Someone now has a corner feeder because he liked to dump his food on the ground…
Nay Nay was scoped this morning.
The good news? We both lived to tell the tale.
The bad news? He was a complete turd requiring 2 tranquilizers, 1 twitch, 3 of us to hold him, and 2 to navigate the scope (4 people in total as 1 tech was holding and guiding the scope).
The very good news? His ulcers have healed. There was redness where they were (so evidence that he has had ulcers), but no actual ulcers. His gut looks good. We’re going to start tapering down the ulcergard… After 2 full months, I’m not upset about this.
Ornamental grass tastes really good…
But, he is looking at a life without grain.
But, a life without grain is better than a life where I dumped him on the side of the road. And that almost happened on the way to the clinic. That is how bad he was from the time I turned Subi and Jiminy out to the time I got to the clinic. So, between 9:50 and 10:20. It was a 15 minute drive. I wanted to murder him. My trailer has never rocked that hard. He screamed so loudly that other cars were likely trying to let me know my horse was…distressed? I ignored them. I got to the clinic and told them he might be injured and that was his fault. I never got his boots on because he was acting so out of control and I valued my life. Basically, he decided his life was over when Subi left. If I had walked him down to the field with Subi? All would have been fine. But, I was trying to avoid any chance that he’d get anything to eat and… All hell broke loose.
MUST EAT ALL THE GRASS
But, we both survived. Somehow.
So there we go. Current plan is to add in a vitamin/mineral supplement. I can up his rice bran too know that I know it’s approved and keep him on all the alfalfa pellets he can eat.
Vet suggested Platinum Performance as her preference. She’s open to a ration balancer, but would rather I not go that route as we’re not exactly sure what he’s reacting to in the grain so if we go that route, we’re limited in lbs/day. Plus with his alfalfa, he doesn’t exactly need the protein. Any product suggestions?
All suggestions are welcome. At this point, Nay Nay is pretty open to food. Upon returning home, he even ate the crappy hay vs his preferred hay. So…
Three Chestnuts 
Oh man, sounds like a day! Can’t say I blame him though… I get pretty hangry when I have to fast too. Glad you’re on the right path though.
Yay for no ulcers!! I’ve heard really good things about the MVP Mega Cell and Mega Mag depending on the type of hay you feed. My horse only gets a 1lb of Buckeye Grown’ Win 2X day but is so itchy. I’m thinking he might be allergic to the grain so have considered doing hay pellets and multivitamin too!
Thanks! My mini is on Grn N Win and I like it, but it has soy which is the issue. My vet has said if I do go the ration balancer route, I need to be cautious and feed no more than 1lbs/day and watch closely because we don’t know what in grain is causing a hostle gut environment. Since he’s OK with beet pulp and alfalfa (TC Senior), we’re betting on soy so we’re better off going with a soy free vit/min supplement. Unfortunately, that cuts out the MVP stuff. I could go with M10 from McCauley Bro for a balancer as it’s soy free, but…
On another note, I’m pretty sure we’re not that far from each other in PA especially if you mentioned you’re barn isn’t too far from Bartville.
I’ve had my group on the MVP Mega Cell for a couple of years. Their diets are primarily forage-based (hay in the winter, grass in the summer) with some grain (especially for the growing youngster and the elderly TBs). The Mega Cell fills in some vitamin/mineral gaps. They all eat it really well and I find it pretty reasonably priced. I’ve found FeedXL to be a terrifically useful tool for making sure my horses are meeting all their nutritional requirements. Good luck!
Thanks! The one thing I didn’t include is I might be trying to avoid soy. Pulling him off grain to a forage-based diet, he was never eating anything really bad (primarily TC Senior), but soy was a big ingredient and this is the hesitation about a ration balancer: Soy. So, we’re looking towards a soy free supplement. MVP stuff has soy.
I am glad that they are healed. I feed mine Fibre Nuggets- basically hay +vitamin. Not sure if you can get them in the US.
I don’t think I can unfortunately. He’s not crazy about alfalfa pellets but he eats them overnight (less so in the morning but… ). He is eating his powders and outlast so yay? He’s looking/acting great off soy so I think that might be the culprit. That or beet pulp. We’re going to try a month of platinum performance and that will give me time to decide to stick with it or evaluate other options.
Yay for no ulcers but food allergies are annoying. If it is the soy, then maybe you could feed soaked beet pulp and add a loose vitamin powder? I’ve used GrandVite in the past with good results. It sounds like you have a good path forward at the moment and if he is feeling better than it is all worth it.
Definitely! The culprit is likely either soy or beet pulp (he was on a beet pulp based feed) so I’m going to keep him off beet pulp for a while and see how he does. And add it in later if necessary when I can try only testing one thing at a time.
I had a bad experience with the grand products years ago (got a bad batch) and the company just blamed me for poor storage — I bought the product, opened it up and it was rancid… No storing necessary so I refuse to buy their products. Lol
I ordered the Platinum for now but will probably switch over to Horse Tech next month as I like their blends a lot. Just trying to figure out which blend and a month or so will allow me time to decide. But, it’s amazing how many v/m supplements contain soy OR don’t contain ingredients. I’ve eliminated every product that doesn’t list ingredients.