Tessie is getting old

[here to stay]

I have a 25 year old mare that was my main ride for 20 years. She was a porker when I got her and has been a porker all the time I had her. It was always a problem finding hay uncaloric enough to give her any chew time at all.

That is until 2 months ago when I noticed her tail head was not lost in her fat butt. Then I noticed her -hmm- "naturally arched" neck was straight for the first time in her life. Then in horror I noticed she was sunk in at the flank. For the first time since I bought a starving horse on a whim in order to feed him up, I had an underweight horse. And I had not looked carefully enough to see it coming. And worse- she had not made any noises about wanting more food.

So I called the vet. We discussed my feeding- which was a good quality hay except for the first week of the month where I added pelleted hay and soaked beet pulp to a psyllium supplement. I have not had grain on my place for decades.

The vet recommended adding stablized rice bran to the beet pulp and feeding it daily. And maybe a manufactured feed called Stable. Tessie is allegic to alfalfa so I had switched to a strickly grass hay this year. I did what the vet recommended and my girl's comforting rotunity is coming back. Whew. I was fearing some old horse health disaster but Tessie is back to her old self. Not up to full roundness yet but getting there.

That has raised another issue though. Because I feed Tess every morning, her companion has to get a bit too, less violence erupt. And Hollie is turning into a porker now! Life with even retired horses is a pain.

[aoconnor]

here to stay , I'm so sorry! I totally missed your thread:-(.

I feed stabilized rice bran to a couple of my old gals, they seem to do pretty well on it. I have used soaked beet pulp in the past, but to my eyes, my girls didn't gain as well on that as on other things. I like using black oil sunflower seeds as an alternative sometimes, it really helps put weight on well, but they have to have good chompers to grind them up with, so I only use them on my horses with no dental issues.

Did your vet look at her teeth? that is generally a first thought when dealing with horses that otherwise are in good condition, but lose weight. I know you've had horses a long time, but it is always the first thing I think when I hear about an issue like your girl had.

Hope all is well and getting better each day for her! I am also working on one of my older mares, she is a 21 year old Thoroughbred, that dropped weight on me over the summer. She is now being pulled in every morning and evening, fed well, given a flake of good alfalfa/orchard blend, and her weight is increasing nicely. Thankfully she is able to have a little alfalfa blend, she fills out nicely with alfalfa in her diet.

[here to stay]

She got her teeth done in March. I think they are ok yet as she seems to be willing to eat normally but I found the old psyllium supplement I fed was too hard for her to chew. She tended to let just that fall to the ground. . The new one is softer and works well.

She has put weight on with the stablized rice bran and soaked beat pulp. The soaked beet pulp reduces the choking hazard. When I fed just dry pellets, I saw that they did not go down as well as they should.

I try to minimize the floating as I want to keep as much of her tooth as I can. She has always had a superior bite until the last couple of years and each year the vet would check and give her a pass. She went 15 years without a float. Unlike my other girl who needs it yearly. But no longer- sigh. It's not her molars but her front incisors which are practically sticking straight out.

[aoconnor]

Aw, poor girl...glad she is on the rebound nad gaining weight!!

I float every couple or three upyears, but my vet only does them when needed, not just to earn a paycheck. I am very thankful for that, some vets are not as honest!

I used orange flavored Metamucil for sand removal in my horses. They love the flavor, and it is much cheaper than buying psyllium for horses! My vet recommended it for one of my old gelding who wouldn't touch his feed if you even thought of putting that nasty pelleted stuff in it! But he loved the orange Metamucil, ate every bit of it up. If you hvae trouble wtih the horse made product, you might try the Metamucil!