Feeding dentally challenged elderly pony

[CazD]

Pony is 37 and has only 3 teeth left, none of which are meeting biting surfaces. Currently eating spillers senior mash, unmollased sugar beet and soaked pony nuts. She also has cushings. The vet visited yesterday and whilst happy with her, said she would like to see a bit more weight on her going in to winter. The pony is VERY fussy, cannot eat hay and quids most of the grass she picks at. Any ideas for putting on weight? She currently has 2 bucket meals a day and is out 24/7.

 

[sportsmansB]

I had one who couldn't eat hay due to choke and she evented surviving on soaked simple systems lucie nuts and grass nuts, mixed with soaked fibre beet.
She had about 4-5 soaked buckets a day which was a faff and expensive, but definitely put the weight on her.
Can you give another bucket at lunch time / last thing at night?

 

[Surbie]

One of our elderly RDA ponies is on haycare, which has been helping keep weight on.

 

[Titchy Reindeer]

If it is not counter indicated for cushings (don't know anything about cushings really) I would add oil into her feed. My Old Lady (27, has more teeth than yours) currently has 150ml of mixed vegetable oil (rape, sunflower, linseed) a day, mixed into 2 meals. Oil is basically easy calories that they don't need to chew.

 

[Tiddlypom]

As my ancient mostly toothless pony aged I needed to gradually up the daily bucket feeds of mashed 16+ mix from 2 to 5 feeds a day.

That kept him in good fettle til the age of 42, but when he started to lose weight despite all that feed I let him go.

 

[P.forpony]

Can you add more feeds into her day?
That would be a good start if possible.
Putting some micronised linseed into her bucket feeds would definitely add calories, and you can introduce it slowly from a pinch working up to cups to let the fussy ones get a taste for it.
Its a little more on the pricey side but I've seen really impressive transformations in skinny elderly horses on Cushcare condition.
Grass nuts also have a higher DE than most pony nuts so could be worth swapping over.

 

[Highmileagecob]

Start mixing a dried grass chaff into her sugar beet, so that the chaff gets damp. Ready Grass, Emerald Green, Graze On that sort of thing. Soaked Fast Fibre is a good filler, and my rising 30yo also copes well with Mollichop. The amount of molasses contained in a bag of chop is nothing when scaled down to feeding quantities. Try to feed enough so that she isn't standing for long periods of time without food.

 

[meleeka]

Alfabeet is conditioning and a bag goes a long way. My dentally challenged old girl is on Cushcare and Spillers Mash for her 'feed', then a mix of Haycare and Speedibeet for her 'haynet'. If she needs more, i'll swap the Speedibeet to Fibre Beet or Alfabeet.

Are you feeding enough? Aim for the same (dry) weight as you would feed hay. Mine is 12hh and has probably 4 black buckets full a day (when soaked) of hay replacer.

Well done OP for getting her to 37, that's an amazing age!

 

[meleeka]

Start mixing a dried grass chaff into her sugar beet, so that the chaff gets damp. Ready Grass, Emerald Green, Graze On that sort of thing. Soaked Fast Fibre is a good filler, and my rising 30yo also copes well with Mollichop. The amount of molasses contained in a bag of chop is nothing when scaled down to feeding quantities. Try to feed enough so that she isn't standing for long periods of time without food.

Dried grass chaffs aren't recommended for cushings unfortunately.

OP I've just read pony lives out 24/7. In that case I'd feed Cushcare as you don't need as much volume of it to make a difference.