I am looking for suggestions on what would be best for my “old guy”. He is 27+ yrs old. I rescued him 10 months ago just days before he would have starved to death. He was covered with rain rot too. We are trying to put weight on him, he is doing much better conditioning wise although he is still way underweight. To add to it, he was recently kicked (once or twice) in the shoulder and is not weight bearing on it right now. He also battles hoof issues/abscesses. I am currently feeding him Purina Sr feed and soaked beet pulp shreds. For his swollen shoulder he is getting banamine, rubbed down with ThermaFlex and I just bought him some boswellia for the swelling.
Hello Amy.
First let me commend you for taking this horse in. I do hope he gets better.
My feeding program that you can see more about at:
http://www.WhatToFeedYourHorse.com is not only the foundation to build
upon for success but is always my first suggestion.I prefer Oats and supplement with our Just Add Oats (vitamins,minerals,probiotics)— then our RED CAL fed free-choice salt mineral product—NO Blocks or Rocks- not at all! The third component is our "Weight Check" Oil that works to either put weight on or take off- whichever is needed. The oil is GMO-Free and is the actual oil of the soybean and verified by me to be GMO-FREE.
If you look at the above site you will see that I never recommend any commercial feed.
I also do not like Beet Pulp at all- sucks the nutrition right out of the gut.
Within these posts you will see info and an article on "Why Not To Feed Beet Pulp"
https://askdrdan.com/HOME/?s=beet+pulp So many issues and even those with hooves in my opinion should be addressed working
from the inside-out to get rid of and keep junk out of the body— beginning
with proper nutrition as outlined above and good supplementation. Our Joint Check
product is a great product as it really is more than just a "joint-type" product as it contains
the antioxidants (just as in our Health Check) needed to help support this cleansing.
It's a combo product that i highly recommend for an older horse. I of course also offer
a Hoof Check product to use to gain control of hoof issues if needed.Boswellia is a fine ingredient to add support with and another homeopathic ingredient
that may help in that same regard is Arnica Montana.Many older horses have done better with the above suggestions. Doing a search on
my archived question/answer site I have found some posts from other owners
with older horses and some that have shared their results as well. You can see them
here: https://askdrdan.com/HOME/?s=olderI do hope this information helps you on the decisions you need to make for your horse.
I appreciate you asking and giving me the opportunity to share. Please keep me
posted.
