old horse loosing weight

R

rachie25

New User
Joined
6 July 2009
Messages
2
Visit site
wondering if anyone can help, my friend has her old horse gizmo, hes a 28 yr old cob, he recently had liver trouble, and it looked like she was going to loose him. he dropped loads of weight. he put it back on but is loosing it again. she is trying everything she can to keep him built up, but with no luck. vet cant find anything wrong with liver his blood profile's fine. does anyone have any suggestions, i think alot of my friend and gizmo of course, and cant bear to see her upset, shes terrified hes not going to make it through winter. any suggestions would be great. hes currently fed, sugarbeet, coolmix, molasses, mollichaff veteran, soya oil making 1/2 a trug bucket full, and a 3 buckets of readigrass a day. please help
frown.gif
 
Aww its so sad when they get to this point. Has the vet checked his teeth? I imagine so but just incase.

Both my old girls have had periods of traumatic weight loss and even though I have their teeth done regulary the vet found them to be the problem and now we get them done more regulary.

As for feed I have found Rowan Barbary'sSoft and Soak amazing and it kept both girls in tip top condition. I also have the privilage of putting them on really good thick bladed grazing as my younger ponies can't go on it because of weight and lami I save this particular paddock to boost my oldies.

Doesn't work for everyone but hopefully may be a bit of help xx
 
Cooked linseed (only need a handful in each feed) or barley. My old share horse needed to put on weight and had these added to his feed. It didnt take too long to see a difference but it was a nice steady weight gain.
 
I would recomend NAFs Pink Powder prebiotic is great for putting on weight as it helps digestive system work better and its the only thing that keeps weight on our TB over the winter. I would swap the cool mix for conditioning nuts such as Baileys or Donson & Horrell ones or an conditioning mix that aids weight gain as cool mix is genrally fed to horses that dont need much calories or gain in the weight department. A general vitamin and mineral powder will be good also.
 
Contact the Veteran Horse Society, they are quite happy to give advice on feeding oldies.
A friend's 28 yr old 14.1 NF type had 1 scp of soaked beet, half scp of build-up & 3 scoops of fibregy soaked for the day as an evening hay replacer served in a tubtrug & 2 meals a day of 1 scp soaked build up & 1 scp soaked beet. she gained quite alot of condition this way. She lived out 24/7 with shelter & had ample grazing.
 
Our oldie here is 35+ and needed a bit of help with weight gain this year - he has a combination of Mollichaff Veteran (both as a chaff in his meal and in a trug to nibble on as and when) speedibeet, equijewel and high fibre nuts. Its really important that he gets enough fibre - also gets bored of eating somethings easily so he gets a variation on the above to keep him interested.

The other thing we used to get weight on an old pony was soaked whole oats. She was eating loads of veteran mix etc but nothing was helping and she looked like a hatrack. On advice we changed her to soaked whole oats mixed with a handful of speedibeet and a handful of alfalfa/chaff. She was a different pony within a month.
 
We feed our oldie on A&P'c Calm & Condition mixed with grass nuts rather than chaff along with a pre/probiotic. She did drop weight towards the end of winter (rather more than we liked) but has since put it back on.
 
Milk thistle supports the liver. Also, consider having teeth rasped if not up to date.

Allen and Page old faithful is very good for veterans. I also recommend sugar beet and boiled barley.

It might also be worth contacting the veteran horse society. Might be worth considering a test for Cushings, this can cause weight loss.

I hope he puts weight on soon.
 
I would second checking the teeth as oldies often have problems with their teeth and I am a BIG fan of a probiotic with the oldies as their digestion just doesn't work quite as well as it used too.
 
Had the same problem with a 35yo pony -fed him on Blue chip, bailey's No 1 and alfa A oil - worked a treat, body condition picked up amazingly - also use this on TB/ID 20yo mare that has a tendency to drop weight over night on any other feed - she has just had a foal and looks fantastic xx
 
have his teeth been checked his he wormed to date? i would try changing his food to ready mash extra alfa a oil and a general vit/min to help him as well!
 
I had the same problem with my shettie. His teeth weren't fantastic and I tried all the usual weight-gain things, including all of the above (minus Canada hay - he couldn't eat hay in the end).

Sad to say that none of it worked. The NAF Pink Powder made him perk up mentally and he put a little weight on, but he never did recover his weight fully, dropping again early Spring and I lost him in April. I do feel for your friend, but she may have to face that this is his last summer.
frown.gif
I hope one of the above works for him.
 
Another vote for soft n soak. Put our 31 year old donkey on it recently as he had dropped a little weight (his teeth aren't brilliant) and it has made a huge difference. Could see an improvement in a couple of weeks, and he loves it, whereas before he wasn't always eating all his feed he now licks the bowl clean
smile.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top