# Feeding the Shetland on death's door.



## Wally (Mar 3, 2007)

I have a pony in my care who is going to be exhibit A in a cruelty case. She spent yesterday in a sling she is so weak. Weak but plently of fight in her.

She needs building up as quickly and safely as possible, to make things worse she is in foal. SHe can now stand buy we have to help her up with the sling if she has a lie down.

Apart from small meals, little and often does anyone have any tried and trusted recipes that can boost them on the road to recovery?

Any tips or tales ?

She is so thin, so weak, such a sweet girl we have all resolved to fight for her every step she wants us to fight. If she gives up we don't have a chance.

I am sleeping in her barn ATM so I'm there the second she tries to get to her feet to help her so she cannot injure herself thrashing about.


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## chandab (Mar 3, 2007)

Good for you, helping out this poor little girl.

Don't have any tips or stories of my own, just a link to share (on feeding starved horses):

http://www.completerider.com/nutrition.htm

Hope this helps a little and good luck with turning her around.


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## Krickette (Mar 3, 2007)

Goodness, I'm not sure, but I'll sure be praying for her. Our TB was an abuse case, and was about 300 lbs underweight. Not nearly as bad as this poor pony, but still severely malnurished. We used XTN and Vitality (both by nutrena). I'm not sure if that would do well for a pony, though, I know they handle food a bit differently than a thoroughbred.


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## Steph_D (Mar 4, 2007)

Faith wasn't nearly that bad, but I gave her all the bermuda grass hay that she could handle. After a week or so, I started her slowly on Nutrena Equine Senior. She's done wonderfully on that.

I'll be praying for you both, and bless you for taking on this poor girl.


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## Wee Mite Miniatures (Mar 4, 2007)

The best advice I can give is to work closely with a vet.

We have taken in a few but not as bad as you discribe.

First of all they were given all the grass hay they could eat. Accesses to it 24 hours a day. After a few days small amounts of senior feed were added. Three times a day. The grain was slowly increased.

Worming. When we took in four mare in that were heavy in worms the vet would not recommend purging. She felt it could cause bigger problems then we were dealing with already. We gave a low does of paste wormer to lower the worm load and placed all the mares on a daily wormer. One mare did foal soon after and her foal had realy bad foal diarrea from the worms. The two others were on the daily wormer long enough their foals only had slight cases. The forth mare did not foal for four months and we had been able to worm her a few times, her foal was fine.

Thing is the mare will give it all to the foal and take almost nothing for herself. Even though she is in bad shape the foal has a good chance. The only way we found to get weight on a mare with a foal was senior feed. Three to four meals a day and slowly work up to 3 or 4 cups a meal.

Good luck.


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## kaykay (Mar 5, 2007)

i second all the above. but i would feed her some alfalfa hay if its available. also if you can get it bodybuilder does wonders putting weight on a horse. very pricey (75.00 per bottle) but you only give a bit per day. keep us posted


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## bfogg (Mar 6, 2007)

I usually like to have the vet give her some nutrition via an IV it gets their system hydrated and seems to perkup their appetite.

I swear by Lixotinic it is a wonderful product and seems to also help them to want to eat.

thank you for taking this on. She will be forever grateful as will I.

Beet pulp with molasses is also good it helps to hydrate them.

Please keep us posted.

Bonnie


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## Jetiki (Mar 6, 2007)

I'd have her teeth looked at, the start her on a feed thats high in fat but also high in Nutrition very slowly. I have an acient one from the local rescue that came to me a walking skeleton he's now almost fat. I wish you luck with your project.

