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HELP! Horse being an idiot during feeding >.<

7K views 43 replies 13 participants last post by  Horseychick94 
#1 ·
My horse gets a lot to eat. He gets bored when eating. He gets really distracted so it takes him literally HOURS to eat and rarely finishes. He has to eat out of a feeder as he dumps his food bowls. Even with a feeder, he takes his nose and pushes out the grain onto the floor and leaves it there. I know that he can eat all of the food. I have tried giving him just a little at a time but it is so time consuming and even then, he doesn't finish the little bit that I give him so I just give him the rest of his feed and he will start eating again. Its extremely frustrating. It is a nightly fight to get him to eat his food. Here I am right now as I am typing at 11:30 pm and he STILL hasn't finished his food. What the heck am I going to do?! I really need to get some more weight on him as he is a little on the thin side but he is always wasting his food! Please help before I start force feeding! LOL
 
#2 ·
What do you feed him? How much? How often? How much hay/grazing does he get? Has he had his teeth done recently? Is he stabled? Lives out with mates...?

Have you considered you may be just feeding him too much? Horses have relatively small stomachs and need little & often meals. With big meals, not only do they get full & lose interest, but food empties out of the stomach as it gets full, regardless of digestion, which can also cause hind gut problems, such as ulcers, colic, weighloss. Infrequent, esp if starchy meals can cause similar probs.
 
#8 ·
Yup, sounds a lot to me too, esp for only one feed. What sort of condition is he in? How much hay/grazing does he get? Has he had his teeth done recently? Is he stabled? Lives out with mates...?

It's important to understand the basics of a horse's digestion and what they've evolved for. That is, 'trickle feeding' of high fibre, low 'cal' roughage. Their small stomachs are not built to cope with big & or infrequent meals and they don't cope well with starchy, rich feeds. If it may be necessary to feed ingredients such as that, it is all the more important to feed it little & often, or else there will be a flood of starch to the hind gut, which can cause real problems, including ulcers, colic, weightloss, laminitis, etc.

So I'd personally cut out the oats, for a start, especially if you can only feed once a day. Interested to know why you're feeding a bran mash & what kind of bran? If it's wheat & there's no specific nutritional reason he needs all that extra phosphorus(he'll be getting a lot from the oats too), I'd cut that out & feed an extra calcium supp for a bit to help correct the balance. Do you feed any nutritional supps?

For more info on feeding horses, safergrass.org, feedXL.com & hoofrehab.com are among some good places to start. I think it's a good idea to educate yourself & get specific advice from a nutritionist or such, rather than a feed merchant or just 'someone's' opinion... after all, there are acres of different opinions abounding & not all of them are suitable, regardless of the 'experience' of the person.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Wow. I thought we fed ours a lot. I think you are feeding too much at one time. Remember, horses are grazers. They eat at a slow pace. They don't inhale their food, usually, like us, dogs, etc. When they do inhale, there is more of a chance of choke.

We feed our 6 horses 4 to 5 cups dry beet pulp combined. When we soak it, it makes up a 5 gallon bucket. We also give them each about 3 cups sweet feed. It ends up to be about 6 or 7 cups for each horse of food. I'm guessing about the number of cups because we take a feed scoop of beet pulp and soak it overnight. That makes about a 5 gallon bucket worth. To each horse we give 3/4 of a feed scoop of the sweet feed and the same of the soaked beet pulp. It fills their bowls full. And they also spill their bowls. So it leaves some for them to eat later.

Adding up what you said you give would equall 12 cups without the beet pulp. Soaking beet pulp will at least double the amount, probably more, so lets just say it's 12 cups. That's 24 cups of feed you are trying to get your horse to eat. If your horse has been eating hay or grass during the day, he wouldn't have an empty stomach. I would be surprised if he did eat all of what you feed him. No wonder he takes a long time to eat. He is not eating because his stomach is full.

Is that what a vet has recommended for him? I can't believe a vet would say that much for one feeding. If he IS to have that much in one day, it needs to be split up throughout the day.

Why is it necessary for you to be there until he finishes? Even if he spills it from his bowl, he would and could eat it later. It sounds to me that you are already trying to force feed your horse. The best thing you could do for him to put on weight is give smaller portions multiple times a day and make sure he can eat grass or hay 24/7.
 
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#6 ·
This.

You're just asking for impaction colic with not feeding him all day, then loading him down with massive amounts of food all at one time.

At the very least he needs to eat twice a day. 3 to 4 times would be better, but 2 times is much preferable than only once.

I don't know what breed your horse is, but my TB doesn't get as much as yours, and they tend to be notoriously hard keepers due to their metabolism.

JJ gets 2 quarts of Blue Seal Trotter pellets and 2 quarts of soaked beet pulp twice a day, as well as hay. The Arabs get far less because they're easy keepers, but also get fed twice a day.
 
