24/11/2025
ONCE UPON A TIME...
In a land very, very close, there was a lovely princess with a gorgeous little unicorn and she was very much hoping that they would have a lovely life together, cantering bridleless through meadows full of beautiful flowers...
But in all seriousness, she is a lovely lady and she has an adorable little QH (no horn). She hadn't had him for long, and when she got him he looked okay, but a little under, so she started feeding him.
So far, so good, yes?
Well, he wasn't gaining weight so she added more and more feed to his diet. The people at the feed store kept telling her to add some of this, then some of that, then something else. Then a gut supplement. Then some oil. And so on and so forth.
They might as well have suggested she do an interpretive dance in a princess costume with unicorns while waving turmeric in the air for good luck.
Anyway, I digress.
By time she got to me, he was eating SEVEN kilos of hard feed a day.
SEVEN.
And he's not big.
And that was pretty much all processed, bagged feed with pretty, fancy labels, full of grains (mostly not heat-treated) and therefore sky-rocketing in sugars and starches that his gut can't digest. Especially when each feed was pushing 3.5kgs.
Plus two biscuits of lucerne hay. So if he weighs 450kgs and is in very light work, he needs around 9kgs of feed per day. Given he was eating his hard feed and his lucerne hay, that meant that he was eating two kilos of feed more than he would usually, naturally regulate his intake to.
Ouch.
Of course, he refused to eat any pasture hay at all. I mean, who's children happily tuck in to their steamed vegies right after trick or treating?
He had become what we nutritionists refer to as, 'fussyAF'. (We like to use long fancy words to sound smart)
Now I'm absolutely not blaming anyone here. There is no villain in this fairy tale. She was trying her hardest for her horse. Spending lots of $$ and tearing her hair out. The feed store may also have been trying their best to help out.
But regardless, this is where we ended up.
So, first thing's first, we needed to get him off the grains. Slowly. So we didn't shock the hell out of his unhappy, stressed gut.
She also needed to get her to drive around town buying every a small bale of every variety of hay she could find (which is bugger-all at the moment).
Three days in and we're transitioning him off so much hard hard feed and reducing the grain. He isn't fussy at all with the new hard feed. He loves it. We're reducing the lucerne hay to try to make him less fussy. We're adding in plain, wholefood-type hard feed options that are low in sugars and starches and high in fibres and guess what?
He starts eating some Teff.
A week later and on less grains he starts eating pasture hay. Not enough, but it's a start.
It has been around four weeks since the start of this story, and he's totally off the grains and processed feeds, the number of ingredients in his feed bucket have HALVED, he is licking his bucket clean, eating more plain hay, and people are commenting on how great he looks.
He's still eating far more hard feed than I would like, but he's getting less than HALF of what he was and is gaining weight.
It's not rocket science people.
Horses. Need. Hay. Not. Hard. Feed.
If this story continues like I think it will, we will slowly reduce his hard feed until it's minimalAF and basically just a vehicle to carry his important supplements, like minerals and salt.
The majority of his diet will be plain hay, which he will happily tuck into, and he will be fat and happy and sound and we will all live happily ever after.
Except we won't.
Cos horses.
But at least his diet will be sorted.
The end.
