horse accidentally eaten another horses feed

IrishMilo said:
This thread is a wind up surely?! Did you really phone the vet because the pony ate some extra fibre nuggets and chaff?
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Most decent vets would rather an anxious owner asked and was reassured than did not ask and risked their animals welfare out of fear of judgment. "The only stupid question is the one that isn't asked."
Though I would query if this one was decent based on the advice given re hay if I'm honest.

Have a pic somewhere of a young FO trying to fend off a determined shetland from a glass of squash and a ham sandwich. Sarnie didn't survive, pony did, until he was 32
 
That reminds me I was once stood by a friends lorry chatting to her at a ODE, my horse was with me and (I thought) grazing beside me….until I looked down and realised he was in fact enthusiastically polishing off the bowl of dry food she had left out for her dog :oops:
 
IrishMilo said:
This thread is a wind up surely?! Did you really phone the vet because the pony ate some extra fibre nuggets and chaff?
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With a horse that’s got a history of colic - yes i did. The feed was made for a 17.2 horse, and a horse that needs to gain weight at that, so it was a very large quantity of feed, considering his feeds are usually measured in ‘handfuls’
 
Supere said:
With a horse that’s got a history of colic - yes i did. The feed was made for a 17.2 horse, and a horse that needs to gain weight at that, so it was a very large quantity of feed, considering his feeds are usually measured in ‘handfuls’
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Then I would be very concerned about the 17.2hh horse. There is very little difference in the size of stomach between a Shetland and a Shire. Neither should have huge amounts of feed at one time although of course fibre-based feeds are much better than high starch/high sugar.
 
All horses regardless of size need regular, constant access to small amounts of food. As PaS says the stomach size of ponies and horses isn't much different: neither can really hold much more than 2 litres volume at one time. Gastric Transit is rather rapid as well; in humans it's 7-24hrs, horses about two hours, (I think, loooong time since I looked into this stuff) their guts really are designed to shuttle poorly nutritious food through constantly. It's why they're shaped the way they are and actually very poor at carrying weight- big barrels for holding long, long intestines, but these intestines already weigh loads.
Anyway you'd know pretty quickly if the caloric kleptomania was going to cause issues for the animal.
 
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