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RE: [RC] Hard Keeper and Competition Horse... two questions - heidi
For your old-timer, have you checked teeth? I'm slow weighing in
here, so others have likely said this, too--but that's the starting point.
At that age, many horses are getting to the point that their teeth CAN'T
be fixed sufficiently to be serviceable, and if that is the case, take care of the painful parts and then replace part of the hay (how much will depend on how bad the teeth are and what it takes by trial and error to get this horse back in shape) with a soaked mixture of alfalfa pellets, senior feed, and beet pulp. Don't put in the sweet feed--there's more than enough of that in the senior feeds--what the horse with poor dentition needs is "pre-masticated" forage, which the soaked alfalfa pellets and beet pulp will provide.
I had one oldster on a complete replacement diet like this for 2-3
years, after a couple of years of a partial replacement diet--he had gotten quite thin, but got back in good flesh and did quite well. He got one 3# coffee can of each twice daily, all soaked into a slurry. I currently have another oldster on a partial replacement diet like this--he still gets some benefit from a flake of alfalfa hay twice daily, and he's the only horse on the place that I've not been able to graft onto beet pulp--but he gets half a can of senior and 1.5 cans of alfalfa pellets soaked twice daily, in addition to that flake of hay, and is doing nicely. I give you these two examples as an idea of the sorts of quantities needed.
For your broodmare getting back in shape--she doesn't need designer
feeds, she needs the best forage source you can find, free choice.
In both cases, also consider a fenbendazole purge deworming.
Heidi
I have an older Arab gelding (27 in May) who is a very hard keeper and am
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