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Discussion on One of my horses has really yummy poo
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Member:
cpacer
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Posted on Saturday, Nov 29, 2008 - 4:03 pm:
I'm embarrassed for my horse to have to post this on his behalf, but my 9-yo has taken to eating DrOppings from one of my other horses. It's only the one other guy that he eats from, he'll actually wait behind him for when he goes, and he doesn't just pick through it, he chows down.
The horse doing the DrOpping is on a sweet feed diet, so I thought maybe the horse doing the eating was going after that. I started adding a cup of s.f. to each of his meals to no avail.
Offending horse in question is on a diet of about 6 lbs of Ultium a day, which is the highest quality feed that Purina makes. He has access to hay 24/7, has plenty of trees to chew on, and mineral blocks--the only thing lacking as of late is grass. Do you think missing the grass is causing it? Should I be concerned and is there anything I can do?
Here info about the Ultium (https://www.ultium.com/)
GUARANTEED ANALYSIS:
Crude Protein [min]..........................11.7%
Crude Fat [min]............................. 12.4%
Crude Fiber [max]........................... 18.5%
Calcium [Ca] [min].......................... 0.85%
Calcium [Ca] [max]......................... 1.00%
Phosphorus [P] [min]..................... 0.500%
Copper [Cu] [min].......................... 65.00 ppm
Selenium [Se] [min]....................... 0.500 ppm
Selenium [Se] [max]...................... 0.600 ppm
Zinc [Zn] [min]................................. 240 ppm
Vitamin A [min]............................. 5000.00 iu/lb
INGREDIENTS:
Dried Beet Pulp, Wheat Middlings, Stabilized Rice Bran, Ground Soybean Hulls, Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal, Ground Oat Hulls, Ground Corn, Soybean Oil, Dehulled Soybean Meal, Flaxseed, Dried Whey, Calcium Lignin Sulfonate, Cane Molasses, Salt, DL-Methionine, Thiamine, Calcium Carbonate, L-Lysine, Monocalcium Phosphate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Citric Acid, Iron Oxide, Natural Flavor, DL-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate, Sodium Selenite, Choline Chloride, Cyanocobalamin, Nicotinic Acid, Calcium Pantothenate, L-Tryptophan, L-Threonine, Vitamin A Acetate, Ferrous Carbonate, Manganous Oxide, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Magnesium Oxide, Riboflavin, Cholecalciferol, Calcium Iodate, Cobalt Carbonate.
Ruminant Meat And Bone Meal Free.
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Member:
mrose
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Posted on Saturday, Nov 29, 2008 - 7:00 pm:
Does the poop in question have a lot of undigested grain in it? Other wise my guess would be a need for more fiber. Wasn't there a discussion about this a while back? You might want to do a search. I've read about this either on HA or in one of the horse mags, most likely The Horse or Equus.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Monday, Dec 1, 2008 - 8:13 am:
Hello cp,
Yes I think if there was a food stuff around that he preferred to his recent...ahh...choice...that he would probably quit. Though you go into great detail about the concentrate the large majority of your horses (and any horse for that matter) diet is the forage. What is the quality of the hay your offending horse has access to?
DrO
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Member:
leec
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Posted on Monday, Dec 1, 2008 - 9:39 am:
Hi cp,
My 2.5 yr old gelding had started doing the same thing! He only has one horse to 'eat' from and he doesn't snarf it all down - he seems to select the pieces he wants. The horse he is 'eating' from is on an excellent quality grass/alfalfa diet - both are, and it's pretty much free-choice. Neither are getting concentrates, but have free access to salt and mineral blocks. This just started when the snow hit the ground a few days ago (no more pasture). I was surprised by the behaviour, as most horses I've seen do this are confined or have other vices, like wood chewing - he isn't confined and has no vices. cp, do you have snow or has your horse recently been removed from pasture? Dr O, any further thoughts on our 'poop eaters'?
Thanx, Lee C
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Member:
ekaufman
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Posted on Monday, Dec 1, 2008 - 12:41 pm:
Hi cp,
I'm not going to ask how you know the poop is yummy.
My broodmares eat manure when they are on dry lot. On pasture (even very poor pasture like I have now), they don't touch the stuff. So I think they just really want to have their heads down and be chewing something, even if it seems gross to me. They all have nice condition and I have no reason to suspect malnutrition or anything else.
If you have dry footing and the hay to spare, maybe try scattering a few flakes around on the ground to give him another target?
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Member:
cpacer
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Posted on Monday, Dec 1, 2008 - 2:43 pm:
DrO, thanks for answering. They have been on a very nice first-cut fescue that is almost gone, so I'm in the process of switching to an orchard-fescue mix which is about the greenest stuff I've ever gotten my hands on!
I do spread it about the pasture in 6-8 piles, and this offending horse is the alpha so he gets his pick of whatever he wants (and he gets pretty sassy when I send him away from the poo).
Lee, no snow here, but I did recently start rotating the pasture and the side they're on now is pretty bare, except for the trees and all the hay I scatter. But come to think of it, this started over the summer when he was on pasture.
