Hay Replacement for OAP

[chickeninabun]

My 28 year old mare has not been eating the hay in her stable overnight since she started coming in last weekend. She gobbles her tea down like it's going out of fashion so am assuming her teeth are just not up to chewing the hay anymore. Dentist is being booked today but it's going to a week or so until he can come so need advice in the meantime, or possible long term if teeth can't be fixed.
So i have been giving her a large-ish bucket (bigger than a feed bucket) of Hi-Fi Lite. (I know I should weigh it, but I keep forgetting to take the scales to the yard!) - I have left her a haynet too, as not sure how long the Hi-Fi last into the night but it's virtually untouched by morning.
The Hi-Fi is all gone by morning, but obviously it's going to prove an expense do feeding a £10 bag of Hi-Fi instead of a £3.50 bale of hay.
Has anyone got any reccommendations on what to feed instead??
I have read about a hay replacement, which included chaff/alfalfa, nuts and un-mollassed sugar beet, but am concerned about feeding this, as it seems too much like a "dinner" to me and I think it might all disappear in one sitting IYKWIM

.
Just to add - she doesn't need any extra weight

, like some oldies, so need something as low cal as possible.

 

[tangotime]

I mix soaked high fibre nuts with sugar beet and alfalfa of my vitually toothless OAP, if practical it's best to divide the meals in to 4 to 5 spread out over the day as there are large meal.

 

[JAH]

My vet recommended Allen & Page Fast Fibre for my old boy who has teeth problems. You soak the pellets so they go soft and I also add some Hi-Fi to it to bulk it up. I must say it does really seem to do the job for mine.

 

[CBFan]

I think Hi-fi lite is going to be one of your cheapest solutions TBH.

how much hi-fi lite does she get through in a night?

Soaked High fibre cubes and speedi beet are an option for providing fibre but for me, would form more of a dinner than act as a hay replacer...

 

[tangotime]

I gave fibre fast a try a while back, but mine refuses to eat it even so he normally is qiet piggy, so I discarded that as an option.

 

[Michelle22]

How about Rye_Grass by Horsehage - this is what my friend is feeding her old boy this year and she has had similar issues as you describe. x

 

[chickeninabun]

That's my thoughts exactly CBFan. The pellets/nuts seem much more a dinner and I wouldn't expect it to last all night, like a hay net does, so don't want her stood without anything all night.
I don't know how much I'm giving her exactly at the moment, as I haven't weighed it yet. Will do that over the weekend without fail, but as an indicator it's a bucket the same size as the green one on the right hand of this picture, and it's full of Hi-Fi:
Green Trug!

 

[teddyt]

Just a thought but maybe the haynet is lasting all night because she has found it harder to eat, rather than it taking longer to eat for other reasons

 

[chickeninabun]

[ QUOTE ]
How about Rye_Grass by Horsehage - this is what my friend is feeding her old boy this year and she has had similar issues as you describe. x

[/ QUOTE ]

The Horsehage website says that the Rye Grass is good for competition horses or ones needed to gain weight/condition and this is something mine really doesn't need!
I looked up the Mollichaff Veteran but people seem to be saying it's got mollasses in it, which I don't want and that Hi-Fi Lite is probably best. Just a shame it's going to be 3 times the cost of hay

 

[catdragon]

Funnily I was watching a "healthy Horse" program the other night (that I'd recorded). There was a nutrionist from Dodson & Horrell on and she was talking about feeding oldies, featuring a 43 year old pony called Hot Radish.

She made up a feed comprising of 500g of alfa A, 500g (soaked) sugar beet & 500g of fibre nuts per 1000kg the horse weighs. For instance, the pony featured weighed 3000kg so she made up the feed with 1.5kg of each "ingredient".

She said that that was enough to replace all fibre for the horse all day! She basically added the alfa a and nuts to the sugar beet and let it soak so the oldies can eat it.

She also said if they've only just stopped eating the hay that you should try steaming the hay to see if it helped the older horse to eat.

 

[chickeninabun]

[ QUOTE ]
Just a thought but maybe the haynet is lasting all night because she has found it harder to eat, rather than it taking longer to eat for other reasons

[/ QUOTE ]

I've had her two years now and she's never finished a whole haynet in one night. There is always some left in the morning, which I like as I know she hasn't gone hungry, but usually just a small amount, where as now it's the whole thing!

 

[TGM]

When I had an oldie with impaired dentition I worked out that soaked high fibre cubes were more cost effective than Happy Hoof or HiFi Lite (although still a lot more expensive than hay) but still wanted something for the pony to chew on. I made a compromise by feeding some of each!

PS: You have to be careful when looking at alternative chaffs, as some of them aren't balanced enough to be fed in high quantities as hay replacers. I would personally only choose those that are recommended by the manufacturers as hay replacers.

Also when looking at cost, remember that bags of chaff vary hugely in weight - Hi Fi Lite is sold in 20kg bags, but other chaffs are often in 15kg or even 12.5kg bags, so often look cheaper than they really are!

 

[ladyt25]

We used to feed our old horse alpha a when he could no longer eat hay. Have also recently found a product Graze-On which is basically just grass and it is cheaper than buying alpha-a.

http://www.northerncropdriers.co.uk/graze-on.htm

It smells lovely and the horses seems to like it - we have taken to feeding small amounts to all ours now (they can all eat hay but we have two oldeis, one of whom maybe can't eat hay quite as well as the others).

