Feeding thin/finicky horse

[twoodcock@lendleaserei.com]

Thanks sooo much for all of the advice when I asked for help feeding my thin and
incredibly finicky horse.  I think I've finally figured something!!

I tried beer (Coors :) ) added on to his feed, just enough to coat it and make
it wet, but not enough to have any free liquid in the bucket.  He wouldn't even
stick his nose in the bucket.  Any other horse I would have let "starve" until
he decided to eat, but this one is a prima donna, so I couldn't let him go
hungry.  End of beer experiment.

Beet pulp experiment will have to wait until Roo is eating better.  I tried dry,
water added but not really soaked, and soaked with the excess water squeezed out
(bran mash consistency) and he refused to look at the bucket.  End of beet pulp
experiment

I read all the posts about his problem maybe being some kind of herd anxiety.
While I didn't think he was having a problem with the other two horses, I had
nothing to lose in changing the arrangements.  So...

The colt and the filly usually are tied to a rail in their pen for their
feedings (I don't have but the one stall).  So I put the filly in Roo's stall
and tied him to the rail next to the colt.  Filly and colt don't care about the
arrangements, and Roo actually ate with more gusto, but still didn't finish but
2 lbs of cob.  After dinner, the horses were loose watching me mix/measure the
breakfast buckets and Roo was real interested.  So I gave him a handful of the
pellets the other two eat.  He snatched them up.  So I poured the 2 lbs of
pellets from one of the breakfast buckets into a pan and slid it under the
fence.  He scarfed it down, twice chasing off the other two when they thought to
snatch some from him.

This was the same feed he had been eating for 14 months prior to my getting him,
and the same feed he started refusing within a week after I got him.  And the
same feed he has refused a couple of times since then.  A 13.5% protein, 8% fat,
very high fiber feed.  Almost a "complete" feed.  (Yes I know the protein is way
high, but bermudagrass hay is low protein, so it balances to under 12 % for the
total ration.  The feed was designed to be fed with poorer quality hay than what
I use)

So yesterday morning I did the same thing.  Gave him cob with his supplements.
He ate about 2 lbs. then after turning everyone loose, slid a pan with pellets
unde the fence and he ate them.  Last night, he only ate 1 lb of the
supplemented cob, but then eat another 1lb without any supplements (which I had
to feed a handful at a time), then slid under the fence another 2lbs. of
pellets.  And he ate.  Same this morning.

This is only 3 days now, and he has gone through spurts of eating before, but I
really feel like this time I have it worked out!

Everyone, keep your fingers crossed!  If he keeps eating, we'll debut at the
Texas Shootout!  (Actually we did do the Bluebonnet Classic, but I decided to
pulled after the first loop as the ride was only the 5th time I had ever been on
him and his first time to actually do any work in his life.)  And when we go to
our dressage lessons, I won't look like I'm riding a 3rd world refugee next to
the TBs, WBs and the percheron!

-Tamara Woodcock