I cant get my weanling to eat hard food!

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Dexter

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He didn't have the best start and was weaned by being boxed up and brought to me :( He was totally unhandled but has come on in leaps and bounds. He is now pretty much par for the course, a normal weanling. Apart from the not eating bucket food. i want to feed him suregrow with a handful of build and glow. Its not such a big deal as hes currently stabled and eating tons and tons of really good quality hay, however this weekend hes going out with the yearlings. They live on mainly grass with a daily feed of suregrow and build and glow. They will only be hayed if it snows etc as they are currently only 3 of them out on 13 acres of good grass, so theres tons of keep, its just not that nutritious.

I've tried hand feeding him, trying to get him to eat dampened readigrass, either from the bucket or by hand, sprinkling suregrow on his hay, offering him untold other types of food, etc, etc. He comes over and has a sniff, but he just wont eat any hard food :( Hes watched other horses (inc another weanling) eat by hand and from a bucket, and while hes interested he still doesn't want to eat hard food. Any ideas??
 
I've just read it :) My weanling is a bit different, its not he doesnt like the taste etc. Its more that he doesn't know how/want to eat hard food. He did show a massive amount of interest in as packet of crisps the other day, and tbh, as frustrated as I am now if he wants to eat crisps I'm fine with that :D However, he didnt want to actually eat the crisps either, just play with the packet :D
 
My fussy bugger wouldn't eat certain feeds and i had to try 3 different brands before he took to Spillers stud mix, which you can feed up until they are 18 months.

I went from a rubber skip to a trugg bucket as he wouldn't eat out of the skip type!!!

I found that i had to give him about 45 mins to eat his breakfast/tea. He would eat a bit, take a breather and then go back for a bit more!!! However this gave me time to get him used to being groomed, feet picked up etc etc so wasn't a bad thing.

I also added some of the juice (off someone else's Sugarbeet) in to his feed as it has the sweet taste and moistens the food. It took a while for my lad used to the hard pellets...he used to manage to spit the nuts out while eating the rest...it's a skill, i know, so the juice helped.

It took him a couple of weeks to realise that carrots weren't going to eat him and they could be a tasty treat and don't even get me started on apples!!!
 
Normally a foal would copy his mother and try to nibble on her feed, I would assume from what your saying that his mother never had hard feed to copy this behaviour from? Would it be possible to turn him out with one yearling/friend first and learn to copy that horse in eating a bucket feed?? Before going out with all the others, I'm sure once he sees others eating like that, he will soon copy?
 
I think if i can get him to put ANYTHING into his mouth we'll be away. Hes definitely interested and wants to try it, he just cant bring himself too :( Its getting him to be brave enough to try the first mouthful thats stumping me! :( I haven't actually tried anything minty, maybe I should either add some mint or try a polo? :D
 
Take his water out, replace it with extremely watery sugar beet. Give dry hay. Leave overnight. Baby will drink water when thirsty, get a taste for it. Gradually decrease wateryness of sugar beet over few days. Replace water when keen to get bucket (day or two usually). Add suregrow to sugar beet so it goes mushy, small amounts frequently. Should start to call when he sees you with bucket.
 
one of my weanlings was like this,when he arrived mid Oct all he would eat was hay. It was just a matter of offering a tiny bit, straights worked, a tiny handful of bruised oats, then we added a little stud mix,just a sprinkling, then gradually, over a week added more stud mix. after about 10 days he was eating about 1LB of stud mix. we have had to add everything very very slowly ,ie balancer,chaff and sugarbeet, he eats his bucket feed well now,but at first he decided that none of it was food and would just tip it all and paw in it.
 
I would have thought that being out with your other babies would be the perfect way to teach your weanling to eat hard food in the same way as he should have done from mum???
 
i have found that almost every weanling/foal ive had almost without exception just dont "enjoy"chaff until they are around 9/10 months old..

good old fashioned sugar beet will disguise a multitude of supplements...;)

can i ask..why are you giving a weanling "oil"?
 
angel7 said:
Should start to call when he sees you with bucket.
Click to expand...

He calls everytime he sees me, and bellows when I go out of sight, lol. I can only get there twice a day, thers no way I'm leaving him without water!

I guess I'll just persevere till he eats something by hand then go from there. The yearlings are soo food/people orientated that will help :)

NP I'm not giving him "oil" ???
 
You're not leaving him without water. You are leaving him with water with sugar beet in which will taste yummy when he gets thirsty after eating dry hay for the day. Once he's eating up the beet you can add whatever you want. Grating carrot and apples can also be useful to get them eating up
 
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