Tapsmom
Loving the herd life
Hi all, my 26 year old Arab just came home Sunday night. He is now by himself with our 3 goats. He was losing weight before he came home and we were trying to get it back on him. He is also adjusting to being without another horse since he had been staying at my friend's house until my barn was ready and she has 5 horses. We have him on 2.5 qts SBP 1410 since it has a very high fat content, plus 1/12 cups of Sunshine pellets and beet pulp am and pm. Plus free choice hay and grass. He was on a dirt lot for the past year. Unfortunately, he is very agitated about being alone at the moment. He will nwo pace or a short time in the morning before settling down to graze and share some hay with the goats. But around 5/5:30 he starts to walk the fence. To throw another wrench into it, my neighbor's mares have started walking down their pasture until they are right on the other side of our barn and calling to him. (Unfortunately this neighbor does not like us so will not do anything about that). I have been giving him Vita-Calm. It seemed to help a little, but does not help when he gets to pacing in the afternoon. Tha pacing is killing any efforts to put weight back on him. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get weight back on him? I had been given the suggestion of rice bran and was also told that beet pulp doesn't actually put weight on them. Any suggestions? I want to do it in a way that is safest for him. I have had him since he was 3 1/2 and he has never been an easy keeper, but once he hit about 8 years old, he has held his weight ok. He did lose weight like this last year about the same time, but we were able to get his weight back up before the cold weather hit. I also wormed him about a week ago with Strongid.