Hello

Horses on average need approx 10kg of feed per day per horse made up of various feeds but majority needs to be forage.

Forage is fibre so hay and grass usually but they also need proteins, fats vits and mins to stay healthy.

The thing about fibre is its usually chewy fibrous stuff, hay and grass all require teeth to masticate enough then swallow.

You may not know but horses only have 1 set of adult teeth. As they age the teeth wear down until there is nothing left to chew with and then this presents problems getting enough 'fibre' to maintain a healthy weight and to ward off stomach ulcers.

 

We have a rather hefty feed bill for the simple reason we have to replace the fibre content as much as we can with easily eatable and digestible expensive alternative feeds. 10kg to be precise - Each bag of feed usually weighs 20kg. So 1/2 a bag of feed per day per horse, each bag averages approx $30 - $40 per bag - you can see why aged horses are often abandoned or moved on when the finances start to take a big hit.

We feed our old guys and girls up to 3 feeds a day of softened and soaked appropriate feeds to maintain the weight and gut health  and to take into consideration they have no teeth to chew it with.

Apart from being labour intensive its also very expensive and the biggest reason we often see aged horses with little to no weight on them.

Another expensive portion of elderly horse care is 6 monthly visits from our Dental Vet. We  see loose or fractured teeth remains so its vital for them to have no pain when trying to eat and we do this by means of a specially trained equine vet who comes to the property.

Often elderly horses present with a disease called Cushings Disease. This requires that the horses have to have medications daily to maintain their normal health. Its sort of like Diabetes,  so they need medications to keep the symptoms and complications of the disease at bay.

Out of the  rescues here, 3 of them have Cushings. Its one of the first things we test for. Daily medications vary but on the whole the medications are approx $10 per horse per week.

This is just a very small portion of the costs involved - The ongoing daily weekly monthly figures are quite extensive and are a constant requirement in addition to other important and basic needs.

We need financial support to achieve this.