It took a long time to bring Bryan around. Longer than any other horse I
had had till that time. But bring him around we did.
As with any horse that comes in to the program, we looked at
everything. Diet, feet, tack, teeth. In SoCal boarding situations we don’t
always have a lot of hay options. The barn I boarded at fed bermuda hay and/or
alfalfa. You could special order timothy but it was pretty expensive. They did
feed hay three times a day so he had food in front of him 24/7. I like grass
hays but think it’s important for horses to have a variety of grasses so I
supplement their regular hay ration with straight grass hay pellets, like oat
or bermuda or timothy or orchard hay pellets, depending on price, availability,
and the horse’s weight and work load. He was thinnish so the first thing we did
was put him on lots of timothy pellets and Purina Ultium. I love to study NRC info
and product details of various feeds. I have gone back and forth between the
various senior feeds and Purina Ultium. Now I am able to access a local CA made
pelleted feed that I am really happy with (King feed 11% pelleted enriched
feed) but at the time I was using Ultium. I think Ultium is great and have
always been happy with it. It is expensive though, and it is molasses based, which
now I like to avoid, though its not as high sugar as some.
I also put him on Ranitidine. Ranitidine is an antacid and
until Omeprazole became available it was all vets had really to treat equine
gastric ulcers. I purchase it in bulk at Costco or Walmart; generic, it is way
cheap. The drawback is that it doesn’t heal ulcers, and it needs to be fed at
least twice and preferably three times a day. But it is therapeutic, and
soothing, and any new horse I got at the time went right on it.
