Mounted search and rescue

[Karen Nesbitt <spanishequines@yahoo.com>]

Responding to:

Message: 3
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:26:55 -0500
From: "Stagecoach" <stagecoach2heaven@att.net>
Subject: Re: [MSAR] Dallas horses.. care and maintainance
To: "Mounted search and rescue" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
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We had a Poco Bueno horse that we had to put on senior feed.  We recommend Purina's Equine Senior as it really helped or stallion.  Within 5-8 weeks he went from very "ribby" to well filled out.  The trick for us was because he had no teeth at 29, we soaked his feed first for 20-30 minutes.  He could smell it from the other side of the fields and start salivating for it!

I really recommend the Purina Equine Senior for all older horses.  I have done so to many people and they all had much success and longer time with their beloved friend(s).

David "Cody" Franz
Medina County (Texas) Sheriff's Office
Mounted Search & Rescue
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Message: 4
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:39:59 -0600
From: Sabine Shurter <ranch@tektrail.com>
Subject: Re: [MSAR] Dallas horses.. old horses care and maintanance
To: Mounted search and rescue <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <4A5E308F.4030406@tektrail.com" rel=nofollow target=_blank>4A5E308F.4030406@tektrail.com>
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We found beet pulp (well soaked to avoid colic or choking) useful to
help old (and younger) horses maintain their weight. Additional senior
feed or a general supplemental feed like Empower from Nutrena (pricey
but very little needs to be fed ... it contains a lot of rice bran) and
good hay (such as a mix of good grasses and some alfalfa to keep the
digestive system in good order) should be fed as beet pulp is lacking
some nutrients.  Beet pulp (which is a main ingredient in many senior
feeds) is comparably cheap and had a good yield (one scoop of dry pulp
makes about 4 scoops of wet/moist pulp after 1/2 hr.+ of soaking) and
the water in the soaked pulp helps hydration. A thin horse may also
suffer from Cushings disease which causes weight loss, shedding problems
and a decreased immune response. There is medication available although
our vet thinks it does not always work and some horses do even better
without. The horse will have to be treated till the end of his life (a
cost factor). As you say, thin is not necessarily bad (unless emaciated)
and a thinner horse maybe better off than a fat horse. The problems
start when essential nutrients are lacking or not internalized anymore
especially in older animals which affect the responsiveness of the
immune system and can cause other problems. Sabine



------>>>>>>

 

David, Sabine,   I just got a bag of beet pulp and am wanting to  try to add it to the Senior, but am kindof wondering at what ratio.  Ima thinking maybe one can pulp soaked to 3 of the Senior to start. Since that is where I am at on just the Senior alone and we have a way to go to get the lbs back up. Gonna have to play a little on the soaking part.  Mind you my little Paso at the best weight would be only around 825 lbs. Should I soak the Senior in the pulp too or just add it to the wet beet pulp?  I am thinking soak it all.  The bag of beet pulp says soak for 2 hours!  The Senior I am using from Nutrena says its fine to wet it down for a mash.  Guess that answered my own question there!  But anyway on that mix, then feeding it by weight and not volume.

 

I can also see where the beet pulp may help in the horses hydration.  Hoping the animal likes it and especially if they will still eat, but refuse to partake in water.  And that is another good reason we like to have the paste tubes of electrolytes on us for those horses that refuse to drink and get a tad dehydrated.  The paste tubes can be hard to get at this time of year too, but you know that the horse got it vs putting stuff in the water trough.  The wet beet pulp sounds like a great way to maybe add the powdered electrolytes at home or on the trail.

 

Anyway, I am wondering, we have all had discussions here on feed to take on the trail... since you mentioned feeding beet pulp to your younger horses as well, and since there has been great discussion here on feed with seed particularly hay, is the beet pulp an alternative additive to the travel diet?  and to what extent?  Obviously it carries no seed so could be added to the travel diet in some fashion.  Its density and expansion in soaking to mass, is that a great factor on packing feed and whats the thoughts here on bringing it into the horses travel diet? The very idea of having a "compressed" feed that you add water too to get volume would be a plus on the travel roster taking less storage space, yet taking more feed!.. but ok, what are the downsides of this?  Too me, the answer would be an obvious, how does one balance the rest of the meal.