#9 ·
Yeah I am going to start feeding him breakfast, and lunch as well. will that need to be done gradually as well? wheat bran for his pooper because he got an impaction once. Vet told me to give it to him. He gets 2 ounces of CoMega supreme, 2 grams of bute, salt, stomach soother to keep the bute from destroying his stomach, and MSM
 
#14 ·
Not to get or keep the controversy going, I didn't get where you got the evolution issue from until I reread the previous posts. Also, not to spout my beliefs but I don't agree with evolution either, as a whole. I do believe that we and animals will adapt. That's the way I took it from the post about how the horse has evolved. So you can do as loosie suggested to use created or as I do with adapted.
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#16 ·
Not to get or keep the controversy going, I didn't get where you got the evolution issue from until I reread the previous posts. Also, not to spout my beliefs but I don't agree with evolution either, as a whole. I do believe that we and animals will adapt. That's the way I took it from the post about how the horse has evolved. So you can do as loosie suggested to use created or as I do with adapted.
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I agree.
 
#17 ·
horseychick94, have you ever thought about giving your horse some Pro-Biotics??. ( I sound like a broken record)..that stuff will help your horse get everything he needs from his feed, you said you give him something for his stomach to help with the damage from bute, If its not Pro-Biotics, you might want to try some..that stuff works wonders, your horses stomach will work like new and keep all the nutrients from his feed from just passing through, it will help him retain all the good stuff he needs to be a good weight, I have a TB X , and he is 17, and he gets 1 cup of BOSS, 1/2 Flax, and MSM, once a day, and he is at a great weight..Before Pro-Biotics, he needed alot more feed, also he has hay 24/7.... Good luck..
 
#23 ·
I wouldn't worry about doing it gradually to split his meals. I would just go ahead and cut it in half, twice a day.

And for what its worth, my own opinion would be to loose the bran and some of the oats. Oats will not help with weight gain and between the two this is just a lot of un-balanced feed being added. I also did not see that you were feeding any kind of grain? I would get him on a quality low starch senior feed or complete feed and work in 3-6 quarts as well.

Continuing with the "for what its worth" three of my Thoroughbreds are eating 4 cups beet pulp, 4 cups alfalfa, a bit of oats and 3 Quarts of a low starch-high fat Tribute feed. (Split into AM and PM feeding) The fourth Thoroughbred, who is 20, picky, slow eating and hard to keep weight on eats triple this amount and is "hand grazed" as well as on free choice 2nd cut mostly alfalfa hay (his "grain" is fed 3-4 times daily).

You can also try Max E Glo rice bran, works well and a cup of corn oil.
 
#27 ·
I figured someone would have to comment and couldn't just gather the question like apparently the OP whom I was asking could - lack of better words. But Oats do little to put weight on, I was asking if she had him on anything high in fat. I prefer a quality pelleted feed (NO SWEETFEED) but even corn would help in weight vrs. the oats.
 
#29 ·
...But in lines of weight corn does considerably more than oats was my point. I have from time to time used corn for a few weeks to get weight on. Of course you do not have to use corn, complete feed or any other kind of feed. I simply stated what the five Thoroughbreds here eat or what I've done to get some of the rescues to gain.
 
#35 ·
Hi, oats are way lower in starch & far easier to digest than corn. Neither are high in fat. If I were to feed grain, I'd choose oats over corn. But grain would not be my preferred option for putting weight on anyway, particularly if it couldn't be fed over at least 3 small meals daily. If you need to feed more for condition, I'd consider more lucerne &/or beet pulp and addition of some oilseed or *a little* oil. *It's very important to build up amount of oil very gradually. If I were going to feed a 'complete' type feed, I'd choose a low sugar/starch, non-pelleted one, or ensure it was fed with a fair bit of roughage, to encourage chewing.
 
#40 ·
The meal is far too large for one sitting, so spreading it out is good. Beyond that i would make sure that he is up to date on dental, dewormer, and vet checkups. After that i would research everything you have him on and find out if it is necessary. Make sure that there is nothing in there that was used to treat something in the past and is no longer needed. if the grass is no good then keep constant source of hay for him. if the minis are pigs and you need to regulate how much they eat you may need to separate them. Also a constant source of fresh water. The hay is very dry and they will need to drink more with the hay rather than the fresh grass. also check his poop is there lots of undigested food, is it loose? it should be balls of poop not a cow pie, if the balls splat when they hit the ground they are still too loose.
 
#43 ·
Lucerne is a hay company. Lucerne Farms, they produce several different types of bagged hay sold at feed/farm supply stores.
Lucerne is also a place in Switzerland, but that's not what we're talking about either. :lol:
 
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