Karen


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## PaintedPromiseRanch (Mar 8, 2007)

Equine Senior and free feed grass hay is what we did with our starvation case although she was not near as bad as you describe. she came around real well though. did a mule the same way and he picked up weight good as well.

personally we don't feed alfalfa hay unless we have no choice, because the pellets are mostly if not all alfalfa and too much protein for a horse not working hard can damage their liver/kidneys... long ago we decided on a regimen of hay for breakfast (more natural and takes them longer to eat it so keeps them busy during the day) and pellets at night (easier to add whatever supplements or grain/senior etc. and the pellets have added vitamins etc. so it supplements their nutrition although not as natural for them to eat as the hay and they eat it a lot faster...) - anyway it has worked well for us, for all of the big horses and mules and ponies and mini horses and mini donkeys and mini mules...

bless you for committing to her care and good luck with her and the foal!!!


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## tracerace (Mar 8, 2007)

I agree about the alfalfa...I'd stay away from it for a pony in this condition.

Bless you for saving her...I haven't got any better advice than what you are doing now (accept to try beet pulp asit's good to get the gut moving which encourages the appetite triggers), but you are in my thoughts and prayers.


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## Jetiki (Mar 8, 2007)

Actually Duke university did a study and I have lost the link to it, but it said that Alfalfa was the best way to put weight on a horse. There were more than one study that said this. I will see if I can dig the link up and post it.

Karen


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## PaintedPromiseRanch (Mar 9, 2007)

Jetiki said:


> Actually Duke university did a study and I have lost the link to it, but it said that Alfalfa was the best way to put weight on a horse. There were more than one study that said this. I will see if I can dig the link up and post it.
> Karen




that may well be true, however my question would be, what else is the alfalfa doing? it is my understanding through personal research that alfalfa was originally developed as a cow feed... and because it grew well and was inexpensive people started feeding it to their horses. however unless you are working your horse hard, the high protein level is difficult for their systems to handle and can cause liver/kidney damage. so putting weight on is good, yes, but are you, at the same time, putting them at risk of liver and kidney problems? and especially smaller ponies, minis and donkeys...

to me, since there are other options you can feed to put on weight, it's just not worth the risk. JMO, and i would be interested to see the study if you can find the link.


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## chandab (Mar 9, 2007)

PaintedPromiseRanch said:


> Jetiki said:
> 
> 
> > Actually Duke university did a study and I have lost the link to it, but it said that Alfalfa was the best way to put weight on a horse. There were more than one study that said this. I will see if I can dig the link up and post it.
> ...


While I don't know what studies the other poster is referring to, I have this website bookmarked on myths of feeding horses. Just thought I'd share the link, it's an interesting read.

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$departme...nsf/all/hrs3243


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## Triggy&Blue&Daisy Too (Mar 10, 2007)

Absolutely alfalfa. High protein is extremely critical in severe emaciation cases and does not have the same effect as a healthy horse in no or light work. Feeding a lot of carbs can easily put a severly compromised horse into metabolic shut down. Tiny handfuls of alfalfa increasing over a period of 2 weeks to free feeding is the important first step to regain health without causing more damage. No supplements or anything else in the first couple of weeks is very important also. This is the only thing we do at the rescue and all the vets we use are 100% behind it.


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## Triggy&Blue&Daisy Too (Mar 10, 2007)

Dukes probably did a study also but the one we refer to when questions are asked about it are from UC Davis program. I don't have the original link but it describes the process nonetheless.

http://www.sheltermedicine.com/portal/is_starvation.shtml


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## Minimor (Mar 11, 2007)

Definitely alfalfa is the preferred feed for starvation cases such as this. Since some here apparently ignored this link the first time it was posted, I will repost it here--it refers to the feeding tests done by UC Davis, and explains why they determined that alfalfa was the best choice for a starved horse.

My Webpage

Painted Promise, the fact is that the high protein in alfalfa is not actually detrimental to kidneys. I grew up hearing how rich alfalfa will "burn out the kidneys" of horses but in reality that does not happen. There are many horses that are on nothing but alfalfa their entire lives and have perfectly healthy kidneys. The biggest problem with alfalfa is the excess weight it puts on some horses--especially those that are not working and eat too much of it!


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## Jetiki (Mar 11, 2007)

Minimor, you are right it was UCDavis and not Duke but I can't seem to find the link to the study I had.

