Very thin oldy

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Mbronze

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Sorry for the barage of posts today

I have a lovely old man who i retired 2yrs ago at a good weight and he lives at a lovely retirement home only minutes away from where i live. I am a bit worried about him as he lost alot of weight over the winter, but despite the lady who owns the livery yard feeding him lots of small feeds and putting him on the lushest grass he is still not putting on much weight.
He does only have a few teeth so its a bit hard to chew, but i really would of expected him to put on a bit more weight than he has, like the other oldies there have.
He is currently out 24/7 on very good grass, fed bran mash 3 x daily. He has a belly, but has a very skinny neck and bum.
I'll post some piccies of him later, see what you all think, he is nearly 31, so don't expect anything special, he's just special to me nowadays...He's very well within himself, like a 2yr old to bring in, messing about and is still his usual bossy self..
grin.gif

I have toyed with calling the vet out, just to check him over and give him a good MOT. And to be honest the more i write about this the sooner i do that i think the better.
 
I would be swapping the bran for a decent 16 plus mix. I used to feed my old lami pony fast fibre along with his lami mix to get a bit of weight on him when he needed it.
Fast fibre is good for the tooth deprived as it needs soaking down before use, so i just used to add extra water and turn it into sludge!
 
The bran wont be providing hardly any calories....... I'd get him on some sugar beet/mix/boiled barley/linseed/ decent supplement--- perhaps not all at once
 
he's a good age!
personally i wouldn't feed the bran mash - as they contain very low calories (or vits/mins).
I'd go for 3 alfa nut mashes, with sugar beet, vit/min, soya/linseed oil and if he still doesnt pick up, a conditioning feed like triple crown top-up. Therefore every mouth full is calory dense to help him put weight on.

Hope your vet gives him the all clear.
 
Thanks for the tips guys, think I will be buying some sugar beet and veteran mix as well. Its worth it at the end of the day, as he owes me nothing he has been the most perfect horse for 20yrs. I'd do anything for him to look a bit better in himself
 
Bran mash has very little nutritional value and, being fed 3 times a day, may well be having a laxative effect and doing away with some of the goodness from the grass.

It'd be better to feed him soaked nuts and sugarbeet or similar
 
I have our little old lady on hi fibre nut 'mash' (soak in warm water) with Winergy Equilibrium senior and she's never looked better!
 
As the above suggested gradually reduce the bran to about half a large scoop with every feed (do not remove it completely) and give him some nice sugar beet and a veteran mix.
 
As your chap is in a retirement home hopefully they will know what they are doing as it is quite an art keeping a toothless one looking well! You might find your horse looks as if he is eating grass but in fact he is balling it up and spitting it out.

I would not feed bran but switch to something more nutritious, as an example, my oldie (13.3 and 34years) is on 2kg high fibre nuts and 2kg sugar beet daily all soaked with 2 scoops veteran chaff (split out into feeds obviously!). He also gets 150ml soya oil and a vit e supplement.

He has no chewing teeth at all and his weight stays exactly the same all year round on this diet.

I also found once mine got over 30 he needed to be rugged if there was any chance of overnight rain (even in summer).
 
I agree with what the others are saying, the bran mash won't be doing him much good. Sugarbeet and a senior mix 3 times a day and check his worming program. Give him a month on this and if he doesn't improve then call the vet to do some bloods so that you can check everything is in working order!
 
They are very knowledgeable, she has looked after oldies for about 10yrs. But I'm just concerned if bran mash can have such a laxative effect why is she feeding it to him?
To be honest I didn't know it had such low calories, but i thought i would buy in the feed and add soya oil and vit e, so at least i know what he is getting fed and see whether it is working.
 
Tis a bit odd... if that is all he is getting.... maybe she puts vits/oil/mix in with it???

Either way bran isnt ideal due to its lack of calories!
 
I have an old boy who is 30 and he struggles to maintain his weight these days. He has Baileys No1, Alfa A Oil and Spillers Senior Conditioning Mix. It's easy to chew and he looks amazing again this year.
We also had a 36 year old (sadly died of cancer) who had no teeth to speak of and he looked great on Baileys No 1 and sugar beet twice a day.
 
Ditto all the above really. In the winter Monty also has a mash of High Fibre cubes and Barley Rings.

Barley is great for conditioning and when soaked he can eat them with his one tooth!
 
I would second Spillers Senior Conditioning Mix. You would think all the mixes these days are much of a muchness-well, I did- but then I tried this one some years ago and it was definitely better. I too have a horse who is probably at least 30 and two who are mid twenties and they all look very well. Their teeth are fine and we have lots of grass just now, so they're just on that, but in the winter they get mix, barley rings with linseed and quick soak sugar beet with dried grass. I also feed Benevit supplement from Feedmark and garlic. The sugar beet will be soft anyway and only takes about ten minutes each day to soak and the linseed and barley rings will also soak down to mush as will cubes. I would avoid bran, but obviously everyone has their own preferences. I might use a bit if a horse is a bit constipated, but with all the grass, we have the opposite problem at the moment! Bottled liquid horse manure, anyone?
 
The Winergy stuff is excellent, our little oldie is only 10.2hh so has to have about 1-1.5kg per day but if your lad is bigger then it may cost you more, it's worth it tho. I think I pay £11 per bag for the Winergy and the nuts are about £9 but again they last her a while with her being so ickle!
The dentist said to me when he checked her teeth that I should give her the nut mash for her stomach and offer hay for her 'head'! Altho she can't eat it very well, bless her!
Good luck with your boy, let us know how he's getting on x
 
QR My old mare (29) lost alot of weight in winter and i was very concerned, had vet out to do full bloods etc all ok. Several people on her suggested Ready Mash Extra its fab for weight gain, you soak it so its like a mash, i also added Baileys No4 cubes (soaked) as another kind hho'er reccomended them, well the difference was incredible! She adores the Ready Mash Extra even more if i make it with hot water she licks her bucket clean!! I also popped her Naf pink powder to make sure she absorbed all the nutrients she needed. I though i was going to lose her but the above feed did the trick!
Good luck
 
QR - Have you thought about instead of the bran (which as someone else said may be having laxative qualities if being fed wet) making him up a nice porridge of Baileys No 1, which is specifically designed for weight gain. It works wonderfully for my old boy. If he is having trouble chewing its great because you can make it as sloppy as you want by adding more water!
 
Masterbronze- If your horse has minimal teeth then feeding a course mix wont help as he wont have the teeth to eat it. Likewise, he may be on good grass but he cant chew it. I would get the vet to come and give the horse a once over, particularly the teeth.

All feed needs to be eatable without teeth i.e. soaked and in mash form. Bran will provide no nutrition at all, so a waste of time and money. Suitable feeds would be grass nuts, fibre nuts, barley rings, sugar beet, etc, all soaked.
 
As he hasn't many teeth he may struggle with a veteran mix. Ready Mash has a really good name for putting weight on (made by Rowan Barbary). I would definitely give it a try, agree with others that 3 bran mashes a day could actually be having a laxative effect.
 
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