Fractured jaw - feed suggestions pls....

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flying_tackle

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hi all, not posted here in a long time.....

Just wondered if anyone has some ideas/tips on what may tempt the appetite of my friend's horse who was kicked in the field on sunday and suffered a fractured jaw. He will be ok eventually but he is on 6 weeks box rest with no grazing at all. He can't have any hay/haylage so has to be fed chopped hay and his feeds (4-6 a day) must be as sloppy as possible.

As you can imagine, he's off his feed with the pain and change in routine, but just wondered if anyone had any tips to tempt him to eat (i've already passed on the apple juice in the feed trick that I saw on an earlier thread).

Also, can anyone recommend the cheapest option for ready chopped haylage - alfa lite is quite pricey and think my friend is gonna need a wrist splint if she has to sit cutting up regular haylage for much longer!

Thanks
 
if he is fizzy I would go for any hi fibre cubes and soak them really well in hot water so they go like a mash and you can make them as soup like as you want if he isn't so fizzy then try baileys no 1 - its like breadcrumbs and I've never had a horse refuse it but some do find it a bit too much
 
but he cant be fed solely on HF cubes, they will defo help in hard feed but for a grass/haylage substitute you should go for gras nuts soaked, depending on size of horse a big bowl every 2 hours
 
Thanks. He is having his usual feed (baileys no 4, topspec & alfa a oil, sugar beet) made up like soup but he's not really interested. Will mention the baileys no 1 though - that worked for my boy after his surgery. I think variety is going to be key so it was more ideas on how to liven up his soup!!
 
Having had a horse with a fractured jaw
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i would take out the alfa a and just soak the topline cubes, topspec and sugarbeet. Try seperating them out into different buckets and not feeding all in one, then he can pick and choose which ones he likes. It worked for me!
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I had a similar problem last summer when one of my horses cracked his bottom jaw. I put his haylage through a black & decker garden shredder which worked fine, along with handfuls of carrots! - you can spray it with a bit of molasses if he's off his food
 
Ditto the Baileys No 1 and you can always use a food processor to blend up apples and carrots. NAF do mint powder, and black treacle is a good old fashioned trick. Cider vinegar is meant to be an appetite stimulant so that's maybe a cheap thing to try. Carrot juice from a health food shop?

Can of guiness?? Might numb the pain a bit as well!!! Seriously, many Horses like it (boozers!!).
 
[ QUOTE ]
but he cant be fed solely on HF cubes, they will defo help in hard feed but for a grass/haylage substitute you should go for gras nuts soaked

[/ QUOTE ]

Spiller's High Fibre Cubes CAN be used as a sole hay replacer, see the link below and scroll down to Elderly Horses:

http://www.spillers-feeds.com/en-gb/unit...#elderlyHorses1

I used them as a hay replacer for a laminitic pony with dental problems.

However, for the horse described in the OP, I agree grass nuts would be a better alternative as they are higher in calories.
 
I've used the Spillers High Fibre cubes soaked into a mash as well. They worked really well.

I now use Allen & Page Fast Fibre - it soaks into a mash, like ordinary cubes would, but much much faster - it's ready within a couple of minutes (they say 30 seconds, but I don't trust it lol). It can be fed as a hay replacer, so shouldn't cause any problems.

Also agree with whoever mentioned the NAF Mint supplement - I use that whenever my girl needs bute/antibiotics added to her feed - never fails!

Grated carrots/apples/parsnips etc also help tempt them - easier if you have a food processor with a grating attachment though.
 
We had an old mare who broke her jaw (she died is 1995 of a heart attack so going back a while). We put mix in the blender then soaked it, grated carrots, apples etc. The thing she liked the best was bread crumbs, we went daily to Braggs (think its Greggs now) and got bags of crumbs from the slicing machine and soaked them.
 
Any form of nut will soak down to a mash/gruel. Badminton do a nugget called fibre complete which horses love and they soak to a gruel.
Also- alfalfa nuts, sugar beet, fibrebeet or grass nuts
 
One of mine fractured his lower jaw about three years ago and lost a frightening amount of condition before we managed to get him to eat very sloppy sugar beet with masses of grated apple and carrot. The next step was Happy Hoof as it's a very soft chaff; he progressed to Readigrass and after about 3 weeks was able to eat almost everything except hay. That took another couple of weeks.
 
Oh hell!!
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Sorry!!
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No Georgey boy's great at mo ta. Already offered the coligone cos he's very tucked up and stressed as you can imagine. He has started to pick up though but glad we have a supply just in case - you know I'm coligone's biggest fan
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