Stories From Fish Hatchery Road

Getting Picky Horses to Eat!

As the owner of two Insulin Resistant horses, and a professional treat maker for nearly two years for some of the pickiest Insulin Resistant horses on the planet, I hear a lot of horse owners complaining about how hard it is to get their horses to eat their supplements and medicines.

The first thing I want to say is that there is no "magic bullet" to getting your horse to eat. And frankly, I'm glad there isn't! If there were, too many people would be tempted to feed their horses the same fare, day after day after day. How boring is that? Horses need variety as much -- if not more than we do. I'm convinced of it. Why else would God have supplied the wild horse with hundreds of different herbs to choose from?

During the past week on The Official Equine Cushings and Insulin Resistant board at Yahoo, there have been quite a few posters who are having a hard time getting their horses to eat their custom vitamin and mineral mixes. (Please do your horse a favor and check  out the site at -- http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/EquineCushings/ -- are more than 5,000 members on this board, which is run by my horses' equine nutritionist, the renown Dr. Eleanor Kellon, D.V.M.)

Here is what I posted on the board this morning:

First, some ingredients that many horses have told me work synergistically in terms of taste (of course you will have to ask YOUR horse):

• Cinnamon and Anise -- using about 1/2 to 1/3 as much anise as
  cinnamon.
• Chamomile (powder or flowers) and apple fiber powder
• Peppermint (leaves) and beet root powder
• Fenugreek and Fennel (equal amounts of each)
• Psyllium seed husk powder and apple fiber powder (I think my horses
  simply like how the consistencey of what they are eating changes,
  too.)
• Slippery Elm bark powder and Chamomile tea. Sunny NEVER tires of
  this. Vashka, however can handle a day or two at most of this!
• A handful of large stripped sunflowers and kudzu root squares
  stirred throughout hay and beet pulp meals adds a nice variety, too --
  horses going rummaging through the meals and invariably eat their
  supplements to find the goodies!
• For Beet Plup, there is always "Alfalfa essence" -- a phrase coined
  by Dr. Kellon, is wonderful with beet pulp. She told me how to make
  this awhile back: Put a handful of alfalfa pellets in a small bowl of
  water. Microwave until water boils. Take out of microwave, cover and
  set aside. Pellets will expand tremendously and a handful of pellets
  becomes an incredibly potent taste tempter. Mixes wonderfully with a
  handful of chamomile flower buds.
• Rosehip tea -- just put in strainer and steep for 20 minutes. This
  creats a thick, sweet tea that goes well with any low sugar hay
  pellet. A dash of peppermint or cinnamon (as a taste tempter not a
  drug to lower Insulin) can prove delicious to many horses.
• Peppermint tea -- same as above, but add either beet root powder or
  apple fiber powder.

The reason teas work so well is because they saturate the supplements, as opposed to merely "mixing in" with them. Making tea is time consuming, but I find worth it. I use deeply steeped
teas as the base of all my baked products.

My experience with Wheat Germ is wonderful in terms of getting a horse to eat, but I did have a pony who was far too I.R. to tolerate even a speck of it. (If I remember correctly the NSC is around 46 for
this per tablespoon.)

I found what Claire (the Witcheylady at www.witcheyladycreations.com) said in a recent post on the EC list about artificial flavorings -- that some horses don't like them -- to be very true.
Mine certainly hated them.

If you feel overwhelmed with where to start, remember the most important thing to do is simply start. Pleasing your horse's palate is the fun part of horsekeeping.

"SKODE"

Make Your Own Warm Weather Herb Bar

One of the easiest and most rewarding Summer rituals we carry out at Skode's Place is our Summer Herb & Flower Bar. This is a place where your low sugar horse can go to experience what it is like to have limited, but "free access" to herbs. Herbs can be a wonderful, low sugar source of vitamins and minerals for your horse, who is by his birthright a natural herbivore. But since most low sugar horses are restricted to minimal grazing areas that don't provide a lot of interest or variety, an Herb & Flower Bar is a wonderful way to give your horse a taste of his natural freedom.

Here's how to create your own Herb Bar:

We used the log that our Basque Arabian, Sunny, is inspecting in the photograph. If you don't have a log, don't worry! Get creative and simply find something that has enough space on it to put four or five summer herbs. Some ideas: A smooth piece of splinter-free plywood, a water cooler lid, a few feed buckets lined up in row.

Then:

* Line up a choice of "safe" summer herbs and flowers on the bar. By safe, I mean herbs and flowers that you know your horse is not allergic to and herbs that are not known to be inflammatory, as some sugar-sensitive horses are prone to laminitis and so you may need to use extra caution.. (Check with your Nutritionist or Veterinarian if you aren't sure). Use between three and four cut and sifted herbs and place no more than a day's rations - usually a handful or two per herb per horse - on your herb and flower bar every day. Noticing what your horses choose may tell you something about your horse's nutritional wants and needs.
Some Herb & Flower Bar ingredients currently a big success at Skode's Place:

* Cleavers (spelled Clivers if you live in Europe) - This is a great herb often used for supporting and toning the lymphatic system, and is often used to help a horse overcome seassonal allergies. Cleavers are known to be a rich source of silcia as well as calcium and copper. My dressage trainer gave this herb to her horse, who had a swollen sheath from summer allergies. The horse did not respond well to steroids that the vet prescribed. But after two days on the Cleavers, the horse's sheath returned to its normal size.

