OLD PONY - feeding ideas??

N

nat_a_528

Active Member
Joined
18 August 2010
Messages
32
Location
West Sussex
Visit site
Hi guys , bit of advice

27 year old 13.2 connemara x tb.
Quite underweight .

I am feeding ad lib hay
1 scoop speedibeet ( before soaked )
1 mug straight barley
And 1 scoop veteran vitality .
Twice a day

He is wormed , vaccinated and had his teeth checked , and there isi internal illness .

Is there anything anyone would do differently or add to that ?

Thanks
 
Although you say he has had his teeth checked, it is still likely that his teeth are no where near as good as they used to be, so chewing hay will be harder work for him. If it takes longer for him to chew hay, then he may not be eating enough of it to maintain weight. I would try offering him some sort of partial hay replacer - something like a tub of grass chaff or soaked grass pellets alongside his overnight hay.
 
Hi i have an old boy who is 22 and he has trouble with his teeth (missing them) and i had a real problem with him in the summer as the field he was in had really short grass but since moving him to a field with longer grass he's back to his fat self :)
he's also feed
chaff
speediebeet
conditioning nuts
Hope this helps
 
Could you maybe swap the speedibeet for Dengie Alfabeet which is more conditioning.
Also a friend of mine is having amazing results with her oldie since putting hime on NAF Senior Pink Powder. He has puIt on weight and is looking great. It is a balancer especially designed for oldies and helps to ensure all the nutrients are being absorbed fully. Here is a link to the website that had some more info

http://www.naf-equine.eu/uk//products/productDetail.jsp?detail_id=in-the-pink-senior

Hope that helps abit :D
 
We have a 28yo mare and she has done well on dengie hi fi lite, baileys lo cal balancer and speedie beet. She is fed this as she has mild cushings and we need to avoid laminitis if possible. She has it damped down well as her teeth are not great. She also has melanomas and the vet suspects they may be internal as well as external. However with good forrage ad lib and rough long grass she does really well. The vet is surprised how well she has held her weight. I would try your lad on as simple and fibrous diet as possible and soak things if needed. You could try some oil as well if you need calories.
Ours is a connie x arab and was stressy when younger and hard to keep weight on. With this very simple diet she seems to get what she needs and has no trouble eating it. It is not expensive either:D
 
My soon to be 30yr old has become quite fussy. At the end of last year she was spitting out hay. She had to have her teeth done twice in about 2 months, but seems to have settles now.

She will not eat cubes or mix but is quite happy with dengie healthy hoof, with some sugar beet. She does like a mix of suger beet and graze on, which I have fill a trug tub with, and she munches on this over night.

She was on haylage, but recently I was able to get some really nice hay, and she has decided thats what she wants to eat, so I give her 2 big haynets of it at night, plus a small one of haylage just in case she eants to pick at it.

I let her dicate to me what she wants. Have to say since I started on the graze-on/ sb mix a t night she has put on weight.
 
Ready mash feeds are good for oldies. Stick to fibre based feeds for high calorific intake, fermenting fibre is how they get most of their calories.
 
Try changing ordinary chaff for Dengie HiFi Senior - it's very soft and also has grass in it. Also I use Curragh Carron Oil, which is a digestive aid containing lots of linseed oil amongst other ingredients.
 
Hi we used to feed our v old (no age - pre passports) pony a mix of stud cubes, high fibre cubes, sugarbeet and alfa a. He couldn't eat hay so this was all he had. He wintered best when we were able to feed him 3x a day - he really blossomed then. I would really recommend getting feeds into them 3 x a day if possible.

Otherwise, old faithful from Allen and Page we have also fed to different oldies and seems to be good. In addition, you could consider feeding a balancer (TopSpec do a veteran one) that will make sure they get everything they need nutrient wise, and have prebiotics in to help their guts works at their optimum.
 
My 26yr old was in bad condition after living out last winter, I got some ready cooked linseed from local feed store and put him on NAF pink powder and he looks like a totally different horse now. He gets scoop of speedi-beet (soaked weight) scoop of spillers conditioning fibre and scoop of calm and condition (again soaked weight) and looks really good now!
 
Old ponies with few teeth used to get sugar beet, hi-fibre cubes and 16+ with a good glug of oil. Before this it was big buckets of soaked high fibre cubes to provide fibre at the riding school I used to work at seemed to work
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top