Getting foal to have feed.

[Englishcowgirl91]

Hey

My foal is 7 months he has been unwell recently and hasn’t been interested in eating“feed” even before he was unwell he didn’t want to touch it. I don’t think he was weaned with fees involved.
He is eating hay though.
Now his health is improving he is a lot more curious with other horses food coming by but when offered in hand or scattered on the hay he won’t touch.

I’ve tried offering it by hand, on the floor and scattering it over one part of the hay. Won’t work.

Another stud yard I know their foals just have hay and a big lick that they get all their minerals.

He was being syringed meds and has only just recently stopped his antibiotics, another suggestion was syringing him the feed to get the taste?

Is this something that will come in time?
Does anyone else have any suggestions?

I wanted to get the creep feed and have ordered a bag as I’ve been using another feed that is the bigger cubes.

There are some other feed types that are more like mix or foliage. There was another brand that I think looks a lot like chaff.

any suggestions would help

Thanks

 

[paddy555]

it will take time for him to learn. I would feed in a large flat and very shallow bin and I would give him molassed sugar beet. ( clean it out and throw it away after a few hours or it will go sour) He will no doubt ignore it for the first few times then may start to get curious. Once he will eat that which is probably one of the more "tasty" feeds you can move onto mixing some soaked hay cubes in and then gradually get him onto what you want him to eat. It may well take a long time.

If you have access to either another foal who will eat or a very kindly older horse who won't threaten him you could put them together (under supervision) and let him start to get curious about the other horse eating until he starts to lick the bowl out,

ordinary molichaff is molassed and you could dampen some down with water and put it under his hay so he starts to smell it and may taste it.

cubes are not an easy concept to some youngsters. There are some heavily molassed coarse mixes that may be more tempting.

 

[Cortez]

Is he thin or poor? If he's not then I wouldn't worry. Animals rarely starve themselves if there is food available.

 

[SpotsandBays]

Mine learned by watching. He was stabled next to my old pony so I would give her the bucket first and he would watch her get excited and start eating, then I would give him his. After a day or two he got the idea and then loved it! However he did pick up on my old ponies naughty habit of pawing at the bucket and he still does it to this day at 5 years old

 

[Xmasha]

I’d give him stud balancer but add warm water . They tend to like it wet and warm to start with

 

[SantaVera]

try porridge oats