I also feed it to my guinea pigs in the winter! lol

 

[Sarah1]

This is what we do with our oldie who is also susceptible to laminitis - we don't give the beet as she doesn't like it!
I gave her a big feed bucket last night & she was finishing it off for her breakfast this morning when I got there!
We do offer her hay altho she can't really eat it very well - our dentist advised us to do this 'for her head' - think he means so she 'thinks' she's having forage. She does like to burrow her head in her hay altho I'm not sure how much actually gets swallowed!!!!!!

 

[chickeninabun]

[ QUOTE ]
We used to feed our old horse alpha a when he could no longer eat hay. Have also recently found a product Graze-On which is basically just grass and it is cheaper than buying alpha-a.

http://www.northerncropdriers.co.uk/graze-on.htm

It smells lovely and the horses seems to like it - we have taken to feeding small amounts to all ours now (they can all eat hay but we have two oldeis, one of whom maybe can't eat hay quite as well as the others).

I also feed it to my guinea pigs in the winter! lol

[/ QUOTE ]

This looks like it might work out very slightly cheaper than Hi-Fi, but am worried that with it being almost fresh grass, it might be a bit too calorific and make her fat(ter)!

And yes, I had noticed how some seem much cheaper but are smaller bags! The crafty devils!!

 

[legaldancer]

That Healthy Horses programme was excellent. A friend of mine fed her 30 year old a similar hay replacer. It comprised of hi-fi cubes, Fybergy (chaff), & unmollased SB (Speedibeet). This was all soaked for the day/night to form a "pate" like consistency. It was fed in a tubtrug, but she was gradually weaned onto it to avoid her gorging the lot. within a week she was left with it overnight & sometimes there would even be some left in the morning.

The Veteran Horse Society will happily give free advice over the phone on an ideal diet. Well worth giving them a call.

 

[Dunmare]

with my old mare I used Fast fibre nuts which were brilliant and if she needed a bit more condition I added soaked Top Spec nuts and fibre beet.

 

[terrierliz]

Northern Crop Driers also do Graze-On Gold Blend which is a good hay replacer.

Have pm'd you

 

[Coffee_Bean]

Readigrass? Old boy at our yard has this.

 

[PennyJ]

We ended up going down the hi fi route with our old codger, now sadly departed. From memory I think a bucket equals a kilo of chaff. He had so many teeth missing it seemed hay and haylage were just too much effort to eat, and he was a greedy little fellow who had previously had laminitis.

 

[Spyda]

Potentially a dumb question.... but have you tried her on another batch of hay? Maybe there is something in or on the current hay that is putting her off? I only mention this after watching another livery's dog cock his leg over another liveries stack of hay this afternoon... This was swiftly followed by the yard's dog coming along to add his scent over the top of the first ones. Yuk.

 

[Spyda]

[ QUOTE ]
She made up a feed comprising of 500g of alfa A, 500g (soaked) sugar beet & 500g of fibre nuts per 1000kg the horse weighs. For instance, the pony featured weighed 3000kg so she made up the feed with 1.5kg of each "ingredient".

[/ QUOTE ]

Can I just double check that's a typo? I'm assuming the pony wasn't actually a whopping 3000kgs

It's interesting though. So, 1.5Kg of the combined feed fed daily, per 100kg of horse's body weight.

One of mine is 600kg so it would still work out fairly expensive to feed him, but I'll certainly keep this "recipe" for future reference. Thanks

 

[foo]

My friend has an old 29yr old, she uses simplesystems feed, they have a help line. www.simplesystems.co.uk

 

[VictoriaEDT]

[ QUOTE ]
She made up a feed comprising of 500g of alfa A, 500g (soaked) sugar beet & 500g of fibre nuts per 1000kg the horse weighs. For instance, the pony featured weighed 3000kg so she made up the feed with 1.5kg of each "ingredient".

[/ QUOTE ]

3000kg?! My 17.2h IDx hunter weighs 710kg!

Everybody who is worried about feeding a trug full of what looks like "hard feed" then dont be because that is what forage replacement is all about. A mixture of fibre cubes dampened, non molassed sugar beet, hi fi (or lite), pink powder all in large quantities 4 times a day (3 if turned out in day then one in the morning before turn out, one when they come in and one on lates 9pm ish). Oldies need their fibre and this is the only way they can get it.

 

[VictoriaEDT]

Simple systems is also fab and they will work out a feed mixture for you and send you all the feed; Lucie nuts, blue bag grass pellets etc.

As a general rule of thumb for anyone with geriatrics, as soon as you see them starting to drop hay in balls then stop feeding it asap and work out a forage replacement. If they arent left with any choice other than hay, they will try to swollow unchewed long fibres of hay massively increasing the risk of colic through gut impaction of this unchewed hay.

 

[Vickijay]

[ QUOTE ]
My friend has an old 29yr old, she uses simplesystems feed, they have a help line. www.simplesystems.co.uk

[/ QUOTE ]


My friends very old horse was swapped onto Simple systems when he couldnt eat anything so was horribly poor and she was thinking about having him PTS. A few months on their feed and he was a different horse.

Would reccomend to anyone and they do a big range of different ponies.

Vicki

ps I rung them yesterday as have a VERY fussy, skinny TB and wanted some linseed and they sent me it today and samples of everything they sell to see if she liked any of it!!!

 

[tabithakat64]

My friends 36 year old was fed on fibrebeet, hifi-lite and hi-fibre cubes (all soaked) and thrived in this diet until he died.