Need Feed Help Please ASAP!

[mandk]

Hello,

I have a horse with teeth problems which I need to find a soft feed for... any ideas? A feed that provides energy or weight gain is good.

Please help as he is finding it difficult to eat cubes and hay!

He has always had his teeth done, but is an older horse with not great teeth at all.

Thanks.

 

[Maesfen]

Bailey's Number One with sugar beet and chop or Rowan Barberry do a feed called ReadyMash which is meant to be good for oldies. Think you can Google them (possibly under Ian Hollow's Feeds).

 

[Blizzard]

What about speedibeet or fibrebeet or the new alfabeet?

They should all help with weight and condition and are fed wet

 

[amandaco2]

soaked cubes.high fibre cubes and oil added.my 48yo has this and looks brilliant!
you could try him on happy hoof or alfa a(but not alfa if hes lamanitic)

 

[mandk]

Thank you everyone, how do I feed bran?

As I may try this with soaked high fibre cubes.

 

[Llwyncwn]

Hi Mand. Used to feed our old mare with only 3 teeth on a soft chaff (otherwise she might choke), sugar beet, soaked grass nuts and build up (made up the night before so it was mushy). I added veggy oil and suppliment. You can also feed powdered milk or pellets from your feed merchants if you are concerned about her condition. It would be best split into 3/4 feeds per day. Hope this helps.

 

[Llwyncwn]

There is absolutely no feed value in bran.

 

[mandk]

Someone advised bran as a mash as it is soft with the soaked cubes?

Is this not suitable for everyday?

Sorry, but I want to get it right poor little man.

 

[Maesfen]

[ QUOTE ]
There is absolutely no feed value in bran.

[/ QUOTE ]

That might technically be so but a lot of horses, particularly oldies, enjoy regular bran mashes and at that age you're not going to do a lot of damage are you, so surely at that age, a little of what you fancy will be better than not eating or not being able to eat, what is correct?

Warm water with either molasses or black treacle added to bran, and something else, whatever the pony enjoys and can eat and it's a warming tasty meal for them which they usually like and CAN eat. Sugar beet added to it is good as it gives more fibre without being too chewy or sharp unlike some chaffs.

I wouldn't want to feed any more than a pound in weight of bran a day, if you can get away with less I would but split it up into as many feeds as you can.

 

[JaneSteventon]

Hello I would go with the sugarbeet/alfalfa mix plus grass nuts. You could feed recommended amounts of the sugarbeet/alfalfa and then add as many grass nuts as he could eat. Also oil would be good. Alfa beet and fibrebeet are both sugarbeet/alfalfa mixes but it does work out cheaper to buy sugarbeet and alfalfa nuts seperatley and add them together yourself especially if you buy mollased sugarbeet pellets which is much cheaper than speedibeet or readibeet Dengie do alfalfa nuts.

 

[Horse_mad07]

Bailys no 1 (or even better Badminton conditioning meal if you can get it) mixed with sugar beet has really done wonders for my horse.

 

[_basil_]

We used to have a 36 yr old with not a tooth in her head. She was fed sixteen plus mix soaked in warm water. It was almost like a soup and it took her ages to eat it but she looked brilliant on it.

 

[lilym]

make a mixture of sugarbeet pulp, and soaked cubes, something like spillers high fibre cubes as a base and sixteen plus or topline cubes for weightgain, there are also products such as alfabeet and fibrebeet that are well worth a look, what you will have in effect is a haynet in a bucket!