Two New Rescues - new to horses - advice/suggestions sought

Thanks to everyone for your advice and suggestions. While our regular vet will be back in March, I made an appointment for a farm call, to another good vet in our area. Tomorrow he will be by to give the new rescues a complete physical and make suggestions on where we go from here. Thanks to you guys, I have a list of questions and issues to ask the vet while I've got him. Hoping for a decent report/update tomorrow.

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God bless your for what you.do. When my horses weren't drinking thier water I would use poxdered gatoraid for the electrolytes and sodium to makes them alittle thirstier.
Also I would bran and oil them starving horses will eat dirt or poop. Definetly blanket them and if you havre stalls give them lots of shavings whrn yhry are dog skinny laying can be uncomfortable.
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I fully expected to see some completely uneducated do-gooder who took in a notoriouse rearer with terrible manners and a wormy belly asking 'how do I make him stop being mean and start riding him? Btw he has balls still but I want to breed him later to my other rescue horse so they can have lots of babies so im not gilding him.' as is typical of this forum.

Imagine my surpise (and joy!) at finding someone who could of fooled me for a well versed horseman! I'm so glad that you have your vet involved in this process. That is what will get you the most progress.

I don't really have anything more to cover than has already been stated but I just wanted to say hats off to you, sounds like you've pretty much got this down pat, and welcome to the wonderful world of horses! I think I see some potential under all of those bones, in either one of those horses- and I'm excited to see their progress!

I started out reading your post and thought..Uh Oh...I was just waiting on someone to say What in the heck are YOU doing bringing in horses...especially NEEDY horses, with no experience!" A pleasant surprise as I read through the post.

I'm sure I'll make some mistakes, but I'm not shy about finding a forum like this, learning all I can or hessitant to drag my vet out for a farm call as I need to, so hopefully the mistakes will be at a minimum and none of them major. No interest in breeding or even riding the horses (OK some day we may talk riding...suppossedly both are saddlebroke) but our only concern right now is how to restore their health and give them a decent quality of life..kind of hoping to show them that all human animals are not the jerks that they started out their lives with ;)

Props to you my friend,it takes alot to be a new horse person and be so good with these rescues. The barn I ride at runs a rescue program and we get tons of horses from people who just bought a horse just to say they had one. And it makes me want to puke,those people should be locked away and treated unfairly. Best of luck with your rescues. Keep us updated on how they do!

3 cheers!!

We often find if the water in stalls is pristine the horses will wait till they're outside and drink from weathered baths or dams. Silly things! You could try not cleaning waters as often still keeping clean but not spotless. Especially if they're drinkig feom puddles it might help. This is probably going to get me yelled at.
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I would add a smidge more salt to their feed rations to make them thirstier...

And I'm with the others - hats off to you. Stars in your crown for what you are doing for these horses!

When you find the horse person who hasn't made mistakes, and some pretty grievous ones at that, then give that person permission to say something snarky about a green person taking in a rescue horse.

Until then, I bet if you could ask those horses what they think, they'd say something like, "Walks on water, has wings & a halo!" about their new MOMMA! Of course it would be around the new mouthfuls of food they haven't quite gotten used to......

OK the vet has come and gone. "Thor", had his teeth floated and checked out with a generally good health bill...just need to get his weight up. Vet was pleased with how much he has improved in the 10 days we have had him. Said to up his regular feed, drop the sweet feed and add a lot more corn oil to his diet. He got wormed as well as an injection to help boost his immunity resistance....so aside from still being a little groggy..he's good to go.
"Venus" - looks like the rain rot is clearing up, but because her coat is so dirty and matted...Doc gave the OK to heat the garage and move her in to give her a thourough bath...said to just make sure she's completely dry before we turn her out again...and we're just coming into some warmer days. She got the same feed and injection reccomendations.
Vet feels, in a few months they won't even look like the same horses and is looking forward to coming back to see their progress.
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Since we had the vet out for a farm call anyway, we also got all our Alpine does blood draws for our annual CAE testing as well.
Just LOVE knowing all my 4-legged children are healthy and coming along :)