Had enough of a fussy eater (warning rambling)

Roasted Chestnuts

Roasted Chestnuts

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(Disclaimer cereal intolerant , 25yr old pita pony who I unfortunately love to distraction)

Well Kia is officially in my feeding bad books :mad:

I have just had to give away 2/3 of a bin of feed, I refuse to ask for money for such things so that one is one me but a poor wee mate with no teeth that struggles with weight on the yard is now enjoying it so that's made things a little better lol.

Kia was eating Veteran vitality and thriving on it for the last 5 years, last year he just stuck the nose up and that was that, luckily someone else on the yard took the nearly full bag and bought me a bag of Equerry mash in return, so we started eating a mix of this and Purple solutions mash. So he ate this all winter and licked the bowl clean. Now he has decided that he isn't eating anything and I have 2/3rds of a bin or this, half a bin of Agrobs muesli and a full bin of plain Unmolassed alfalfa :mad: the muesli is going to the Yos horses as it won't keep, he will pick at this so thinking he will eat it in winter, and the alfalfa will keep until they come in for winter hopefully as its not getting damp.

So I'm just going back to basics and I'm not pandering to him anymore the amount of money that's been wasted since he stopped eating the VV is eye watering and if he was a good doer I wouldn't care but he can drop at the slightest thing and very quickly so it plays on my mind.

Looked at

Readigrass (loves this in winter and cheap in bulk)
Beetpulp ( he will eat it in winter and been a staple of ours for years)
Linseed
Supplement (joint and hoof)

Now I am torn between just buying alfalfa nuts or combining the beet and alfalfa and getting fibre beet. Being honest it would work out cheaper for me to buy bulk beet then bulk alfalfa nuts and soaking them together but I've been told the fibre beet is better for barefoot horses. He has been fed both mixed together before. The other thing I'm tempted to mix in is the muesli as it adds texture and putting a cup in would add things like rose hips and herbs that he loves.

I have looked also at

Healthy Hooves
Simple systems ( hard getting this though)
Healthy Tummy
Senior Fibre ( been feeding this for years but he got fussy)
Conditioning fibre ( borderline cereal content)
Alfa-a molasses free
Halleys feed range including blocks

Argh I'm mostly just thinking out loud here. Balancers etc are out of the question due to his intolerance although I have looked at forage plus and I weighing up the cost, YO is interested as well so discussing this feed with her too.

All opinions welcome, feel free to pick apart my musings, I tend to get tunnel visioned. I want it to be simple as these last few years I've ended up combining 3 different soakable feeds into a big bin and feeding this combination and when he stops eating it makes it harder to split up. Would rather just have one feed per bin so three feeds tops :o
 
Have you thought about Cushcare Condition? It's a crumble, which is easy to eat, even if fed dry, and it's done a great job of keeping condition on one of my lot. He hasn't got Cushings, but the feed ticked all the boxes for this particular horse.
 
Black Beastie said:
Now I am torn between just buying alfalfa nuts or combining the beet and alfalfa and getting fibre beet. Being honest it would work out cheaper for me to buy bulk beet then bulk alfalfa nuts and soaking them together but I've been told the fibre beet is better for barefoot horses.
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Why? The ingredients of fibrebeet are Speedi-Beet, Alfalfa, Oatfeed, Cane Molasses, Vegetable Oil, Biotin (10 mg/kg), Peppermint, not sure how that is better that just straight alfalfa and beet. And buying separately you can vary the proportions or drop one if he goes off one and not the other.

Re forageplus, their balancers are excellent with no nasties but are not palatable so you need a feed they really like as a starting point.

Agrobs do a mash which I've heard good reports of but isn't cheap.
 
criso said:
Why? The ingredients of fibrebeet are Speedi-Beet, Alfalfa, Oatfeed, Cane Molasses, Vegetable Oil, Biotin (10 mg/kg), Peppermint, not sure how that is better that just straight alfalfa and beet. And buying separately you can vary the proportions or drop one if he goes off one and not the other.

Re forageplus, their balancers are excellent with no nasties but are not palatable so you need a feed they really like as a starting point.

Agrobs do a mash which I've heard good reports of but isn't cheap.
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The inclusion of oat fibre/feed makes me wary as he is cereal intolerant but that's the only thing about it that's making me question :)
 
My question was really how do the extras make fibrebeet better for barefoot horses as you have been told.
There are some nuts and pellets that seem to be tolerated even though on paper some of the ingredients aren't ideal and if they are palatable and convenient then fine, but that's not the same as being told fibrebeet is better than making up your own with a bit of linseed and some herbs as you said.

More than the oatfeed which is mainly husk, I would be avoiding the molasses as it does strange things to mine, the vegetable oil as if I'm feeding an oil, I'd prefer the EFA in linseed which is less inflammatory, biotin is of little use unless combined with other things and my fussy one actively dislikes mint and I just gave a big bag away to someone.
 
I have recently started feeding Keyflow Pink Mash (note - its not a complete feed) its a fibre soaked feed which my lot seem to be liking enormously and my super fussy explosively allergic pony has not reacted to it and he normally reacts to linseed products. Its not a very well known feed but maybe one to look at?
 