Note: Horses sometimes devour this herb in great quantities and then suddenly show no interest in it for awhile.

* Rose Petals - I have several rose bushes in a lush pasture to which I no longer give my horses access. However I remember well how they used to stand at those rose bushes and devour them. Flowers, pollinated by bees, can be a rich source of live enzymes, anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals.

* Calendula Flower Petals - Traditionally used for horses as a blood tonic, and for stressed and fretful animals, Calendua, according to Hilary Page Self in her book A Modern Horse Herbal (Kenilworth Press 1996) is now more widely known and used for skin and gastric complaints. "Combined with Clivers (also spelled Cleavers) in equal proportions it is an excellent herb for the lymphatic and urinary system, the author states, and "has been used internally in combination with clivers and nettle to treat skin conditions..."

A Gallop On The Beach -- And Rosehip Tea For My Horse

Tomorrow morning, I will be be bringing to life one of my most favorite fantasies. I will going to California to ride my horse, Vashka, on the beach. I am going with terrific riders who have warned me that we will be "gone all day " as we will be "riding for hours and hours."

I am so excited I'm not sure I will be able to sleep.  I have his lunch and dinner packed, his low sugar cookies baked, his hay tucked securely in the trailer, and of course his rose hips herbal tea brewed. Ah! She has finally flipped her wig, you are thinking at that last little item. Rose hip herbal tea for a horse. Indeed! But listen.

We all know that when we take our horses on long rides, we want them to be well hydrated. Vashka tends to get so excited on new trails that the last thing on his mind is drinking. It's probably the biggest reason I don't think he could be a long distance endurance horse. He would outrun his own body. I do the best I can to get him to drink before, during and after a long ride -- I flavor his water with apple juice, I add salt to his food so he will want to drink more, I provide moist mashes with his sunflower seeds and green beans. Sometimes it's worked. Most of the time it hasn't. But there is one thing that when I has never failed me. Rosehip tea.

When I add the sweet liquid to Vashka's mashes, he slurps the stuff up like its the most delicious stuff in the world. Inspired, I tried some myself the other day. It is really, really good.  Sweet, but not too sweet. Somewhat tangy. Rich and smooth.  Not to mention that the rosehips provide  an easily assimilated form of Vitamin C and are full of riboflavin's.

The only thing I haven't figured out about rosehip tea is how to get transport it on a long ride without, how shall I say this... Being to conspicuous. So I shall tuck it discretely in my truck, and pour it over his mash when we come back to camp for a rest.  For some reason I think people will poke at me for bringing rosehip tea on a ride. But who knows -- perhaps I shall start a trend!

Lori -- aka -- "Skode"

Not All Horses Should Be Supplemented With Magnesium

Two Different Horses -- Two Totally Different Needs for Magnesium Supplementation

With the growing awareness of the roll that magnesium plays in relaxing and preventing muscle tension and spasms, as well as helping some Insulin Resistant horses absorb Insulin, much aod is being made of the mineral magnesium.

There is the wildly popular combination of magnesium and chromium (though recent studies say most horses do not actually suffer from the lack of chromium), there is magnesium oxide, and there is the more easily assimilated form magnesium citrate, which has not been clinically studied in horses.

While some horses do incredibly well on the mineral, I think it is very important to take note that some horses can not tolerate it and can even get very sick from it.

Take, for example, my two horses, Vashka and Sunny. Both are Arabians. Both are Insulin Resistant, Sunny more so than Vashka. Without his daily dose of magnesium citrate, Vashka's back is continually sore to the point where he is unrideable, and he gets somewhat cresty. After a few days of magnesium he is a new horse. His back is strong and there is no sign of any crest whatsoever. For him, the mineral is like magic and for me it feels like nothing short of a miracle -- I spent years trying to find a saddle that wouldn't hurt his back when in fact the saddle was only a tiny part of the problem.

Excited by how much magnesium helped Vashka, I started giving it to Sunny. Sunny's back didn't hurt but he was very cresty. So, I figured, what could be the harm? Unfortunately, the answer was not long in coming. Sunny developed a bad case of diarrhea within hours of his first dose.

Lesson learned: The very thing that makes magnesium so powerful -- its quick absorption -- is the very thing that can threaten the hind gut of horses with sensitive stomachs (Sunny's stools get loose when he is nervous.) When the hind gut of a horse is threatened, you are looking at a whole world of trouble, including the possibility of colic, laminitis and founder. Luckily, with an extremely large dose of probiotics and a 200 C homeopathic remedy Nux Vomica, Sunny's stomach soon returned to a healthy state.

Because of my own experiences and the stories of others, I consult closely with a professional Equine Nutritionist who is also a veterinarian. Mixing and matching vitamins and minerals may sound easy, but the balancing act of one mineral upon another is intricate and potentially intense. There is a reason people dedicate their lives to the study of equine nutrition!

Lori -- aka "Skode"

p.s. If you would like a referral of an excellent equine nutritionist, email me and I will hook happily send you her email address.