Fussy eater

Cloball

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Right so trying to get my native to eat without her brain also falling out her ears seems to be more of a challenge than I thought. She is getting a scoop of honeychop lite and healthy at the moment but is only eating it with great reluctance and leaving most of it when. YO does her breakfast. She is getting meds and supplement twice a day atm so she needs to clean her bowel. Plus in the week she's been getting food my nice chilled pony of the last year has gone and grumpy stressy spooky D is back. I don't know if something in the food is making her loopy or the meds making her feel weird.

She's always been a bit of a fuss pot unless it's molasses hical badness. Adding speedibeet seems to help but I need something that is faff free for YO to do breakfast so I need to be able to make it up the night before and I'm not sure about leaving meds in wet beet all night.

She won't touch top chop zero, she doesn't actually need food she's a good weight on adlib hay and grass (weirdly still growing). She's also quite itchy at the mo which I'm going to get the vet to check when she's next out for a med review.

Eurgh!!
HELP!
 
Things our natives found very appetising were a bit of equijewel, just for the taste, beetroot powder (also good phytochemicals) and (sorry) molasses. I never had any compunction about a glug of molasses if it was to get meds in. Overall, it's still a relatively small amount.
 
Can you leave either the meds or the sugarbeet in a separate tub? That way all the YO has to do is tip the tub into the bucket and give it a stir?
 
@SpeedyPony could make up a separate bucket of speedibeet for over night to be mixed together I'm just paranoid about it not being soaked properly 😅 I always check for any hard bits.

Does anyone think that anything in the honeychop could be making her spooky. She terrified a pedestrian yesterday by acting like she was abhorrent. The only thing I can think is the oil or the meds. Frustrating as she's been so settled for so long.
 
@SpeedyPony could make up a separate bucket of speedibeet for over night to be mixed together I'm just paranoid about it not being soaked properly 😅 I always check for any hard bits.

Does anyone think that anything in the honeychop could be making her spooky. She terrified a pedestrian yesterday by acting like she was abhorrent. The only thing I can think is the oil or the meds. Frustrating as she's been so settled for so long.
The only unusual thing I can see there would be the herbs- I've not heard of them making horses spooky though?
You could try a basic molassed straw/hay chaff for a couple of weeks to see if there's any difference? For a small feed twice a day it shouldn't make much difference calorie wise.
 
That's what I was thinking, she has had the herbs and speedibeet and linseed before without problems albeit when she was a stress pot anyway so maybe it didn't help 🤣 I only changed things up as I thought a nice tasty chaff (smells great) would be easier for the YO rather than my complex straights concoction.
 
Our extremely fussy old mare absolutely loves Bailey's fibre plus nuggets. She also gets a garnish of Omega Rice on top. I spent ages trying to find something, as she doesn't like molasses or anything beetroot related. Fancy flavours are out generally! She has to have meds in her feeds too.
 
Would it be worth adding something like unsweetened apple juice to her food? It would give her a new flavour and possibly encourage her to eat up and lick her bowl clean x
 
If Honeychop Lite is the one that contains garlic and soya oil, Old Dobbin won't touch it, and neither will my daughter's two. Mollichaff Apple is readily eaten, Fast Fibre with a handful of chaff might work, and Fibre Beet will soak to a dryish crumbly mash. Otherwise....meds on a jam sandwich?
 
So speedibeet and lightly mollased chaff went down a treat hopefully she won't get too much of a sugar rush 🫣 she seems to eat for me when I hold the bucket but not for anyone else and YO or friend does the morning feed contrary mare. It's a good job she's cute.

So much for nice healthy oils and herbs (the honey chop was the one with oily herbs cinnamon and linseed and rapeseed oil which I thought smelt lush)
 
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