|
|
Discussion on A pickey eater
|
| Author |
Message |
Member:
mrose
|
Posted on Monday, Sep 28, 2009 - 10:54 am:
Will a horse, if given the choice, choose the foods that are good for it? My 28 yr. old mare has gotten more and more pickey about what she will eat. If fed alfalfa, she will eat the stems and leave the leaves. She doesn't really the grass hay from one of our fields, a broad leaf grass, but likes the fine leaf grass from another field. She love beet pulp as a rule, some days won't eat it, but will eat her Eq. Senior. Some days she'll eat the senior but not the beet pulp. When I hand graze her, I notice she won't eat the standing alfalfa, but gobbles up the grass and one particular weed that grows in the area like she hasn't eaten for ages. With the grass, she goes along and trims off the heads, leaving the stems and leaves until the grass heads are gone.
Is she "listening" to her body and choosing things she needs, or is she just a spoiled horsey gourmet?
If given the choice, will a horse choose the feedstuff that is best for them?
|
Member:
scooter
|
Posted on Monday, Sep 28, 2009 - 12:01 pm:
Sara, according to my horses they will usually eat what tastes best, not what's necessarily what's good for them .
My old girl Flash went through this a year or 2 ago, she doesn't do it often, but when she does it is usually because something is bothering her.. usually her arthritis OR her teeth. She would eat the weirdest things and leave alfalfa, or grass hay practically untouched.
Have you tried giving beau some banamine ( I stayed away from bute because of tummy issues) to see if her appetite is better. Flashes appetite always picked back up after administering it for a couple days. If her appetite picks up with the banamine it could tell you it may be a pain issue. Of course if banamine is OK for her.
|
Moderator:
DrO
|
Posted on Tuesday, Sep 29, 2009 - 10:33 am:
Horses will not necessarily choose the best food choice, they will choose what they consider the most succulent, which is why grain overload is a problem in horses. I guess from this point all horses are choosy gourmets when given choices.
As horses become aged they do tend to loose their appetite and all horses have some foods they prefer over others. This can make it a challenge to properly feed the aging gourmet. The first step is to be sure you have all the treatable causes of decrease appetite covered then design diets that the horse will accept but our healthy for the horse.
DrO
|
Member:
mrose
|
Posted on Tuesday, Sep 29, 2009 - 11:24 am:
We're working on that, but it's a challenge! Noting like a horse standing with food in front of it, looking at you with big sad eyes and telling you it's dying of starvation and when are you going to bring something it can actually really eat! 
|
|
|
