Veteran horse feeding

AbbySmithxox

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Mar 8, 2019
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I have a 35 year old Cob who has Cushings. With his age his teeth have gotten worse and he has regular three month check ups with the dentist last one being Feb 2019. He has diastemas and a carie. Due to this he’s not allowed any short chopped feed or hay due to chock. At the moment he’s on Allen and Page fibre mash and Dengies grass nuts soaked with an offering of haylage he has completely gone off hay in the last month. I’m noticing he’s finding the haylage harder and harder to chew and at the moment the vets will still like me to offer it to him. I wondered if anyone had tried any alternatives? I’ve been looking at the horsehage and wondered if it was slightly shorter then the farmers haylage he’s on currently?
TIA.
 
I fel your pain!! I have a mare with diastema and we have her picked and flushed every 3 months too. At one point the vet said try shorter chop things - or (in an ideal world) cut hayledge to make it shorter. Thus ensued a thankless task consisting of both myself and Mr T painstakingly taking Horsehage and cutting and chopping to make it easier. I too tried Allen & Paige and she now gets Veteran mix. But it's not ideal is it? There are only so many bowl,s you can give and if that is their sole souce of fibre it is hard for example at night to leave thrm with bowls of that. Grass is easiest - she has no problem with that!!! But she isn't out that much. I tried the apple flavour Spillers mash - but after a while the novelty wore off.
Does your vet use filler in the gaps?
 
I fel your pain!! I have a mare with diastema and we have her picked and flushed every 3 months too. At one point the vet said try shorter chop things - or (in an ideal world) cut hayledge to make it shorter. Thus ensued a thankless task consisting of both myself and Mr T painstakingly taking Horsehage and cutting and chopping to make it easier. I too tried Allen & Paige and she now gets Veteran mix. But it's not ideal is it? There are only so many bowl,s you can give and if that is their sole souce of fibre it is hard for example at night to leave thrm with bowls of that. Grass is easiest - she has no problem with that!!! But she isn't out that much. I tried the apple flavour Spillers mash - but after a while the novelty wore off.
Does your vet use filler in the gaps?

Yes I have thought about getting the garden shears out! I just wondered if there was anything out there but there is a hole in the market for shorter chopped haylage. I worry that my pony is getting/ going to get bored of the mash and there doesn’t seem to be anyway to make it different really, I’ve tried linseed oil, apple juice ect. Other then flushing out his gaps nothing has been done with them. He originally had two carries one on each bottom tooth towards the back. One of them had cracked the face off the tooth and the vet reshaped this as it was cutting into his cheek. The tooth is now dead so he may have to have that one out. But the other is packing food in, so she did talk about maybe filling this in. My boy is fine on grass too, I know when he’s bad as he doesn’t eat the grass but we’re limited to what he can have because of his cushings. I might buy a bag of the horsehage and see how he goes. Thanks for your help :)
 
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How I sympathise! Ramsey is 31 this year, cushings, and teeth completely shot. Like yours, he can eat grass no problem (so far), but hay is impossible for him. He can't even really manage HiFi senior. I have no option but to feed him mollichaff because it's so finely chopped, and is the only chaff he'll eat with relish. After a lot of experimenting, he now has chaff, Dodson and horrell build up cubes(soaked, maximum amount) and hi fibre nuts, also soaked. This results in a big bucket of mush basically. He's still thin - the vet's said that's probably not going to change, but he's enjoying his food, which is important. I tried the soaked grass cubes, but he got a bit constipated in them although he loved them! I think the best change I made was adding the build up cubes - he's thin but not getting any thinner. Hope you can find the right balance for your cob - it's a juggling act!
 
I remember ages ago I got a bag of something which was a grass replacement, i.e. was really like grass, which we gave to a convelascent donkey. Not sure if it still available
 
I remember ages ago I got a bag of something which was a grass replacement, i.e. was really like grass, which we gave to a convelascent donkey. Not sure if it still available
One of the ,liveries at my old yard had this, looked just like grass clippings from your mower bucket but freeze dried, that was about a year ago so am guessing it's still available, no idea what it was called though sorry.
 
Up here our feed place sell Readi graze and I think people give it sheep too. Oh and I think there is something called Graze on.
 
I think it's Readigrass or Graze On. Or there's Dengie Meadow Grass with Herbs, which is nice and soft but has a few grass pellets in it. Trouble is, it's difficult to get hold of this time of year - both Readigrass and Graze On are grown near here and Readigrass disappeared altogether a few weeks ago. Some suppliers recently got a limited amount of stock in and I grabbed two bags while I could, but they were rationing it. Graze On isn't as nice in Raf's opinion. He likes Dengie's Meadow Grass but it makes his poos a bit green and smelly so I think it's richer than the others. Not sure if they're suitable for Cushings ponies in large quantities? Raf has Cushings (but no laminitis) but he only gets a bucket a day as a boredom breaker.
 
I think it's Readigrass or Graze On. Or there's Dengie Meadow Grass with Herbs, which is nice and soft but has a few grass pellets in it. Trouble is, it's difficult to get hold of this time of year - both Readigrass and Graze On are grown near here and Readigrass disappeared altogether a few weeks ago. Some suppliers recently got a limited amount of stock in and I grabbed two bags while I could, but they were rationing it. Graze On isn't as nice in Raf's opinion. He likes Dengie's Meadow Grass but it makes his poos a bit green and smelly so I think it's richer than the others. Not sure if they're suitable for Cushings ponies in large quantities? Raf has Cushings (but no laminitis) but he only gets a bucket a day as a boredom breaker.

I feed Graze on sometimes to Chloe who has cushings. But, to be honest she gets sick of it, and I find it quite dusty. It's one of those things I buy if I think we might be running short on hayledge.
 
If it were me I would put soaked

Beetpulp
Grass/alfalfa nuts
Linseed
Senior fibre

All Together in a big trug and feed that and offer another big trug of chopped haylege :)

You can apparently cheaply buy chippers that you can put the Haylege in leaf by leaf to make it shorter and finer chopped.
 
If it were me I would put soaked

Beetpulp
Grass/alfalfa nuts
Linseed
Senior fibre

All Together in a big trug and feed that and offer another big trug of chopped haylege :)

You can apparently cheaply buy chippers that you can put the Haylege in leaf by leaf to make it shorter and finer chopped.

Oooh wish I had known about those chipper things!
 
My old boy phoenix got like that and then couldn't manage any hay/haylage, he could still manage grass and sloppy feeds so he had a big bucket 5x a day, he got grass nuts, barley rings, sugar beet, pony nuts, pureed carrots, apples, parsnips etc. and redi grass by the ton :)
 
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