He's a pony - his natural diet is grass, clover and herbs (weeds) - go back to true basics and get rid of all the supplements - they taste disgusting and a manufacturer may have slightly changed the formula which has affected the taste,

Meadow chaff - basically hay chopped up. Beet pulp which you say he likes, Freshly grind the linseed - this will help his aging joints, if he like rosehips, buy them loose and grind them up too - a coffee grinder is very good for these tasks. Ordinary household salt.

The allergies could be from products used in the manufacture of the processed feeds and the stabilizers used in supplements.
 
I'm in same situation,very fussy ulcer prone,very poor doer recently diagnosed with cushings. Can't have many,many things as send him nuts,can't tolerate alfalfa/copra/99% of feeds. Won't eat another million things,I'm honestly ready to shoot him myself some days. Eats things for a few days/weeks/months even years then just won't touch them anymore. I've wasted so much time & money trying to feed this horse it depresses me! Got a ton of stuff now that needs chucking out as he just won't eat it. Currently will eat a tiny feed of cushcare & spillers conditioning chaff but I expect that'll be wrong next week,eats it dry at the moment,God forbid I try & dampen it! Working my way through loads of samples currently,most are rejected... He loves oats which I reluctantly dropped with the recent cushings diagnosis but I'm very tempted to try him with a small amount again to tempt him.
 
Tnavas said:
He's a pony - his natural diet is grass, clover and herbs (weeds) - go back to true basics and get rid of all the supplements - they taste disgusting and a manufacturer may have slightly changed the formula which has affected the taste,

Meadow chaff - basically hay chopped up. Beet pulp which you say he likes, Freshly grind the linseed - this will help his aging joints, if he like rosehips, buy them loose and grind them up too - a coffee grinder is very good for these tasks. Ordinary household salt.

The allergies could be from products used in the manufacture of the processed feeds and the stabilizers used in supplements.
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Good ideas thanks. My supplements are all herbal and home made by combining different herbs to have the desired effect on his comfort. I buy all the ingredients singly and mix myself :) they are mostly for joint/hormones ( grumpy
Gelding ) .

The only thing I don't mix myself is his hoof supplement which is just a bog standard one to top him up as we were having foot issues.

He looks excellent right now, lots of grass, hedgerows and brush to pick at but he won't have that come winter and then the weight just drops off him, especially if I actually ride him, which I would like to do given I'm luck to have a 25yr old horse as sound and happy to work as he is :)

Criso I see what your saying :) I used to be very old school, straights, plain chaff beet pulp end off. Then I had a cereal intolerant horse so went the fibre and oil route, now he's barefoot and again trying to keep within that to provide decent hoof health and keep him healthy and with a good weight coverage when the old fusspot won't eat is just argh :mad:

Feeding an older horse just adds the icing on the cake, I would prefer simple, I would like to just be feeding fibre and oil, his herbal joint supp and the hoof supplement ( of o see a difference of not it goes) not this mix and match circus I seem to have ended up with. Fussy horses with dietary limitations, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, the responses have helped me look at it differently, happy to take on ideas :)
 
I feed straights because then i know what is going into my horses. I've got about 1/2 the livery feed room full of my bins at the moment so probably not very popular!

But both my PSSM horses need something slightly different it turns out so having bins of kwikbeet, copra, alfalfa pellets, chaff and linseed means I can mix & match for the horse, weather, exercise, fatness levels etc. The mare does fine on alfalfa based chaff, but can't seem to tolerate the pellets. The gelding has a big top up of linseed over winter when his condition drops. I chuck the kwikbeet, copra and alfalfa pellets in to soak overnight and then just add balancers, linseed, oil etc the next morning.

Although mine have dietary problems they luckily aren't fussy eaters. I was warned to add the forage plus balancers slowly because of the taste but mine inhale just inhale their feed so probably didn't even spot it.
 
OP have you tried Allen and Page FastFibere??? Soaked with warm water it smells gorgeous, and our veteran gobbles it up with some high fibre cubes..

I've just bought Simple Systems Haycare for the same pony, and will test it out over the weekend. I can report back if you're interested...

Fiona
 
I would try readigrass and speedibeet .
I am a very basic feeder and this is always my start point for bucket feeds ( and chopped straw which might be a great idea with yours ) .
If he's picky I would not consider the forage plus balancer which I really rate but palatable is not how I would describe them .
 
I feed alfalfa pellets and speedybeet, but add my own linseed oil, salt and supplements (so home made fibrebeet but without the oat fibre, mint, mollases and biotin, and with a better quality oil than Fibrebeet). Oscar is super fussy, but eats this OK most of the time. When he goes off it I find adding some Calm and Condition seems to work - I wonder if it is the fenugreek in it, but haven't bothered experimenting. I also added Baileys no 4 conditioning cubes last winter to put some weight on him when he was working hard, which worked well, and he likes, but I'm not sure if they have cereals in them.
 
