Winter feeding - old OTTB

[danda]

I have already asked various questions regarding my old boy on here and have had useful answers. He is TB of 25 years old suffering from Copd and Cushings. He was very ill a few months back but with food change and vet help is now the best he has been in months. Still very thin and rather hairy but he can breathe (almost) ok, and has not had foot problems, which I was frightened of. I have to order his food from the UK as it is not readily available from the stores around here, he has Cushcare conditioner. 12 liters a day divided into 3 meals. On vet's advice I stopped giving him (soaked) hay in June and since he no longer has hay his breathing has improved dramatically, he used to have haylage but suddenly refused to eat it so started giving him soaked hay instead. There has been a certain amount of grazing in his field bit not too much as it has been a very hot dry Summer here. I am worried about going into winter with just the Cushcare. I plan on checking with my vet in September when he has a check up but don't know how much he knows about nutrition but he was spot on with hay problem, I would never have stopped his hay as always thought they needed it to keep the digestion running properly. He is a 17 h horse and looks terribly thin but has put on weight these last few months. I live an hours drive away from the Haras where he is so cannot just add on another feed, which is what I would do if I was nearby, not sure how many liters he could have per meal without causing a different set of problems. Maybe just see how he goes and increase slightly if he starts to loose weight? Any thoughts on feeding old horses that have allergies and must not have much sugar/starch in their food would be appreciated. I wanted to add that I have had him since he stopped racing and have managed fine until now

 

[Finlib]

We have 2 oldies a 27 year old T/Breally poor doer and a 21 year old Anglo Arab with cushings
Both were fed micronised linseed last winter which I continued on through the summer (at half the amount)
They both get a good quality veteran mix and unmolassed sugar beet
They look fabulous the vet commented when she came to do a blood test for the one with Cushings how great they both looked.
They get two feeds a day winter and summer in summer it is about a third of what they get in winter .
We have loads of grass in the winter and they get ad lib hay.

Micronised linseed you can buy in 20 kilo sacks for £19 .99 and all of last winter and this summer up to now have used two and a half bags so not expensive.

 

[Achinghips]

Try putting a mug of veg oil in each feed to up the calories and not the sugar and starch as well as micronised linseed, which as horse lib above says, is great stuff?

 

[npage123]

Would it be safe to try a large warm mash feed containing unmolassed sugarbeet (e,g Speedibeet) in large quantities, grass nuts and luzern/alfalfa nuts - all of these soaked in plenty of warm water to provide a comforting nice warm mash, easily adible. Due to the fact that so much is water is added to the feed to make it all dissoved and mashed, you do not need to worry that it's going to weigh more than the usual 2kg limit per feed.
I agree that the micronised linzeed is an excellent supplement to help with good coat, conditioning and joints, plus a feed balancer.

As alternative to Speedibeet, you could rather feed huge amounts of Fibrebeet or Alfabeet. They take up so much water that you can safely feed over 2kg per feed. This would also require a feed balancer. A lot of horses quite like dried grass,eg, Northern Crop Driers Graze-on.

Don't know how helpful any of these will be with you living in France?

Can you buy dried lurcerne/alfalfa over there and feed as you would hay?