Horse who suffers from choke

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Rocky715

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About a month or so ago my horse started choking on feed - I had teeth checked (all fine) and the vet scoped him (all fine). Therefore I have been soaking all hard feed and he is coping fine with this. I am however concerned that this coming winter I cannot feed him hay as he chokes on this also. Does anyone have any suggestions of an alternative to hay that I could feed, else he will drop weight? He is a TBx therefore I do not want anything that is too heating?
 
How would you feed the hay? If not in a net then I'd suggest a thin holed net or maybe even two nets one inside the other, so that he can't get much out at a time. Mine has had a couple of choke episodes, one on hay. He seems to be fine now, but I never feed hay loose and it is always soaked just to be safe.
 
I've had a few horses choke on hard feed, mainly because they loved their food a little too much, it was a very frightning experience! I think if you feed him hay in a net with really small hole he won't be able to get enough to chole on, however, they sometime don't get enough hay this way as they get bored of fighting with the net and just snooze all night. To keep condition in my mare (Arab) during the winter I give her a bucket of soaked grass cubes for the night, don't think he'd be able to choke on these as it's just dried grass
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good luck, hope he stays well.
 
My horse started choking towards the end of the winter - because he was bolting his feed.

After many helpful comments on here I found that soaking his hard feed for several hours prevented it. I also used to put a swede in his feed bucket to slow him down.

I would also feed the hardfeed before the hay - otherwise he would choke on the hay- even if it was in a small holed net.

However, once his initial hunger had been satisfied with his feed, he ate his hay slowly - which stopped him choking.
 
mine is juct different then!!! she is quite prone to choke, although hasn't had in past year (touches wood!!!)sheis always more prone to doing within 2-3 wks of her teeth being rasped and will choke when eatting hay in small hole net. she always has soaked hay and mostof this is fed from floor but a small amount goes in a largehole hay net (or we get a very messy bed!) her hard feed is always like soup and touch wood seems to be working!!!!
 
i have tried feeding it in a hay net, even with small holes.... however eventually once he has eaten enough he will still choke.

does anyone know if steaming the hay would work? or whether i should resort to haylage?
 
Placeing a couple of large pebbles in his bucket of hard feed, helps to slow them down and forage for the food rather than bolting it down quickly. Obviously supervise your horse eating for the first time so he knows to nudge them out of the way and not try and eat them! ...comman sense etc but yes this does work well if you want to slow them eating there hard feed. Spillers Dried Ready Grass or whatever its called is a good replacer, again horses can choke on this too because its dry (even when you wet it) it can get clogged up in throat so do be careful if using it, I do use it and have had a horse choke on in the past but touch wood has not happened since, I crush it up a bit more as sometimes its a bit spikey.
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If you're thinking about steaming the hay to get rid of dust spores it doesn't work. Does make nice warm haynets in the winter though!

My horse has had 3 bouts of choke in the last 3 years. The last being Sunday at Dressage. The first was on a twig in the haylage - you could see in stuck. Don't know about the second cos it was after a lesson, so she had no food for at least an hour and a half, unsure of the origins of Sundays either. Its very scarey when it happens - I hope you're horse is ok and doesn't do it again
 
no its not to get rid of dust. i just didnt know if it would break the hay down a little and make it less likely to get stuck in his throat?! i wondered if anyone had tried it
 
Mine does much better on haylage than hay, hay just makes him choke and cough these days. Unless theres a twig in the haylage of course. So he is turned out as much as poss and has haylage, altho its more expensive, it is moist so no soaking, can store it easily and theres no waste as he eats every morsel.
 
Min chokes on Marksway horsehage she can have any other haylage or hay but apparently its something they put on the marksway, not sure if anyone else has this problem?
 
Not that problem ......but I did switch from Markways ('Horsehage' make) to the bog standard local stuff, as a number of times with different batches I opened Marksway bales and was overcome by chemical fumes! (not just strong haylage smell, this was nail varnish remover type!) Got fed up of returning them. Only prob is the Markways one was low energy hi fibre whereas the local haylage is more rocket fuelly and naglet a bit supercharged, but better that than choke!
 
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