Food sensitivity

[Elno]

Just curious really, I though it would be interesting to know how many of the horse owners here think that their horse has a sensitivity to a certain feed or food stuff.

What can't your horse have? How did you come to the conclusion? What happens when you feed the said ingredient?

My horse doesn't appear to tolerate molasses. In any quantity. She is fine though on natural accuring sugars so it seems (carrots, hay/haylage/grass). She is also fine with unmolassed alfalfa/lucerne. Give her something with added molasses, even in miniscule amounts- like a kid on a permanent sugar rush in a couple of days time. Really bad tempered, bolshy and hyper.

 

[milliepops]

one of mine comes out in hives if she has any meaningful amount of alfalfa. Seems to be able to tolerate a small amount used as a carrier in supplements etc fine, i just wouldn't use an alfalfa chaff or nuts now.

Her old owner told me she was really really sugar sensitive to the point they didn't give her carrots or apples but tbh I feed them liberally and she's fine! she also has a sugarlump when I put her bridle on. don't know where they got that from.

 

[scats]

Alfalfa in chaff makes Polly extremely itchy, to the point that she is frantic.

 

[Coblover63]

My mare also has an intensely itchy reaction to alfalfa.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

Just curious really, I though it would be interesting to know how many of the horse owners here think that their horse has a sensitivity to a certain feed or food stuff.

What can't your horse have? How did you come to the conclusion? What happens when you feed the said ingredient?

My horse doesn't appear to tolerate molasses. In any quantity. She is fine though on natural accuring sugars so it seems (carrots, hay/haylage/grass). She is also fine with unmolassed alfalfa/lucerne. Give her something with added molasses, even in miniscule amounts- like a kid on a permanent sugar rush in a couple of days time. Really bad tempered, bolshy and hyper.

I had one like that, it's 30+ years ago and it took years and many vet visits to work out what the problem was. We managed to get some imported alfalfa nuggets for her, when very few people fed alfalfa. Her problems seemed to be more behavioural than physical, she was extremely reactive to noise but she did have a cough, periodically and poor temperature control. Sister read an article about a horse which had an unexplained lameness and a cough. For some reason the owner stopped feeing it - maybe just because it was off work - the lameness and cough cleared up in a remarkably short time. We decided that we would experiment to see if we could improve the mare's quality of life, so we stopped feeding her the coarse mix that all 4 of our horses were eating. Her behaviour changed in 3 days, she didn't want to leave her stable on the first 3 days, although we did get her out and into the nearby field. But after that she was much more handleable. Looking back, I don't understand why we didn't realise sooner, she was always well-mannered and co-operative to put out and a complete nightmare to bring in - it took 2 of us to lead her, or she was up on her back legs and trying to spin.

Since then we've had horses react to carrots, alfalfa, seaweed, glucosamine, Brewer's Yeast, something in NAF PinkPowder, magnesium. Now we are careful to introduce new food gradually and monitor closely, we only ever feed single ingredients in order to be able to do that.

 

[Elno]

I had one like that, it's 30+ years ago and it took years and many vet visits to work out what the problem was. We managed to get some imported alfalfa nuggets for her, when very few people fed alfalfa. Her problems seemed to be more behavioural than physical, she was extremely reactive to noise but she did have a cough, periodically and poor temperature control. Sister read an article about a horse which had an unexplained lameness and a cough. For some reason the owner stopped feeing it - maybe just because it was off work - the lameness and cough cleared up in a remarkably short time. We decided that we would experiment to see if we could improve the mare's quality of life, so we stopped feeding her the coarse mix that all 4 of our horses were eating. Her behaviour changed in 3 days, she didn't want to leave her stable on the first 3 days, although we did get her out and into the nearby field. But after that she was much more handleable. Looking back, I don't understand why we didn't realise sooner, she was always well-mannered and co-operative to put and a complete nightmare to bring in - it took 2 of us to lead her, or she was up on her back legs and trying to spin.

Since then we've had horses react to carrots, alfalfa, seaweed, glucosamine, Brewer's Yeast, something in NAF PinkPowder, magnesium. Now we are careful to introduce new food gradually and monitor closely, we only ever feed single ingredients in order to be able to do that.

I couldn't believe it myself at first actually, and felt kind of silly to blame an ingredient of a vit/min supp that I gave not even 100 g a day of. My yard buddies thought I was imagining stuff and rolled their eyes at me ? But then I decided to really test my theory and tried different amounts (higher = worse behaviour, lower=bit better, none = back to her old self in a couple of days) several times just to be really sure. Now she is just on hay, water, a mineral saltlick (obviously without molasses) and maybe the odd carrot- and the horse I bought is finally back. Fortunately when I bought her she was on pretty much the same type of feed so when I introduced the vit/min supp and she gradually changed her behaviour for the worse, it was easier to spot the difference. Otherwise I think it would have taken much, much longer for me to connect the dots. I also tried giving her a mix, and also pelleted hard feed with a small amount of molasses in the ingredient list- same damn reaction.

I'm very happy that she doesn't seem to react to alfalfa though. It is even harder to find any commercial feed, treat or supplement without it than it is finding molasses free ones, if I would ever need anything like that in the future.