Horse not eating alot! HELP

victoriaclement

victoriaclement

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18 June 2012
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Warrington Cheshire
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I own an ID x Irsh sport horse Mare who is 5.
ive had her 10 months now and everything has been going really well.
Lately, she has dropped weight and isnt interested in her hay/hayleigh or her feeds.
She isnt a greedy horse but has always eaten hayleigh or her feed. It ever since Winter arrived and its been getting colder that she hasnt eaten a great deal.
this then caused her to have hardly any energy so we fed her Alfa Beet from Dengie, but that turned her the oposite way and meant she was naughty in other respects like spooking, rearing, kicking out in hand. We have now took her off this.
She has also not drank a great deal of water either which worries me most.
I am struggling trying to find an explanation or whether its just her not having a large apitite. Need Help!!!:confused:

Viki
 
Hi


I posted in Stable Yard a few weeks ago as have had terrible problems with my 2 horses not eating hay. It seems there's quite a bit of poor quality hay about this year after such a poor summer with it being so wet and no sunshine for months! Hay looked and smelt fine but mine were hardly eating anything so have them on haylage now which they're eating up fine. They did continue to eat hard food so may be slightly different but I would certainly try a different supply of hay/haylage to see if this makes a difference? Could be as simple as that. She will lack energy if she's not eating enough and important to make sure she's warm enough if she's dropping a bit of weight - they'll use energy keeping warm otherwise

Some horse will drink less when it's really cold so you could try adding some warm water to take the chill off. I feed mine speedi beet and calm and condition (with alfa) which both have to be soaked before feeding - means they're getting moisture from food as well in case they're not keen on drinking near freezing water! One is TB, other is ISH and I don't find that this feed combination heats them up particularly

If she has lost weight quickly, I would probably blood test next. My TB had a horrible virus a couple of years ago and lost weight quickly and looked shocking. Blood test showed this up and he was fine after plenty of good food and rest and ProPel Plus to help recovery (care when feeding this though, can be rocket fuel but can help horse in recovery or really hard work)

Hope she's ok - let us know how she goes
 
thanks all for your replies.

We recently bought a haygain and the reason she wasnt eating her hay was because she had gone off the taste of it. Becuase she wasnt eating, we were giving her handfuls of hayledge just to make sure she actually did eat something in the day. therefore, knowing this she didnt eat her hay knowing she would get some hayledge! very crafty mare. she is fine now though and eating her hay not problem.
thanks for your help :)
 
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