What Do You Feed Your Old Horse

Shortie3 wrote:
$2 a bale? Try $24.99 where we live! Obviously, good genetics play (probably) the most important role in the longevity of any animal but good food sustains the animal during its lifetime: what works for me, may not work for you. But, let's face it, since she is 35 years old, I must have done something right!

You sure did! :C

Thankfully I only had one Cushings horse that necessitated that whole food conundrum.

The other 2 lived out their life on Equine Senior, Buckeye, and during winter adding Stabilized Rice Bran Pellets, good hay and good pasture. With occasionally a big helping of warm bran mash with applesauce on those cold nights.

$2 a bale? Try $24.99 where we live! Obviously, good genetics play (probably) the most important role in the longevity of any animal but good food sustains the animal during its lifetime: what works for me, may not work for you. But, let's face it, since she is 35 years old, I must have done something right!

I came to Florida a couple of years ago to help friends during foaling season due to their health issues. I parked my MH on their property in exchange for the help.

I could not believe what the hay looks like down here. Hay in Florida is brown, nothing buy stalks,not one leave on the alfalfa, hay a cow in the midwest would rather die than eat! I think they call it coastal hay? And the cost per bay? WOW! :E

How does one who owns just a pleasure horse afford it in Florida? How Ocala is called the Horse Capital of the world is beyond me. You DO have to be a millionaire to afford what is the worst hay I have ever seen and green beautiful pastures do NOT exist here and the sand well that's a whole nuther story. Sand colic is a daily occurrence here. :(

When hay is being cut in the Midwest I can buy the best looking grass or alfalfa hay for $2.00 a bale. They pay $12 to $16 a bale for 0 nutritional value?

This is where I learned that when they cut the hay to cure and it unfortunately rains 'many' unscrupulous farmers will douse the heck out of it with sodium to dry it to avoid the loss of a cut hay field with total disregard to what that could mean to the buyers animals.

Yes, this seems to be the way to bale the hay at a higher moisture content. I think mostly east of the Mississippi where they have a lot of moisture and very few days of drying time. In WY we have to irrigate to get any water to the fields. Although we do have rain once in a while on hay in the wind row it isn't a major problem because usually very little moisture as an ongoing thing. However, you are right. If it is green it must be good hay is a common attitude. We have people driving a couple of hundred miles to purchase our hay. We are usually sold out as soon as it gets stacked. We keep it covered with tarps and will hold for people at no extra charge. Some people just have no place to store the amount of hay they will need for the entire year. We don't make people take ground bales, then we discount those out to cow people.

Last year was the last hay year though. We just retired. Now that we have a farming contract the hay will be baled in the large 1 ton bales or plowed up for other more profitable crops. In the future it is going to be more and more difficult buying hay in the small 14 by 18 by 36 bales. Most of the poor quality hay goes to pellets and cubes which is why getting it analyzed is very important.

X2

I did pergolide twice and she fell into the bracket of one of the ones that would have side effects so we had to come up with another plan. Equine Nutritionists and cushing specialists at the U assisted me.

Ditto on the finding out the 'big' popular senior feeds were really not the best. If you are really diligent about reading the labels, just like you did many would find that the less advertised BUT by no means not the smallest manufacturer are far better for your horse.

Before my whole herd started heading down the 'real' senior path with various ailments that come along with it. I 'was' feeding Equine Senior. Thought I was doing the best thing.

The one thing I learned and will share that I honestly did not know with the Senior feeds is:

There are Senior Feeds and there are COMPLETE Senior Feeds.
The major companies lead you to believe thru advertising that their "Senior" Feed is complete. This is not true.

A "Complete feed" means you can feed that pelleted food and NOTHING else and they will survive. Most of the popular Senior feeds are NOT complete feeds and loaded with sugars. As mentioned you will find the COMPLETE feeds in other brands.

Finding a 'complete' senior feed is paramount when you are dealing with horses where the molars have either fallen out or are removed because they can no longer eat hay or try and you are finding what I call spit balls in the pasture which means they can't chew anymore.

I had my Mare's top molars extracted because they were at their end of their life cycle and were loose/cracked, causing pain and infection. They ground the lowers to look like slabs of marble. Sound barbaric but within 2 days after the dentist did this she was out in the pasture bucking like a filly. The pain in her teeth was that bad prior to making her lethargic and everyone wrote it of to 'oh she's just old'. I felt guilty I didn't know and waited so long to do it.

Horses teeth are programmed by nature to stop growing after a certain age so that in nature they can't eat and die. The circle of life per se.

With all the great modern vet care nowadays our horses are outliving their teeth and we have to come up with different feeding practices to accommodate that.

I know I don't mind the extra work! :C

My two oldest are 29 yrs (Arab gelding) and 37 yrs (MorganxQH gelding). The Arab has Cushings, also. He has been on Pergolide and now Prascend for years. Costs a bunch, but I've owned him since he and I were "little kids" so he deserves it.

