picky eater

[jodiTowne]

OK, I'm worried. I'm 90 min. away from home and the horses didn't eat alot last night or during the day today. I fed them myself this AM and they are not dehydrated, colicky or sick...yet. Poop looks good. They (old paso and mini) did this last weekend too. The paso ate his grain this AM and was eating hay when I left, they just aren't finishing everything like usual. Probably leaving half their hay. The hay is good and the same they've been getting all winter. Occasionally they won't like a certain bale as it came from a different grass than whats usual, however todays looked like the normal stuff. Some thoughts.....1) the weather has been "warm" and dry so maybe they don't require as much 2) put the paso on hardkeeper last month and he looks much better....gained a little and less of a haybelly...so maybe he doesn't need as much???? Now Friday AM, they ate everything up. My neighbor was gonna call me back tonite if they wouldn't eat tonites hay, so hopefully all is well. I hate being away from my babies!!! Any thoughts? Anyone else with picky horses?

Yep! Most of mine wont eat timothy they HATE it! they perfer Coastal over alfalfa!

[DebbieS]

Maybe they just knew you were leaving??

Mine are all piggies.... you can't even find a leaf or stem when they're done!

Or, the hay might have a funny smell. Sometimes mine does (and they notice, they start snorting at it) so I throw it over the fence for the deer.
Not moldy - just a different smell....

[Cindy]

Have you checked the water? If they are not drinking for some reason they will not eat. Even if it looks OK, dump it and refill. You never know.

[GeorgeGuns]

Hmmmm. Could be the weather. Medias and Encantador have gone picky on me too. A few days ago they were really ho-humming their hay, good stuff, no changes. They are also not racing to the gate to come in at night even though that is when they get "the real food", Encantador has even turned and headed further down the pasture AFTER his beloved buddy has been taken in. I guess i feel better, maybe its just hte weird weather we are having. No colics here either, (knock on linoleum) and the girls at least are their usual hoggy selves, even Bri is eating better than normal, Hmmmmmm.

[CarolU]

How much are feeding? That would be my first question. They each need 20% of body weight per day...if in two meals, 10% each. You probably should weigh some hay and see. Horses will get VERY picky if you overfeed. They'll push stems aside and go for the leaves.

[jodiTowne]

Coreen you made me feel better. I know they won't starve themselves but I guess I worry about any changes in their system causing colic or foundering my old guy. Plus, I soak the hay and that is their main water source. They do have fresh water as of this AM...one heated and the other cold, and my neighbor changed it tonite, they just never seem to drink any since I started soaking the hay. Well, we'll see what the morning brings.... Thanks

[Cindy]

Carol, Isn't 20% of 900 pounds 180 pounds? Or can I not multiply?

[CarolU]

Thanks CIndy...2%...

I usually do 8-10 lbs a feeding, depending on size of horse.

[CarolU]

Oh yeah..and if you are wetting the hay, weight it BEFORE you wet it. (like DUH! ). LOL

[Cindy]

Wheew, I thought for a minute there that I was WAAY underfeeding my horses. :razz:

[jodiTowne]

Cindy...it would be 18 # Carol I had been weighing for quite some time and each flake was roughly 2#. I feed about 4-5 flakes each feeding, so maybe now with the weather so neutral and his weight doing better on the Hardkeeper I am over feeding! ....I hope! My paso is now 725-ish but had been 700# up til recently. Too thin for him. The mini is 275#. I keep most of the hay out of his reach!!!

[motorgypsy]

Our boarding barn has a mare who has been off her feed that last couple of days also. Ours have done it on and off too. I would call the vet if it lasted more than a day or two.

Ours get one bale of hay (right now orchard and fescue mix) for two horses and 1.5 scoops of triple crown senior per day each which is 3 quarts. Don't know the weight of it. I need to weigh it. The hay has very little nutrition so that's why we feed the high cal. supplement. Our girls on pasture get 2 to 3 quarts of TC senior and they are holding weight although they are complaining so we may up it because the pasture is about stripped. We planted annual rye in the other pasture but it's been extremely slow coming up. We'll probably move them in a couple of days to the other pasture. TC senior is a full feed that is 14% protein and 10% fat so plenty of nutrition.

[CarolU]

How big are your bales?

[motorgypsy]

Ours are 35 to 40 pound bales but they waste some of it it. We put the bale in a very large empty water tub and put four flakes on the board walk for Brilliant but Sultan likes his hay totally aerated so he tosses it all up into the air before he eats it. He cleans it up reasonably well later but not totally. Adriel and SloughP don't spill as much. We did feed these guys T/A cubes but there were too many calories for the amount and they either got fat or they started eating the trees just to get in enough eating time even though they were plenty fat. This is when we started buying the lower calorie grass hay.

The funniest thing is that when they empty the water tub of hay they then play with it and it's huge and makes this noise like a giant kettle drum when they dump it over and over.

[CarolU]

Okay...my bales are 60-110 lbs, depending on cutting and amt of alfalfa in them. Grass is lighter.

Aerates the hay? That's funny. Diablo soaks his...he takes it over, sections at time and puts it in the water trough. Then he stands there and eats it like a moose! While it is kind of FUNNY...it is a royal pain in the butt, because it gets the water trough disgusting. So...we feed him far enough away now that THAT is too much work.

I feed about 1/3 bale per horse per day, depending on the bale. It's easier to figure that one horse will eat one ton in three months...4 tons per year...makes it easier to order and buy it that way.

[motorgypsy]

Really our hay just keeps their gut going. I doubt they get much at all from it because the mares on pasture and there really is no pasture don't get any more senior and everyone is about the same degree of fattitude at both locations. The vet says too fat but he want ribs showing and especiallly in winter our guys are too small to stay warm if they're that thin. We just do hay to save the trees because SloughP beavers them and drops them and eats them if he doesn't have a lot of stuff to eat on. They are sooo funny. I can just see your guys soaking his hay. Must be a raccoon gene in there somewhere. Chinook is the one who pulls up grass roots and all, walks 20 feet or so to the fence, beats the grass on the fence until it's clean, then eats it unless it's still too dirty. If it is she goes back to the fence and beats it on the fence again. They just keep us laughing. One day last winter SloughP took a flying leap into the pond with his blanket on. He swam around a bit and lumbered back out in a couple of minutes. We just let him air dry.

[Edurne]

Greyhound always gets a "funny tummy" in February and has not been cleaning his feed up quite so well - no colic. But there must be grass coming up because poops are moist and greener in color.

[jodiTowne]

Well, the boys ate better overnite and today so must be something they didn't like about a bale or two. But why lately when I've been feeding the hay from the same source for a year??I saw no visible difference....Oh well. Thanks for everyones input!

[Cindy]

Could have just gotten into a bale that maybe had a wet spot on it when it was put up or something. You never know. If they don't eat all of their hay, I throw it out that day. There is usually a reason. Sometimes the young horses will have teeth coming in and not eat all of their hay for a couple of days but yours do not fit into that category so it was most likely something in the hay that you could not see.

[Buffy111_99]

I haven't read all the responses so please forgive me if I am repeating but do you have cats or dogs around the hay? Sometimes a dog or cat will pee on a bale and horses won't eat it.