The Road to the Tevis Cup, Post #12: Feeding an anxious horse

When I bought Fantazia, Jenna told me all she knew about her. Mostly, it was good. The only real problem Jenna had experienced was keeping weight on her. I saw the problem in person right away: Fantazia refused to eat for 24 hours after I got her home. This despite having given her Ulcergard. (see my post about Fantazia’s first three weeks.) And I was already prepared for feeding an anxious horse. Fantazia’s full sister, Lady, had also been difficult to feed.

Fantazia’s full sister, Lady, was also a challenge to feed.

When I shipped Lady to Oklahoma, I was in California. I had seen her in Los Angeles just a few weeks prior to shipping–she was in good weight, living in a small pen between two other horses. I got back to Oklahoma two weeks after Lady arrived. By then she was skin and bones. The person I boarded with at the time had put her alone in a pasture. When the other horses would go to the far end of their bigger pasture, Lady would pace the fence. She wasn’t eating the grass hay.

Fantazia’s sister Lady before and after moving to OK.

I fattened her up over the course of six months, but when I moved her again, the same thing happened. She went from a solid 6 on the Henneke Scale (Body Condition Scoring Horses) to a 2 in a matter of days. It took months to get her back in condition. The first time I saw Lady fat was when she was convalescing at a friend’s ranch. Bill managed to fatten her up by feeding a lot of grain and giving her access to pasture and round bales 24/7.

Feeding the anxious horse: Lady fat — Lady in 2017, fit and fat.

Feeding the anxious horse at home

Fantazia lives on 4-5 acres, with both dry grass pasture and green grass that grows along an irrigation ditch that runs 11 months of the year. She gets as much alfalfa as she wants (but rarely eats more than 8 pounds or so). I tried orchard grass hay, which she refused at first, and then ate a little (a few pounds a day). As long as she has grass, I will just feed alfalfa. During the winter she’ll get grass hay. She also gets about 4.5 lbs of Ultium Gastric Care, a Purina product containing the ulcer preventative Outlast, and two cups of rice bran, split in two feedings a day. On work days, I give her whole oats and rice bran (quantity depends on work) at midday.

Feeding the anxious horse away from home

A few weeks ago, Fantazia and I spent 11 days in Paso Robles. I took her Ultium, rice bran, and oats with us, and my friend had plenty of alfalfa and grass hay (a meadow grass mix). The first day, Fantazia ate her Ultium, but barely touched the alfalfa.

Left: The day we arrived, Fantazia was in good flesh… and anxious about riders in the distance.
Right: Five days later, after refusing most of her hay, Fantazia was much leaner!

She was anxious. When I parked the trailer, she started neighing and running around (as if I were going to leave her!) The first few days, she kept an eye on the building I was staying (nearly 400 yards away from her pen) and neighed whenever she saw me. And she didn’t eat hay.

I offered the grass hay, and the first time, she ate it all (about 3 pounds), but then she wouldn’t touch it. For the first week, she’d eat maybe 4 pounds of hay a day.

Soaked feed seemed to encourage appetite

On the sixth day, I offered her 1.5 cups of alfalfa pellets soaked in about 6 cups of water. She ate that up, and also ate a bit more hay. The next day I bought beet pulp and gave her 2 cups soaked in 2 quarts of water (for two hours) in the evening. She ate the beet pulp and all of the alfalfa/grass hay mix (about 5 pounds total).

The last few days she ate that quantity of beet pulp and all the hay I gave her (7-8 pounds). Was it the beet pulp, or was she just settling in? I don’t know.

She was certainly getting used to the horses around her, but she was still convinced we were at an endurance ride. She’d get nervous whenever she saw mounted horses in the distance, and set off each ride in a state of relative excitement.

Feeding the anxious horse back home after an excursion

Fantazia was thrilled to get back to HER pasture with HER irrigation ditch!

We had to cut short our visit because my hometown was put under evacuation orders (see my post on how to deal with smoke from wildfires). I packed up and drove out of the relatively smoke free Paso Robles into Springville, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

Fantazia was very happy to be home! She ran around her pasture, and immediately settled back into her regular diet (alfalfa, Ultium, rice bran). I didn’t keep the beet pulp up, mainly because things have been very hectic. We’ve got wildfire refugees: my mother’s three dogs and two Morgan geldings.

Trying grass hay

My mother feeds a mix of orchard grass and Bermuda hay. I had tried the orchard grass before, but not the Bermuda, so I thought I’d give Fantazia a bit of both. She’s not fond of orchard grass, but she’ll eat a handful. Bermuda goes down better: she’s cleaned up almost 3 pounds of it several nights in a row. I plan to shift her hay rations to half alfalfa/half Bermuda as the grass disappears (now she’s getting more hay because of the fires).

A note on feeding in fire season

Because it looks like this may be happening every year, and I am going to add flax and Vitamin E to Fantazia’s diet….

To summarize the information provided in my previous post:

Keep the airways lubricated by encouraging water consumption.
- Provide a water source next to the feed source.
- Consider wetting down hay and soaking feeds. I plan to soak up some beet pulp today for everyone.
Keep horses off ashy, dusty pastures and keep hay covered if possible.
Consider adding:
- Vitamin E (water soluble if possible)
  - I love Nano-E from Kentucky Equine Research.
- Vitamin C (only for the duration of stressful event)
- Vitamin A (in carrots, not supplements)
- Omega-3 fats (flax, chia, marine oils)
  - Golden ground flax from Tractor Supply
  - Simply flax (normal, ground) is competitively priced at Amazon, and you can Subscribe and Save
  - KER has a palatable fish oil option
- Make sure your horse is getting enough selenium (be careful because there is such a thing as too much).
  - Selenium yeast
  - Selenium plus Vit. E