advice on helping mare's appetite

[JennyB]

Oh sad to hear she is having problems again

...My mare did well on sloppy senior equine and alfalfa. That is what WSU started her on after the surgery and she stayed on that for about 6 months. Like the poster said you would want to watch the protein levels because of her liver damage. If she is not drinking and you have her back at the vet hospital they should have her on IV's while she is there because having enough fluids is really important after colic surgery!

 

Prayers and Blessings,

Jenny

 

[drmatthewtaylor]

Eating ANYTHING is better than eating NOTHING. Keep that in mind.

1)Green grass

2)Sweet feed

3)Sr/Jr Feed

Any feed should only be wit the horse for 10 mins, any feed not eaten should be thrown out. Feeding a smorgasbord does not improve appetite and leaving feed out only spoils it.

Dr Taylor

 

[supaspot]

when one of our mares went through this we bought a blender and blended grass , carrots and anything that tasted good and we syringed small amounts into her mouth and would she swallow it . we did it every hour all through the day and night , it wasnt much in volume but it kept her alive ,after a week of that she started eating on her own

 

[MountainMeadows]

A friend of mine had a mare that went thru this and was also having trouble with her mare's appetite. What really seemed to help was about 20-30 cc of Karo syrup just before she took her out to graze or offered her any other food. For some reason the Karu seemed to kick start her system and get her interest in food up - it took about a week to get her back in sinc. She was also grazing her on fresh grass which really seemed to help perk her up

Good luck with your little mare -

 

[K.C. Lunde]

Hi;

Terribly sorry to hear about your mare. What a awful thing to experience. Just awful.

Getting her to eat more.. Try some good quality alfalfa hay. I only feed half a flake a feeding to my minis however she could deserve a full flake a feeding )2x a day). Plus a good maintainance feed--- I'd try a senior horse mix as the pellets are often nice and soft and easy to chew.

A tip I've learned from a heavy horse hitch friend of mine.. FREE CHOICE CARROTS.. Carrots are in a way a miracle grub for horses.. with all the awesome minerals and vitamins for a healthy maintainance. They said the horses were just shiny as can be. Its a tip I'm trying this year with my showhorses.

I add garlic powder to all my feeds plus oil (veg or olive) sometimes Red Cell and a tsp of flax seed or extruded rice bran . Garlic helps keep the mosquitos off and feed smells nice and tasty.