Its everything in moderation, you can't take a starved horse and dump them on a free choice alafalfa diet, thtat would kill them, but a slow and gradual diet with the horse being watched closely it can't hurt. From what I have been reading, aflafla is low in carbs and high in calories which makes it good for the starving as a carb overload is bad.

Karen


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## CRERS (Mar 11, 2007)

Hi Wally -

We were in the same boat here with a starvation case seized by Animal Control. He's approximately 25+ years old and came in a 1, barely able to stand on his own and when he went down, we honestly thought that was it because no matter what we all did, we could not get him back up. Eventually we did, but it took well over an hour and our vet was on standby to call it quits. Our other hurdle was the fact that this poor guy has barely any teeth left, so hay was not really an option for us at all. He is also a pony, a POA.

Luckily, we didn't have to euthanize him, but it was very close to the call. We *slowly started him back on a gruel of senior feed (Blue Seal Vintage Senior w/ lots of water to make it very soupy). *

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After about 8 days of this (with very gradual increases in amount), we added beet pulp. *

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Another week or so into his rehabilitation, we added rice bran oil (I've also been told that Cocosoya oil works very well too, but haven't tried that yet), again, slowly increasing amounts of everything each week. *

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At the second week, we also added (as a seperate meal) Hay Stretcher made by Blue Seal. *

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He was eating 5 small meals a day initially and after about 8 weeks, he was finally able to go to two meals a day with his hay stretcher 2x's a day in addition to his regular meals. *

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He has successfully gained weight and is now almost the size he should be as we are roughly 11 weeks into his recovery. *

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Just go very slowly with amounts and with adding anything new. Our veterinarian was priceless at this point as we had never had such a dire situation come through our doors before. We've done quite a few starvation cases, but this poor thing was beyond starved. *

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He is now able to be out in his own paddock where you'll usually find him cantering and bucking around with tons and tons of energy, lol. He still has more weight to gain, but he looks spectacular compared to what he looked like when he came in. *




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Best of luck to you and thank you for helping this poor mare. I hope that her and her baby come out of this in great health. *

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## SilverDollar (Mar 12, 2007)

You are an angel, Wally. I agree with much of what CRERS said. I rehabilitated quite a few full-size horses that were between a 1.5 and 2 on the Heinneke scale. I thank God every day for my vet as she was truly instrumental in helping their recovery as she had experience with malnourished horses. Small meals are best and be careful with any deworming; hopefully your vet can guide you. I am happy to say it has been 2 1/2 years since rescue and the most challenging horse to recover is doing great. He's now 27 years young and healthy as a horse!

(Have you done a full blood panel and a fecal test? I hope so as this was critical information for the district attorney to have in our case. A second opinion from another vet may also be helpful.)

Good luck and you are in my prayers. Please keep us updated on your mare's progress.

Rebecca


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## kaykay (Mar 13, 2007)

I was kinda hoping this wouldnt turn into the alfalfa debate





Keep in mind there are different grades of alfalfa. There is a dairy grade that I would never feed to a horse. Reputable hay growers always put dairy grade seperate from the horse grade. That is probably where you got the cow feed theory.

I have always fed alfalfa and so do many many other farms. the thing to keep in mind is you do not feed as much alfalfa as you would grass hay. Horses eating alfalfa do urinate more because they drink more!

Anyway everyone has to feed what they are comfortable with but it is an accepted method of feeding a starved horse


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## Danielle_E. (Mar 14, 2007)

You are correct, in a starved animal alfalfa IS and has been proven to be the best forage to give. We all think the opposite but they have done research about it. Of course you don't give a BIG amount but when everything the horse puts into their mouth is important you need to get the extra calories in no matter what. More than likely this is a horse that doesn't want to eat much at this point so feeding a grass hay is not going to help because of he small amounts. I would substitute one of those small feeds with alfalfa and they will gain weight much quicker and get their strenght back as well. Do a search on the net about feeding starved horses or contact a rescue that have had a similiar situation to yours and see how they proceeded and what their results were.


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