Natrlhorse wrote:
Stress (physical or mental), ulcers (often stress related), teeth, imbalanced minerals, parasites. Lots of places to go before even changing the ration because if something else isn't right you just end up wasting money on supplements. I would agree that pre or probiotics are always going to be helpful for better digestion.
I personally like to stay away from processed feeds, but I do like the beet pulp, flax, and might mix that with a hay pellet to make a good mush when I have to supplement. Just pasture works best on my hard keepers, my 25-ish y/o mule will eat and eat and just seems to gain from the bottom up anymore but she is always better looking on pasture than hay+supplements.

It is pretty impossible to balance your feed ration unless you have your hay tested, depending on where you are the nutritional content of hay can be all over the place. Some horses will do ok on cubes or pellets but it really helps to have some long stemmed hay for slower digestion. Some horses on straight pellets can get acidosis/subclinical laminits and other issues.

This, most definitely.  Then, if all of that has been sorted...

- ad lib hay, as high quality as possible.  Since you can't get ahold of alfalfa, I'd definitely give the cubes/pellets a try ontop of the ad lib hay.

- probiotics & prebiotics

- oil, as much as 2 cups per day.

- a high quality feed.  Sweet feed, corn, oats, etc, is not going to do it, in my experience.  Triple Crown Senior has always been a big help for weight gain in my experience.

- flax, I think up to 1 cup per day (someone correct me if I'm wrong).  It's just a great additive to the diet, and all horses I've fed it to seem to be shinier, healthier, and just a bit more pep to their step.



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