 

My past experience with supplements, if you do not do this sort of thing carefully and gradually, playing the guessing game can send you into a frenzy with some problems of imbalance in some fashion or another in the diet. When it comes to supplementing, over or under supplementing something, something has got to give.  Vitamins not used usually leave the system through the stool.  But not always.  Sometimes other things can give as well, such as hair loss! Or maybe something goes awry in the hoof. Some of the people I have talked to along the way in my life experiences, well, seems the ones who do what I call "cupcake feeding"  (that is a  feeding of a mirade of treats which range from anything from carrots to apples to "cookies" to supplements in vitamins are usually the ones who end up with more foot problems than most folks I know  and also some are cushings.  Most folks staying to a natural diet as possible have less issues of feet, respitory, or "diabetic" (or cushing) problems than the rest.   They also have less issues with colic if they can get by on a proper balanced diet of grass hays. Alfalfa can be too rich for some and cushings from what I have seen is always diet problematic as is laminitis.  And then you have those "finicky" cats!  Those horses that just seem to turn their noses at everything.  They know the medicine is in there and they just are not going to eat it or swallow.  And then there are the cribbers and windsuckers, wood eaters...they are notorious for being thin.  Be they just bored or nutritionally deprived.  And then add to them some with teeth issues from chronic performance in these acts.  And if you do not think a cribber cannot be bored at pasture.. guess again.

 

With any kind of hay and feed, its the TDN that matters.  Balancing that can be a juggling act when you have metabolizim issues to boot. And without an adequate hay analisis, which the majority of horsemen neglect to get....well, how can you balance something when you do not know?

 

Colic and some of these other miladies, do not have to happen.  Cushings is a tough dietary nut to crack with some of the animals.  But a lot is diet.

 

Horses, mules and donkeys with laminitis once the laminitis is controlled with diet, the laminitus can come on by stress in workload.  They have to be monitored 8 days a week for foot growth.  Just when you think things are good, they can go south in a heartbeat.   Road stress can bring on founder.  Pasture founder is often the case on a beast kept at grass.  Seasonal changes can play havoc on these poor steeds, especially the little mini horses, ponies and donks. 

 

On colic I have had some of the finest vets in the country tell me that the major cause of colic is the sticky stuff that pelleted feed is stuck together with as it gunks up the intestines....grain then gets caught in the gunk and and diverticuli and can act like a pearl and cause intestinal blockages.  If you have ever seen one of these so called "pearls"  well they can range in the size anywhere from very small to the size larger than a softball.   No fun for the horse when it comes to a surgery.  The stones can cause the intestines to rupture.

 

Just my thoughts here.  And one other question, what about the "cocky" attitude some horses can get from a grain diet?  Does the beet pulp give them a "grain high" too?  Please let us know your experiences or if someone else has something to say, this inquirying mind wants to know.  Many people  I know do not grain the hotbloods on traditional corn and oats diets because of the too hot hot some can get.  And many  with laminitis (or as I like to call them  our equine "diabetics") need an alternative feed too.  Is beetpulp their answer?  I would think there it would depend on which end of the body condition scale they fall. 

 

I am becoming amazed at my old horses now.  The older they get, they newer to me they become!  I find myself well blessed in the fact of going nearly full cycle with some horses obtained at a very young age or from birth and now in their golden years.  What a fantastic journey I have had with them and what a grand learning experience.  When we tell folks how old some are most people do not realize that a horse can live so long.  And most horses seems if they make it past 20  that is remarkable, but to be near 30 or beyond....most peoples jaws fall to the floor.  We know of some friends whose steeds are 36 years young and  these are not ponies!  I am sure some lucky folks know of some older.

 

Our past experiences with quarter horses and many of  the horses of friends we knew in that breed....seems many do not make it too far beyond the early 20's.  Many are navicular when they should be in the prime riding time of their life...prime being 9-15 years old.  But then too, genes, diet, breed, type of use when young all have a lot to do with some of the navicular issues from what we learned, but then that is the circle I traveled and  others may know otherwise.  One of my old quarters was of the old old Traveler, Poco and Skipper W lines as well.  Good lines, no problems there for us.  A very fine using horse well into his 20's.  And we know of a morgan mare that had her first foal at age 26.  So many things are possible!

 

Oh, on our oldest  Paso mare, the one with the weight issue now, she is a survivor of west nile...One of our vets mentioned to us that even though she is a survivor, her system could be compromised.  Well, she had the WN nearly 5 years ago. Been going pretty ok until now.  He also told us most horses her age at the time of the virus would have died.  We are learning today that more and more older horses are actually surviving. However with her, It this year seems more and more to us that because our pasture did not turn over its better grasses early on this year, that is what contributed the initial problems and she just had a very rough go this season making the winter to spring and spring to summer feed transitions.  We tried to adjust the diet, but it did not seem to go the way it should have.  Hopefully things will go better now.  It appears what we have come onto now and are doing now has put s few  pounds back on and she is getting back on the right track.  Just been a long haul in getting there and to say the least very frustrating.  And here too, and as we have been told,  if the mare was not receiving good care to start, she would have never lived this long.  She truly is in more ways than one a survivor.

 

May you both always ride a good horse!  And thanking you both in advance for any comments back!

        Karen