Feeding your Senior Horse

As healthcare improves for both animals and people, more and more of us are having to care for senior horses. It's a good thing--we get to keep our reliable animals around longer and longer--but with age, comes challenges. One such challenge is feeding your senior horse. especially if they are missing teeth.

When our horses begin to lose teeth, they can't chew and digest as well they used to; this means they may not be receiving all the nutrients they need. Our horses only have one set of permanent teeth, like humans, and they may lose them for a number of reasons (periodontal disease being the main one). Horses also wear their teeth down with chewing and sometimes they simply run out of tooth surface.

So when we have horses that lose teeth, or maybe their teeth are just too smooth for any effective chewing. we have to figure out a way to make sure they get the food and nutrients they need. Pasture will be extremely difficult for aging teeth, the incisors themselves may not be able to grasp the plants and nip them off. Horses without molars have difficulty grinding feed, making hard grains and long stem hay particularly difficulty for them to eat. Aging horses should have access to pasture and forages, to encourage natural behavior, but you must be aware of other ways to build a ration for these animals.

Alternative fibers may be helpful in these cases--hay cubes, beet pulp and others can provide forage and fiber without the possible long-stems in traditional hay. Pelleted feeds will allow your senior horse to get more out of it, as opposed to full oats or corn. Body weight, health and coat condition are improved with these types of pelleted or extruded feeds.

For more information about feeding your toothless horse, check out this article: https://thehorse.com/112446/mind-the-gap-feeding-the-toothless-horse/