What's in Your Feed Bucket

 I'm jumping on the mini blog hop Moonlit Pastures did and showing what's in my ponies' feed buckets. 

Currently the ponies are out 24/7. Peebs is in a smaller pasture that's half dry lot half short grass. Cinder is out with two other horses on a 2 acre field that's really nice right now. My BO reseeded and fertilized it last fall and we've kept the horses off of it till a few weeks ago. Obviously Cinder's living situation will change next week, but I'll go over what she's currently getting and what she will be getting. 

Peebs would like you to know he doesn't get fed enough

Peebs is the easiest of easy keeps. Which is good, considering he has Leaky Gut Syndrome. I've done a lot of trial and error over the years, but have found that he does best with half hay/half hay pellets. Contrary to most horses, his gut does better with shorter stem fiber vs long stem. He currently gets 1 flake of Timothy and 4 quarts of soaked pellets (I try to do Teff but its been hard to find lately, or super expensive, so I also do Timothy) am and pm. Sometimes I'll give him a little extra hay, like half a flake, midday/early afternoon because I feel guilty.

 I've had him on Assure Guard Gold (the recommended 3/4 scoop twice a day) as a GI support on my vet's recommendation, but over the winter he had a bad Leaky Gut flare and even a double dose of the it didn't help. I was reading a thread on Twitter and someone recommended Tribute Constant Comfort. Tribute isn't sold anywhere near me but I was able to order it on Chewy and it made a huge difference. He gets a cup and a half twice a day. They also make a Constant Comfort mineral block but Chewy has been hit or miss on having it. When they have it in stock, he gets it and one block last about a month. He's also on salt twice a day and MSM once a day. 

Peebs' supplement packs I make up so my BO doesn't have to measure all his various shit

Cinder is currently on just pasture as far as hay goes. During the fall/winter/spring she was on 2 flakes of Timothy in the morning and 1 flake Timothy and 1 flake alfalfa at night, plus being on pasture during the day and her stall opens up to a grass paddock. So she basically had 24/7 access to forage. When she moves to SF, and when she was there in February, she was on 2 flakes of orchard am and pm, and 1 flake alfalfa at night. They're also turned out daily, and fed piles of orchard at lunch outside. Their pastures aren't as lush as our home barn, and I appreciate that they feed as much hay as they do to compensate.

At our home barn, they sometimes get fed in piles at breakfast outside too

 As far as grain, Cinder is currently on Nutrena Safe Choice, but once I'm out of it she'll be switching to Purina Wellsolve. SF provides three different Purina grains so if I'm going to be spending $$ on board, I'm going to take full advantage and use their grain. She currently gets about two cups of the Safe Choice once a day. She's also on a little rice bran as another boarder bought it for her horse but he refused to eat it and she didn't on it to go to waste so she gave it to me. Cinder's also on Platinum Performance and 1 pump of GutX. I'll probably up her to 2 pumps of the GutX this weekend and keep her on it for a few weeks after the move just as a precaution. Cin can be a bit of a picky eater so who knows how long this version of her grain will last.

Mid-fall Break

After the show at FHF, Peebs got a bit of a mid-fall break.  He had spent a couple of days at TCF before the show (since the weather was perfect and dry and they reopened the big pasture) and I decided to leave him there after the show. I had plans to be out of town for four days and felt better about leaving him at TCF where he could be out 24/7 vs at GS where he would be out only a handful of hours a day, if that. And after his colic episode, I trusted A to watch him better. The morning feeder at GS had noticed he was slightly off his feed the morning he colickd, but they didn't tell me till 3pm in the afternoon. Not cool.

Nap time

In the three days between the show and when I left for my trip, I got some nasty 36hr stomach bug and spent most of the time hurling my guts out and sleeping. Thankfully once it was over I felt perfectly fine and back to my normal self. So between everything, Peebs got 7 days off. He didn't seem to mind at all. When I got back he went for a lunge the first day and spent a good 20mins blowing off steam before settling down. He was his normal, lazy self for our rides after that.

So that's Peebs bridle, and I didn't have to adjust anything on it to fit her head. His girth also fits her.