I have researched and experimented with feeds a lot over the last 5 years or so. Purina and Nutrena have a large advertising budget, but it doesn't mean they are making the best product. Yes, Equine Sr. DOES work for a lot of old horses, but it is not necessarily the best out there. Nor is the Kent company line (Blue Seal).

I've found the smaller "specialty" companies do a better job at quality control, and provide a more nutritious product. Buckeye, Progressive, Triple Crown, etc.

Currently, I am feeding Triple Crown Timothy Balancer Cubes (which are made by Ontario Denghe - they might be the company Rockhillmanor was using) and Triple Crown Senior. The balancer cubes are smaller and softer than traditional cubes, and have an added vitamin/mineral profile designed by the Cushing's expert Dr. Eleanor Kellon.

I feed 50-75% LESS of the Triple Crown Sr. than I did of other products, because it is so nutrient dense. It is also extremely palatable - I was having trouble getting my guys to "clean their plates" with the other feeds, but with Triple Crown, they devour every spec. I have also not had a single episode of diarrhea since starting the Triple Crown feeds, when it was a daily occurrence previously.

My old guys literally have no molars left, so everything has to be soaked to be consumed. They do have 24/7 hay (in winter) and pasture in summer. They don't digest much of either, though - most of it just gets quidded and spit out. They also get a joint supplement, probiotics and Omega 3 supplement.

They are both still ridden lightly, they are in that good of shape!

WyoTraveler wrote:
Interesting, we used to be able to buy molasses granules in a 50 lb bag. Haven't seen it in the feed stores anymore. I see you purchase your hay pellets out of Canada. Wonder how their operations are run? In WY and MT a lot of the hay pellets are made from hay that isn't selling well because of quality. Of coarse timothy would have to come from a wetter climate. You see a lot of timothy east of the Mississippi where the water table is too high to raise alfalfa.

IT was hay 'cubes' I bought not pellets. Sadly again, I found many pelleted hay had added ingredients and sugar products raised their ugly head again for flavor to get them to eat it.

In my search all I could find was alfalfa hay cubes or alfalfa/timothy I could not find 'straight timothy' hay cubes state side. Don't recall the name now but they were are very respected high quality operation. I had the cubes analysed before feeding it and it was everything stated to be.

Which speaking of analyzed feeds. After watching a mare drink copies amounts of water to make you believe for sure there were kidney failure problems but none of the tests came back positive. My vet asked me to list everything that had changed in my barn over the past week. The ONLY thing that had changed was I switched to a different hay supplier.

We tested the hay and OMG it was like 95% sodium!!

This is where I learned that when they cut the hay to cure and it unfortunately rains 'many' unscrupulous farmers will douse the heck out of it with sodium to dry it to avoid the loss of a cut hay field with total disregard to what that could mean to the buyers animals.

This results in a lot of misdiagnosed horses and where the owner may not have money for blood tests euthanasia could possibly be recommended solely based on the symptoms. :(

This led me to always test one bale of hay prior to buying large quantities. I found SO many variations in nutritional value let alone the amount of sodium I was shocked. You also couldn't base nutritional value on color alone. Timing of cutting changes the nutritional value also.

Buy a bale of hay and tell the farmer that you are going to have it tested before placing your order and watch the color drain from his face.

Sometimes that look on his face tells you what you need to know and you don't even have to waste the money to have it tested!!:B

Interesting, we used to be able to buy molasses granules in a 50 lb bag. Haven't seen it in the feed stores anymore. I see you purchase your hay pellets out of Canada. Wonder how their operations are run? In WY and MT a lot of the hay pellets are made from hay that isn't selling well because of quality. Of coarse timothy would have to come from a wetter climate. You see a lot of timothy east of the Mississippi where the water table is too high to raise alfalfa.

Nevermind. I thought this was a question about my DW.

My 32 year old developed cushings. Key to keeping them alive and thrifty is by eliminating all sugars.

Boy does that send you learning about how much sugar is in "everything"!

Very interestingly Equine Senior which is developed for the aged horse has a ton of sugar in it. Alfalfa which is always recommended for the senior horse, tons of sugar.

Without having a commercial feed to feed her safely I developed a recipe that not only kept her alive and not succumb to laminitis from the cushings, but looking great also.

I had 'timothy 'only' hay cubes shipped in from Canada. They were soaked in hot water and then mixed with a construction tool used for mixing taping compound. To make a wet mash and then a small amount of pure black strap molasses, vitamins and electrolytes, and pelleted stabilized rice bran were added to that.

There was no way to store this mixture so it had to be made twice a day fresh. Difficult at best to prepare during below freezing temps but she was worth every minute it took to prepare! :C

My vet gave her a year to live. She lived to be 36 on this home made diet and actually died from something other than the Cushings.
Baksheesh - 36 year old Tennessee Walker