Is your horse picky between cubes/mix?

telerimist

Well-Known Member
Joined
12 June 2013
Messages
102
Location
Bedfordshire
Visit site
It may be me and my crazy brain but my mare is on a herbal mix and it is for fussy eaters and she's always been on mix and on occasion with conditioning cubes during winter or if she needs some more muscle but when she comes off them after looking a bit too well (a bit too chubby!) she gives one look at her food and gives me the look of 'really, where's the yummy stuff' and won't eat it, but some of it may be gone by the morning but not all of it because she knows she's stuck with it.

Not sure if it's picky mare knowing what she thinks is best or something else?
Anyone else have a similar issue or is it just me thinking into it too much?
 

JillA

Well-Known Member
Joined
1 May 2007
Messages
8,166
Location
Shropshire
Visit site
Lot of anthropomorphism going on there - she probably doesn't want them because a) they don't look and smell or taste like what she recognises as food and b) she isn't hungry enough. Why do you need to give her either? If she is in with good hay or haylage then maybe a small damp feed with any supplements is probably all she needs.
 

ThePony

Well-Known Member
Joined
26 March 2009
Messages
4,911
Visit site
She can be, usually when there is plenty of yummy grass, or I have had to drop something yummy from her feed (like dropping the linseed if needed) then her tea isn't as tempting.

She gets over it quick enough, I just feed her when she might be hungrier then she doesn't get hay or go out to the field until she's eaten up. When there isn't something more tempting on offer then she eats up and gets her taste for it back! If I feed her when she is waiting to go out then she might not be so fussed, best time seems to be when we're back from a hack in the afternoon, or after they have come in. Tea goes in then no feed or hay prep happens, no hay goes in. It's gone in a few mins this way! She only has small teas for her minerals, if it gets larger than about a stubbs scoop when it's soaked then she just doesn't want to know.
 
Top