Elizabeth, my baby wouldn't eat it if it wasn't ; )
Sara, yes there is undigested grain in the s.f. waste, so I thought giving everyone a cup in addition to their regular feed would help. I can't cut the s.f. though due to dietary restrictions of the main horse eating it.
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Member:
vickiann
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Posted on Monday, Dec 1, 2008 - 7:48 pm:
The aforementioned chat explains a few things to me.
I spent six weeks in North Carolina this summer and found the hay to be beyond lacking. In fact, it was terrible.
No surprise that a horse would look for something more.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec 2, 2008 - 7:13 am:
Once the diet has been evaluated and any deficiencies corrected I would have to think that the horse finds this the most delectable food item at the time and I am uncertain what to do about that short of trying to increase the desirability of the horse's regular forage.
DrO
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Member:
cpacer
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec 2, 2008 - 12:39 pm:
alrighty then, I guess he just likes it cause I think his diet is pretty good! Maybe it's just a phase!?!?
Anyway, I just looked out the window and saw the following (nevermind the ugly temporary fence, it's my attempt at pasture rotation).
Does anyone else feel the need to go out and start pinching when you see this, to make sure they're ok? I wanna know who's watching out for the lions!
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Member:
canter
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec 2, 2008 - 1:10 pm:
LOL, cp. They look all very happy and relaxed. When I moved my mare to her current boarding situation, I found all the resident horses so much more relaxed than anywhere I had boarded previously, and frequently came upon a scene just like that of your horses. First few times, it freaked me out a bit. I rousted up more than one sleepy horse...just to make sure. I'm certain that after the first few times, they were pretty ticked off at me for disturbing their naps. I've since learned to leave them alone...mostly. If someone is sleeping when I get to the barn, and is still down when I'm ready to leave, I can't help myself and have to check on her.
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Member:
mrose
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec 2, 2008 - 1:11 pm:
They obviously are well fed, happy and secure feeling! Maybe they are so well fed they assume you feed all the other animals, including the lions, are well fed also.
I've actually had people call me and tell me I had a dead horse in my field before! You can pretty much tell what time it is by when they all fall over - just about 10:30 a.m.
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Member:
vickiann
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec 2, 2008 - 1:17 pm:
They look healthy, happy and comfortable.
And your feed sounds good.
Yes, I have been known to go out and get one up off the ground from time to time, just to make sure that they were really okay!
Does your horse just eat fresh horse manure?
One of my dogs got involuntary neurological tremors after eating some manure in my compost heap that was just beginning to grow fungus. Fortunately it did not cause any permanent injury.
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Member:
cpacer
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Posted on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 - 6:52 pm:
Hey Angela, the sweet feed is the only low potassium food I can get in this area--he's an HYPP horse. They tell me the molasses in this particular sweet feed has some special structure though, so it's not supposed to be all sugary!?!!? Anyway, he was a little on the light side when I got him so he needs all the nutrition/vitamins/minerals he can get, which this mix of sweet feed has, without the potassium, and apparently without making him high.
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Member:
cpacer
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Posted on Friday, Feb 6, 2009 - 10:27 am:
Just to update on the poo eating situation -- it stopped when I switched out the hay. So, either HA articles were correct or my horse was thoroughly embarrassed that I posted this little issue to the world. ;)
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Member:
hollyw
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Posted on Friday, Feb 6, 2009 - 11:44 am:
cp,
I'm voting for the first reason.
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Member:
warthog
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Posted on Friday, Feb 6, 2009 - 10:10 pm:
In several studies I read a few years ago although fescue looks nice and green and pretty, it is the least well liked of all the typically fed grass hays. Our guys would eat dead and grazed to the roots coastal before they would even touch lush green fresh fescue grass in the pasture so if you can, at least feed a mix like orchard fescue which is quite common in NC, and upstate SC rather than fescue. Ours like first cutting fescue "OK" but they would eat anything else first if given a choice. We even went to feeding T/A cubes when we couldn't get coastal or orchard mixes or just coastal or orchard grass our guys were so particular about fescue.
we also feed Ultium right now and our guys like it fine. For those of you who haven't used it, it isn't really like a sweet feed with lots of whole grains mixed together. It reminds me of these cat and dog foods where they mix different colors of different shaped pellets to make you think your dog is getting something special. I prefer it to all the other purina feeds though. we usually feed triple crown senior but got a deal on some ultium and it is comparable enough for us to use it for a while anyway.
How about adding wet beet pulp (we don't soak it but we serve it quite wet) to the grain feed. I don't know about the potassium but it's really low in sugar and starches. Our guys like it and one half scoop makes a lot of wet feed which of course makes them very happy. another alternative is alfalfa cubes or pellets. again low in sugars and starches but don't know about the potassium so you'd need to check on that. I can't keep all these problems that require special food straight in my mind.
good luck with finding hay he likes better than Ultium poo because it's for sure Ultium poo is pricey. It's at least %21 a bag down here.
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