Seriously malnourished horse!

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CracklinRosie

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Help!

OH has just gone to pick up our horse in Turkey and he's phoned in a panic saying she looks like a cruelty case.

She was moved 500 miles yesterday and it looks like they never gave her any water.

Stable she came from have been feeding her chopped straw due to lack of hay out there(too much rain last winter) and not much else it would appear.

She's now in excellent stable in Istanbul http://www.kg-cc.com/index.aspx?lan=en and they have said no problem in 3 weeks she'll be better.

She's getting as much hay as she can eat and has access to an automatic water drinker (which she's using, clever poppet).

Now we can feed her local oats and corn and bran. Or there are a range of Dodson & Horrell feeds there. I don't know which ones yet as OH is going to look as we speak.

Which do you reckin would be best? Keep it simple or try the D&H.

She'll be coming overland to UK in about 3 weeks with J.P. International.

Any help welcome.
 
I'd keep it simple for now whilst she's still abroad. Once she's home and settled (and you're in control) you can start to adjust her feed regime to suit her, you may find that the D+H products avalible out there are not ones of choice so you could be faced with changing her diet all over again once she's here, putting more stress on her digestive system (and probably you!)
 
i would wait till you get her back to make changes the last thing you what to do is up set her even more then she is till then sort her a sensible routine feed that benny fits her good luck
 
I would proceed very carefuly.

In the past I have bought some very run down hat racks from auction.

Keep everything simple and resist the urge to feed them up. Ad lib, good quality hay, and plenty of fresh water and free access to a salt/mineral block are all I woudl do for a couple of weeks. Make sure the horse is not carrying a worm burden, or yuo will simply be feeding the worms, not the horse.

The main concern is not to upset the digestive tract, so I always go for fiber feeding rather than cerials in these cases. You can easily overload the whole system by changing the diet to cerials or conditionnig feeds.

In todays society we like to see instant results... but resist! I would go for a long term plan, slowly weaning the horse on to decent food and building condition slowly. I would be aiming to have the horse in good condition by the end of the summer at the earliest (so as to avoid putting strain on the system, lami, colic and behavioral issues) and I would achive this by slowly introducing good grazing and a broad spectrum vitamin and mineral suplement. Bear in mind that what you are wanting is condition, which is very different to fat. If you bung a run down horse a load of conditioning feed, chances are you will end up with a run down horse coverd in a layer of lard. The horses body needs to re-educate itself in as far as it uses the nutrients. Remember that lami is a digestive problem, not a foot problem!
 
Due to the feeding regime your horse has been on till now I would not recommend feeding consentrates at the moment. Give her as much hay as she wants, forage is the best thing for her. As she puts on some weight then I would possibly consider introducing some but the most important is getting her plenty of forage. Good Luck
 
thanks everyone.

Target has now had a shower and a bit of a tidy up and is looking much better, although I've still to see it.

She's got good ad lib hay and is getting some oats and bran to try and stop the runs.

She's been wormed again, allegedly 2 weeks ago too!!!!

I'll post photo's when I get them.
 
I would go steady on the oats and bran and feed tons of fiber to stop the runs. Why has she got the runs anyway? Have you had a vet out? If she has the runs this would explain why she is so poor.
 
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