and try the same batch dry... he's not interested. Sigh.