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Jack Trent (Trentjr)
| | Posted on Saturday, Mar 3, 2001 - 7:43 pm: |   |
We have a 10 month old filly who suddenly decided to quit eating her sweet feed. Ever since we weaned her at about 5 months, she has impatiently awaited her feed twice a day. Four days ago, I noticed she had not touched her feed or hay and was a little concerned. But we have had a relatively warm, sunny spring, and the new grass is growing fairly fast and she spends most of the day grazing. I figured it must be that she had just decided she only wants the grass. She acts normal, except for the eating part, shows no signs of colic or injury, and grazes as soon as she hits the pasture each morning. For the last two days, we have kept her in the stall and fed her only hay and grain. We changed her hay to a finer timothy/orchard mix and she is eating it pretty well, but still doesn't want the grain. We had another filly that did this a year ago, but after about four days, she just up and decided it was okay to eat grain again. We feed a mare and foal mixture, from our co-op, which has been the standard for all our colts until the age of about 15 months, when we switch them to an 11% mix. We will continue to keep her in the stall, and I plan to try her on oats, as I saw in another post for a weanling with the same problem. Got any other ideas? The old saying about leading a horse to water and trying to make him drink also applies to feed. If they don't want to eat, how do you make them....or do you even need to? |
Robert N. Oglesby DVM (Dro)
| | Posted on Sunday, Mar 4, 2001 - 11:40 am: | |
Hello Jack,
This is a common event for healthy growing horses, maybe it is a teething thing? The main concern is there may be a medical reason: very mild colic from gastric ulcers for instance might leave a horse eating its roughage but not their grain. On the other hand this is an often reported problem. A good test for the mild disease theory is a good physical exam followed by a single dose of Banamine. If the horse begins to eat in 20 minutes, I would contine to pursue this avenue.
DrO |
Jack Trent (Trentjr)
| | Posted on Sunday, Mar 4, 2001 - 9:27 pm: | |
Thanks for your reply Dr O. True to form, as soon as I become concerned about one of our horses, they generally get straightened out. We had a filly do the same thing last year, but was about 3 months older. After four days, she suddenly decided to resume eating grain. Last night our fasting filly decided she would resume eating grain also, after about four days. She ate her morning grain fine as well as her evening meal tonight. If she doesn't go back to not eating, I guess I will just consider it one of those mysteries about horses we will never fully understand. A side note...I really appreciate your forum and the rest of the site. I have spent a lot of time surfing other forums, and I have learned that you have to take most of the advice you receive from them with a little salt. Most do not have the benefit of being moderated by a qualified vet and are mainly the comments of the readers. I will continue to use this site as a primary resource for horse related questions.
Jack |
Robert N. Oglesby DVM (Dro)
| | Posted on Monday, Mar 5, 2001 - 7:13 am: | |
Thanks Jack.
DrO |
