Advice on Feeding Starving Horses

AnnMarie Cross
www.cwer.org
amc@cwer.org
Crosswinds Equine Rescue, Inc.
8182 E 200 North Road
Sidell IL 61876
217-649-7915

The amount of feed described in the following instructions, will have to be adjusted according to the size of the horse, e.g. miniature horses would get less than full size horses. Also, many miniature horse owners may prefer not to feed alfalfa hay, you can substitute with orchard or timothy hay.

We handle severe starvation cases here periodically. we work with a
degreed nutritionist, a head vet at purina, and our local vet who is
both into traditional med and also holistic. this is what we do..

1) start out VERY slowly with forages, not just feed, don't just throw him onto pasture or free choice of any sort of hay with any nutritional value at all, or your risk foundering him. instead, start him on a low quality grass hay in regulated amounts -- a flake or two at a time, at least 2 and preferably 3 or 4 times a day.
gradually we move him/her up to free access to grass hay. if we're going to put him/her onto pasture, we start iwth just 15 minutes twice per day, and gradually ease him/her up.

if we have access to alfalfa, our vets and nutritionists STRONGLY encourage us to move them onto more alfalfa rather than more grain. studies have shown a steadier, safer weight gain with less risk of colic and the weight staying on better. so we try to do this, IF we've got it. the last starvation case we worked on was getting 4 flakes of quality alfalfa a day plus her free access grass hay (round bale) and her grain.

2) start out EVEN MORE slowly with feeds or, again, you risk founder or colic. We ALWAYS start with senior feed -- it is as non-intrusive and easily digestible as you can get. We start them with just a pound at a time, twice a day the first day, three times a day for the next 3- 4 days, 4 times a day the last 2 days of that first week.

Then we start adding just a handful of Purina Strategy on top of the senior. if we cannot easily do 4 feedings a day (time of year effects this for us), then we will increase the poundage of Senior, so that he is eating 8 lbs of equine senior a day by the end of the second week.

By the end of the third week, he is eating 8 lbs a day of equine senior and at least 2 lbs a day of strategy. our goal is to move off the senior, which you need huge quantities of to safely feed the needed amount of calories for weight gain, and onto the higher fat strategy.

The max you can safely feed of strategy is 6 lbs per feeding, more than that at a time you're really risking health problems. The more you can split up the feedings throughout the day the safer it is.

3) one other thing -- be careful with supplements, and especially with free choice of salt or mineral blocks or loose minerals. starved horses are so deprived of these things they will eat dirt! and will literally eat themselves ill if you suddenly give them free choice to these minerals. see our story of Bob on our website for an example of this type of case.

you want them to have free access to salt and mineral eventually, of course. you just have to ease them onto it slowly to do it safely.

Before we get too badly flamed here, have folks thrown a starved horse out onto lush grass and had it survive? you bet! do folks give starved horses free access to salt and not have them founder? i'm sure there are some who can tell you how they've been that lucky. does that mean its the healthiest and safest way to recover one of these horses? definitely not. What i've written here isn't gospel, and i'm not a university professor. Just trying to share what we've been taught and learned, and provide you info on where it's come from.