What to feed an old pony with bad teeth

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nikanita

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We have a 20 year old section A pony for my daughter which we bought in the summer. He is an absolute star! Unfortunately his teeth have not been looked after. He has no front teeth - completely worn away and his back teeth aren't much better. We had the dentist out to him and he rasped them etc, but said there wasn't a lot else he could do. He is struggling to eat haylage and is living out 24/7. I give him 3 scoops of happy hoof at night which he eats, plenty of haylage, but a lot of this is wasted. Is there anything else you could suggest? He is well rugged cos he feels the cold and I don't want him to drop any weight.
 
My section A is 31! He has struggled with hay for a few years now. His front teeth are fine but he had 2 back ones out in October as they were loose. He has 3 scoops of safe and sound a day - very similar to your happy hoof. He also has Kwik beet with this. He has previously had laminitis, the Kwik beet is unmollassed, perhaps you could use the normal sort. He then has a scoop of Alfa A and one of Hi Fi mixed when he comes in and the same at bedtime. We were wasting all the hay as he couldn't cope so I would find a substitute for that and some sort of beet would be good to keep weight on as well as easy for him to eat.
 
we recommend allen and page calm and condition when we work if there is a horse that struggles with weight and we have found it works well
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we hav 2 30+ yr olds, one has good teeth & the other has hardly any molar teeth left! & hes just lost another! neither of them can eat hay/haylage so we feed a hay replacer of readigrass, but there are plenty of others on the market. As hard feed we give them 16+ mix & alfa-a oil with additional oil & a digestive suplement all soaked into a porridge. & through the winter they also get sugarbeet & one has soaked flaked barley however this might not be suitable for a welshie. alfabeet made by dengie may be suitable as it is relatively low in sugar & can be made sloppy so no teeth required! i would ring dengie or another feed manufacturer to get professional advice, its free & they usually come up with a solution to suit your specific pony. good luck!
 
Our old boy was fine on "normal" feed and chaff, but couldn't cope with hay/haylage at all. We used to give him a bucket of HiFi overnight for him to munch at as he wished.
 
Are you sure the horse is 20? sounds a bit young to have teeth worn away completely.

Anyway, he needs to go onto forage replacement, no hay or haylage as he wont be able to digest the long fibres and could colic.

So instead of hay he will need:
fibre cubes (dampened) - allen and page fast fibre is good
hi fi lite
speedi beet (not sugar beet)
ideally NAF pink powder as a balancer to work in the hind gut
Amounts vary depending on weight but it is important you dont think of this as "hard feed" and worry about over feeding.

You could also give the odd half full water bucket of dampened grass nuts/pellets to add variation.

How heavy is the pony?
 
I feed my 40 year old shetland, 1 scoop equibeet, 1/2 scoop soaked conditioning nuts and 1/2 scoop soaked allen & page fast fibre,and 1/2 .cup of oil he also has happyhoof over night to munch on. You can give him as much sugar beet as you like, especially the non mollassed stuff. He can't manage hay or haylage and not sure how much he can graze as has no front teeth ! but looks great on this. I feed him this twice a day.
 
Allen & Page fast fibre. We have a 39 year old exmoor pony who struggles to eat hay and he has a bucket of this at night, fed as per total hay replacer guidelines on bag and he loves it, looks really well on it too! He can still trot off at speed when he doesnt want to be caught the little monkey. We mix a few nuts in with it and the whole lots goes mushy.
 
There was a very old pony on our yard (in her late 30's!) who didnt have many teeth left that was unfortunately pts this week
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She couldnt eat hay either so she used to have a big bowl of allen and page fast fibre instead of hay as it can be used as a hay replacer. You soak it so a little goes a long way and as its soaked its mushy and easy to eat!
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A 34 year old on our yard who had only a few teeth left was fed: Ready mash, blue chip pro, outshine, speedi beet, BLK (by NAF), milk thistle powder, digest plus three times a day along with a bucket with soaked grass cubes mixed with readygrass (sp?) He also used to get a couple of haynets but these were just because he liked them- he got no benefit from them because he couldnt eat the hay properly. We would walk round his pad dock and find balls of hay he'd had to spit out. Poor lad!
 
for his hay replacer you could use fast fibre and and ready mash that will be his fibre if he needs condition you could try calm and condition or something like alpha oil or alpha beet!
 
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