feed advice for my poorly mini please

S

Sophie_Bailey

Well-Known Member
Joined
28 March 2005
Messages
72
Location
Northants
Visit site
Hello,
Turned up to the field on sat morning to find my mini shettie with half a swollen face. Needless to say got my vet out asap and he has given her some anti inflams and painkiller to help her out until the swelling has gone down enough to have her teeth looked at properly etc (she isnt blessed with the best of teeth anyway).

She is managing ish to eat grass, hay not so much and chaff in bits but its not really floating her boat. The only way i managed to get her medication in her was in soaked barley rings which she loved. However i am aware that this isnt the best thing to be giving her as she is a mini and doesnt need the calories and the added extras, especially at this time of year!

So is there anything else thats easily soakable/very small that would be more suited for her thats more on a forage level? Obviously want to make sure her stomach isnt being affected by the possible lack of food but don't know if i'm just being an over the top mum!!

Thanks
Sophie
 
Sorry to hear she's poorly, hope you get it sorted soon :) You could try Allen and Page's Fast Fibre which is low calorie and designed to be soaked before feeding, soaked high fibre/pony nuts or some unmollased sugarbeet, like speedibeet, as even though it's quite high calorie a tiny bit swells alot so you actually won't need to use much at all!!
 
My Shetland doesn't like taking any meds either so he has them in a wee handful of soaked grass nuts, you only need a few they swell up quite a bit
 
Poor pony!

My sisters TB came in off the field with a swollen face and tongue not so long ago, could barely swallow his own saliva. Had to get vet out for anti inflams/painkillers. Think the silly sod had eaten some hedge/prickly type thing....curiosity killed the.....!

Ours are fed sugarbeet anyway so it wasn't too much of a prob for us, but I would suggest mixing and mashing current feed into super sloppy (maybe slightly warm to encourage her to eat it?) sugarbeet as it will soak everything down into a mush. Even though horses clearly eat anything when our backs are turned, getting meds into them can be a pain. You could try adding a glug of apple juice to her feed mix? Or dissolving a sugar cube to take the taste of the meds away?
 
i agree with nemo , i had to get bute into my laminitic dartmooer pony and found a wee bit of speedy beet did the trick , it was a novelty for her to get any sort of feed at all and so wolfed it down , good luck...
 
Thank you for your replies! Will go and get some speedy beet tomorrow and give that a go, i can't see her turning her nose up at that and im sure the others will enjoy a bit of a change too!
Sophie
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top