Cinder on the other hand, has decided that fall is the perfect time to come into heat. She has one heat when we first moved to TCF early in the summer, but then I never noticed her showing signs till last week. She was way more flirty with the boys in the pasture, and peed every few minutes with them, but thankfully didn't do any of that when I had her out. She was more amped during our ground work in the arena and I ended up letting her loose to run off some energy.

Cinder's changing color

About a month ago I switched her grain in a continuing effort to find something she likes and can eat with her allergies. She's on Purina Wellsolve L/S and likes it. I've noticed since switching her to it that her coat is way shinier and she's developing Bend-Or spots. She's got a few on her right hip, and one on her left. I also noticed she's getting some dapples on her barrel but couldn't get a good pic of them. I guess the Wellsolve is agreeing with her!

Bye Bye Summer

Fall is here in the PNW. In the past couple of weeks the temps gone from 70s to 50s to back to 70s with lows in the 30s-40s. I had to break out sheets and even put Cinder in a medium weight for a few days. And worst of all, Peebs has moved back to his winter home at the other barn (GS).

She doesn't look too bad from this angle

Earlier this summer I had switched Cinder to a new grain, Triple Crown Naturals, because her old grain (made from a local feed mill) had some of her allergens in it. She ate the TC ok for a few weeks, then decided it was awful and went on a grain hunger strike. I tried adding alfalfa pellets to it and she still wouldn't eat it. She dropped a fair amount of weight and looked rough for a few weeks. I put her back on her old grain and added alfalfa hay as well.  She's eating again and started putting the weight back on but I've decided to blanket her a little heavier than I normally would so she doesn't waste any calories being cold. She's not showing any allergy symptoms while on her current grain, so I'm going to keep her on it while I do more research into what she can have.  And fingers crossed she'll eat whatever I put her on next!

She would like to eat my hair and glasses

I moved Peebs back to GS last Thursday and while he seemed to have settled in fine, he took a page from Cinder's playbook and went of his grain for a few days as well.  Peebs is a garbage disposal, so for him to not eat is a big sign.  He was eating his hay, grazing out in the field, had normal poop and pee, and his attitude was normal, so I didn't think he was colicking. I did give him a dose a banamine and he's gotten a few days worth of Ulcergard. I think he was just depressed/stressed.  He went from being out 24/7 to being out 4-8hrs a day. Normally he's not one to care much either way, but apparently this time he did. In the future if he has a dramatic shift in his turnout/living situation I'll be proactive with the Ulcergard. Sorry Peebers!

Allergic to Life

Back in April Cinder broke out in hives. They came and went for a few weeks before finally deciding to stay. We did a round of steroids and switched bedding because my vet thought it was something coming in contact with her.  We tried three different types of bedding and nothing worked.  We did more steroids because the hives came back worse and she lost a lot of hair on her hind legs and face. Right before we moved barns for the summer we took a blood sample to send in for allergy testing.

She can finally be cross tied while getting hosed off!!

The first week we were at A's was Cinder's last on steroids. I was slightly concerned moving her would shock her system but my vet thought moving was a good idea.  The other barn, GS, is in a different micro-climate and much wetter than A's. Vet thought the (relatively) drier climate would be good for her.  And since we've moved Cinder's hives have gone away. 

First page of allergens. The ones with the * are what she's allergic to

Unfortunately the lab lost Cinder's blood sample so we had to take a second one and send it in again. It took about 10 days from when we sent the sample to when we got the results back.  The lab emailed my vet who forwarded them onto me and called me later that day to discuss. The first thing he said was "She's allergic to life". Not what you want to hear, let me tell you.

Basically there's a lot she's allergic to and it was probably a combination of things that caused the hives. There was a third page of allergens for insects and molds that I forgot to take a pic of and she's allergic to some of them as well.  Some of the things she's allergic to we don't have here in the PNW, such as sycamore and hickory trees, and fire ants (thank god!). But we have elm and oak (which are in the pasture she's living in) and deer flies, plus the molds.  There's also a fair amount of timothy hay that's fed around here so I need to be aware of what's in her grass hay.

This one really sucks

The biggest issues are going to be the food items.  The grain she's on has timothy and rice bran in it.  Her vitamin/mineral supplement has corn and rice bran. The treats I have right now have corn and carrots.  Luckily my vet said that he's seen the carrot and apple allergy before and in his experience the test for it is not that accurate.  He said she can still have the occasional apple or carrot, just not a lot of them at once. And she can stay on her vitamin mix. The amount of corn and rice bran in it is so small, and since it's cooked in a pellet form, most of the allergens have been cooked out. Which is great because do you know how many supplements use corn, rice bran, or soy as carriers? I was driving myself nuts looking at ingredient labels.

