Feeding an ancient shettie

[Penny Less]

Im at a bit of a loss as to what to do re the above, pone has virtually no teeth, cant eat hay, even when steamed and cut up or haylage. Tried readigrass and Alfa A,either cant eat or wont eat. At the moment on a bucket and half of happy hoof plus apple and carrots grated. Goes out during day and nibbles grass but dont think gets much down.
She is like a hat rack even in the summer. I tried a conditioning mix (like bran to look at) but suddenly horse got laminitis ! Might be coincidence. I have used fibre nuts soaked, but that looks like brown sloppy sawdust. Id like to get a bit of weight on but have to be careful and sometimes she develops diaorrhea (sp) . I did contact a feed supplier last year, but they wanted to push their products naturally, has anyone got any other ideas as to what I can try. Have to say Im not sure Im giving her enough happy hoof daily, she does leave some but that could be teeth related I suppose.

 

[touchstone]

How about fast fibre by Allen and Page? I find it a great feed for lami prone pones and it can be used as a complete hay replacer if necessary, it isn't too expensive either! Also adding some Speedibeet will be fine for laminitis and help to put condition on if needed.

 

[TGM]

I doubt it was coincidence that your shettie got laminitis from conditioning mix - many conditioning mixes have a sugar/starch level far above the 'safe' threshold for laminitics!

Some chaff type feeds are coarser than others - which may be why she can eat the Happy Hoof but not the Readigrass and Alfa A. Happy Hoof is one of the finer textured chaffs and my dentally challenged laminitic used to eat it as a hay replacer, but left some of the coarser chaffs.

I would up the Happy Hoof to as much as she will eat, and add a soaked mash-type hay replacer as well, such as Allan & Page Fast Fibre which is very low in starch and sugar. Another possibility is an unmollassed beet such as Speedibeet - again low in starch and sugar, good source of fibre-based calories and easy to eat for the dentally-challenged.

 

[Penny Less]

Actually the fibre nuts were Allen & Page,some to think of it, brown slop. I did think about speedibeet, its a catch 22 situation trying to get weight on but not causing laminitis. i think her digestive system is knackered. She seems fairly bright in herself, although does have arthritis as well! If she was mine I would get the dentist out but she needs sedating as shes not what you call friendly, and of course its not cheap and also wonder if her system could stand it. Ill get some speedibeet and bump up the feed. Thanks peeps

 

[Archangel]

My ancient one with no teeth (not a Shetland) lives on equal amounts of sugar beet, high fibre nuts and fast fibre all soaked together to form a non sloppy mash. This replaces his whole ration (6kg per day in 3 feeds for a 13.3). I cannot feed Happy Hoof as there are hard bits in it and it is too much for him without teeth.

I would ring the feed company again to get the exact amount of fibre your pony should be having (I am guessing at least 2kg dry weight if not 2.5kg per day in total). The thing to remember is that although he may have lost his teeth, he is still a Shetland Pony, designed to live on thin air, so you have to watch the cereals and things like Readigrass. Dodson & Horrell high fibre cubes are well supplemented with vitamins so I tend to use those. My pony also prefers Speedibeet to Unmolassed sugar beet cubes (soaked) but due to a price difference of £3 a bag he gets the cubes!

If you can get enough fibre into your pony then he will hold his condition without resorting to rocket fuel that could potentially trigger a laminitic attack and avoids all that protein giving his liver a hammering.

Hope this is helpful