Very hard droppings

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tillsmum

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Hi all, Can anyone give me some suggestions on what to feed my 2 ponies that don't drink and have very very hard poo. One got impaction colic last year and really don't want to go through that again. At the moment they are both on a diet and have 6kgs of soaked hay, 500gms of Saracens Shape Up, a handful of Hifi lite and a scoop of Linseed and a tablespoon on salt. I put a good 1/3 of a bucket of water in the feed.
 
Change to Sugarbeet (molasses free) as a main source of feed, it carries a lot of water so will help hydrate them well. As ponies they could easily have a good ½cup of Linseed each day.

Its strange that neither of them drink well - where does your water supply come from - could it be tainted with something?

Try supplying bucketed water with molasses added to the water.
 
It's not normal for horses not to drink at all and I agree with Tnavas that speedibeet for something similar is the way forward I would also provide another water source add a little more salt to the diet and make sure they are getting enough exercise .
You must get their droppings right and watch them in winter .
How big are they ,Where and how are they kept and what exercise are they getting .
 
Goldenstar said:
It's not normal for horses not to drink at all and I agree with Tnavas that speedibeet for something similar is the way forward I would also provide another water source add a little more salt to the diet and make sure they are getting enough exercise .
You must get their droppings right and watch them in winter .
How big are they ,Where and how are they kept and what exercise are they getting .
Click to expand...

They are both New Forests one of them is 13.1 and the other 13.2hh. They get ridden 3 x week for at least 45 mins each time. They have got automatic drinkers which I know aren't great but I have arthritis in my spine so needs must. The others drink fine from them and even if I put buckets in they don't seem to drink much (after the impaction colic last year I tried alsorts of flavouring in it to get them to drink more). They are out in either a field or the school most of the day depending on the weather and they have a water trough they can help them selves to. They are then in at night on pellet beds. I will up the salt and add some speedibeet to the feed to try and get more water into them. They both do wee normally and the bigger one who had the colic and is the driest at the moment has at least 2 barrows of very wet bedding taken out a week.
 
My new forest pony went through a similar phase last winter, didn't colic but was uncomfortable, he also has soaked hay and barely drinks, I gave him speedibeet and fast fibre well soaked with added salt and some, not much just enough that he needed to drink, dry hay to get things moving and he was fine, speedibeet will help get moisture into the hindgut better than most other feeds, it will retain the water and is probably the most effective way to keep everything moving, I would keep the at risk pony on it long term as his main feed.
 
Unfortunately not as I can't turn them out over the winter due to my field being very waterlogged. It is a vicious circle as they both need to loose weight and the bigger one has EMS so can't have dry hay. I will definitely put in some speedi beet to try and increase the water I can get into them. :)
 
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