Black Beastie said:
Criso I see what your saying :) I used to be very old school, straights, plain chaff beet pulp end off. Then I had a cereal intolerant horse so went the fibre and oil route, now he's barefoot and again trying to keep within that to provide decent hoof health and keep him healthy and with a good weight coverage when the old fusspot won't eat is just argh :mad:
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I've got two barefoot sensitive tbs , one very prone to allergies but a good doer and not fussy, the other doesn't have the allergy issues but is not such a good doer and very fussy. And to add to it, our forage is so high in calcium that I can't feed any alfalfa or beet even though both like it and are fine on them in other environments.

I was just struggling a little with the advice you'd been given that fibrebeet was better for barefoot horses than using straights to come up with a your own version based on the same ingredients but without extras you might want to avoid.
 
criso said:
I've got two barefoot sensitive tbs , one very prone to allergies but a good doer and not fussy, the other doesn't have the allergy issues but is not such a good doer and very fussy. And to add to it, our forage is so high in calcium that I can't feed any alfalfa or beet even though both like it and are fine on them in other environments.

I was just struggling a little with the advice you'd been given that fibrebeet was better for barefoot horses than using straights to come up with a your own version based on the same ingredients but without extras you might want to avoid.
Click to expand...

Being honest I can buy a 25kg bag of beet and a 25kg bag of alfalfa/grass nuts and have only spent about £20 so it would save me money and last twice as long. I already feed a hoof supplement so additional biotin isn't required, our land is apparently high in calcium, we feed salts/mag for this but I've never had an issue in the past feeding either, just stopped because I was told I'd be best off, goes to show what being told is best gets you sometimes without trusting what you know.

Certainly been given ideas to look at, as I said I get tunnel vision occasionally and forget to look about me at options, so thanks :)
 
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Coolstance Copra-meal.

Swear down, best feed for fussy eaters I've ever come across
It's coconut based, and smells incredible [I may have eaten a tiny bit too, you know, just to make sure it was yummy] and my Arab mare cannot get enough of it.
You feed it wet - it soaks up a tonne of water, and so in the winter, I use hot water - it's like a ridiculously yummy smelling porridge.

Full of fibre, has all the good vits and mins, and again, perfect for the fuss-arse horses out there...
Cereal free too, and believe me, if it sent horses nuts, it would be my mare... It doesn't :)
 
Mine have been cleaning up - even including bleurgh tasting minerals - since I have added bran and mint. Bran has starch, yes, but also contains protein and is very palatable. I also add few torn up mint leaves while their pellets are soaking and they leave clean buckets these days. Most gardens have some mint, it spreads like a weed and I keep a plant in a pot at the yard.
Mine weren't keen on copra, so it just goes to show how tastes differ. Best not to buy in big quantities lol
 
FreyaBean said:
Coolstance Copra-meal.

Swear down, best feed for fussy eaters I've ever come across
It's coconut based, and smells incredible [I may have eaten a tiny bit too, you know, just to make sure it was yummy] and my Arab mare cannot get enough of it.
You feed it wet - it soaks up a tonne of water, and so in the winter, I use hot water - it's like a ridiculously yummy smelling porridge.

Full of fibre, has all the good vits and mins, and again, perfect for the fuss-arse horses out there...
Cereal free too, and believe me, if it sent horses nuts, it would be my mare... It doesn't :)
Click to expand...

OP is allergic to coconut sadly!
 
Oh ***** - Sorry, completely missed that!!

Right, hang on.
My equine nutrition course will one day come into handy everyday use... Today may be that day.

I will be back xx
 
JillA said:
Mine have been cleaning up - even including bleurgh tasting minerals - since I have added bran and mint. Bran has starch, yes, but also contains protein and is very palatable. I also add few torn up mint leaves while their pellets are soaking and they leave clean buckets these days. Most gardens have some mint, it spreads like a weed and I keep a plant in a pot at the yard.
Mine weren't keen on copra, so it just goes to show how tastes differ. Best not to buy in big quantities lol
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Be very careful feeding bran, it has very little in the way of nutritional value and contains Phytates that block the absorption of Calcium. It does smell yummy but it's only use in life is for the occasional bran mash.

Mint is great for getting horses to eat things, I've used peppermint oil for getting bite and other eukaryotes smelling/tasting stuff down horses.
 
Tnavas said:
Be very careful feeding bran, it has very little in the way of nutritional value and contains Phytates that block the absorption of Calcium. It does smell yummy but it's only use in life is for the occasional bran mash.
.
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That's actually not true, it has a good proportion of protein in it as well as phosphorus. The question of blocking calcium is also addressed in this article, which is well worth reading.

https://forageplus.co.uk/feeding-wheat-bran-to-my-horse/
 
We are in a high calcium area, yes I do feed alfalfa still but I am very limited in diet as it is so if I had to cut out alfalfa products is be very screwed :(

The bran sounds appealing after reading that article (used to feed it as a mash after hard work to previous horses) but I am very very wary feeding it to a cereal intolerant horse. I need to keep his diet below a 10% starch content to avoid triggering his intolerance.
 
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