I'm still trying to figure out what grain I want to switch her to. I'm going to the feed store later today to see what's available, but I'm leaning towards just alfalfa pellets.  Her current grain is a limited ingredient, mostly alfalfa and timothy hay based feed and I'd like to keep her on something similar.

For now we're going to changer her feed, keep her in a fly sheet and mask all the time, and wait and see how she does.  We can do allergy shots for most of the things she's allergic to, but that's $$$ and doesn't have the best success rate. Since she's doing much better at A's barn I'm really hoping I can keep her here this winter and not have to move her back to GS. Finger's crossed we can make that work and her hives stay away!

Evolution of Peebs' Poop Problem

Back when I bought Peebs I was told that he had occasional soft poop and watery discharge down his butt and hind legs. I've had a couple different vets look at him, and tried various supplements, feed, probiotics, and what not. It would kinda get better, then kinda worse and was basically a constant thing.  I learned to deal with it and so did Peebs.  He wasn't colicky, kept weight on great, and was otherwise completely fine.

We're gonna need a bigger bucket

Over the summer I had the chiropractor, TS, out to work on him a couple of times.  She's a vet, and had also offered advise on our poop problem.  She has a client in the Bay Area whose horse had the same problem and they did a full work up at Davis.  They switched the horse to a completely pelleted diet, no hay, no grazing. And that worked.  The plan for that horse was to leave him on the hay pellets for a while (not sure how long) and slowly try adding hay back in to see if he could handle it.

The second time I had TS out this summer Peebs was having a bad poop week and had actually lost some hair on his butt and hind legs.  TS read me the riot act and told me to either try the pellets or take him in to the vet school for a work up. Since taking him in for a work up sounds expensive I started him on the hay pellets.  I slowly switched him off the beet pulp he was getting to the pellets, then started adding more pellets and less hay.

Approximately 6lbs of soaked timothy pellets in a standard water bucket

We got up to 6lbs of soaked pellets and one flake of grass hay twice a day, and our poop problem stopped. It was amazing.  His butt and hind legs looked normal for probably the first time in the year and half I've owned him.  It made me sad thinking of how long I let this go on before doing something about it.  Since he was doing ok on half pellets/half hay, I left it at that and never fully put him on straight pellets.

Thank god he's an easy keeper

So Peebs is currently on the 6lbs of pellets and a flake of hay twice a day.  Once a day he gets his Horse Guard vitamin/mineral mix and Omega Horseshine. No other grain, no grass, just some cookies or carrots. The theory is that for whatever reason, his GI tract can't handle too much long stem fiber, but is ok with short stem, aka pellets. We did have a relapse a couple of weeks ago and I was pretty upset until I found out a barn mate was trying to be nice and feeding him a flake (or two) of hay at lunch when she fed her mare.  I felt like a bitch when I had to tell her not to do that, that he can't have any extra food. Knock on wood this keeps working and we can officially end our poop problem!

Anatomy of a Peebs' Dinner

Going off of Carly's post about Bobby's feed, I've decided to share Peebs' grain. He gets his at night and he's the easiest keeper I've had yet. Thanks bubba!!

He gets a quart of rice bran but since he's weight is looking really good and he's starting to go out on the spring grass once I run out (which will be sometime this week) he'll stop getting it. 

Then two quarts of Haystack Special Blend. This is a local feed designed by a vet whose husband owns a feed mill. It's a mix of beer pulp, alfalfa, Timothy, rice bran, flax, and canola oil. 

For supplement he gets a 4oz scoop of Horse Guard. It's a general vitamin/mineral mix with added selenium and vitamin E for horses in the PNW where grass and hay is very selenium deficient. 

He also gets two scoops of LMF digest 911 probiotic. 

Last is a squirt of Excel Eq which is an anti-inflammatory omega 3 mix for joints, ulcer aid, and skin/coat.  My BO started a couple of her horses on it and really liked it so she got me a jug of it for my birthday.  I've only had Peebs on it for a couple weeks and I'm not sure I notice anything so far, but we'll see.