Finicky
One of my wife’s kids was a real finicky eater. When we went out to eat he would only eat chicken strips and fries. One day we noticed that he only ate foods that were white; white meat chicken, potatoes, white bread, plain pasta, rice, cheese and oddly, cauliflower. It was a never ending struggle to get him to eat anything with color. Sooner or later we just gave in. It wasn’t worth the constant battle and eventually he grew out of it. At least he was eating.
Worse than having a kid that doesn’t eat is having a horse that won’t eat. Everything was going fine with the horses until I recently bought a new bag of their Purena Essential 12 feed. Normally they follow me into their stalls when it’s feeding time as they did the other day. I poured their food into their bowls and both horses sniffed it and walked out. I left it over night and the next morning the food was still there.
I returned the bag to the store and got another and now one horse will eat it, but my gelding will not, so I got him something else entirely, which he nibbled on but not enough to give him a good meal. To make things worse, I ran out of my Jewell hay. They loved this hay to the point there would be tongue prints on their mats from licking up every morsel. Instead I got some $19 a bale orchard grass. This is high powered horse fuel, and they are wasting half of what I feed them. It concerns me when half ton animals don’t take in the food they need. I’m not going to spoon feed them, but I need to try pouring honey or oil on their food. Their look of disappointment with what I am feeding them is obvious. I need to get both of them eating again the way they had been.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 4:00 AM
12 Comments:
Wow; never had THAT problem! The only feed Blue ever refused to eat was some sweet feed to which I'd added his wormer. That, he wouldn't touch. He's a difficult horse to worm.
Ahhhhh....horses. Oddly enough I have a story about horses too. The horses around here were having a problem with birds nesting in their manes. One local fellow found the solution though...a sprinkle of yeast in the mane and no more problem birds. And so the origin of the saying..."Yeast is Yeast and nest is nest and never the mane shall tweet." Bwaaaahhhhhhhaaaaaaa
Moose
Moose
yer right Guy......Moose should have a blog......:)
loopy
I figure if they get hungry enough, they'll eat whatever you put before them (and I've put some incredibly bad things in front of my kids and they ate it).
Should work for horses too, right?
right on, Lori. Works for our cats too when we change food. They don't eat for a day or so in protest and then finally give in. You spoil them too much.
I have a brother who, as a kid, ate nothing but hotdogs, frozen cooked corn, and macaroni and cheese. Plus he at cereal with his sugar, not sugar with his cereal. Hopelessly picky. But a few years back when he and his wife were in Paris he ate escargot. Boy, was I IMPRESSED!
You might get on the horn to Chuck Norris. Not only can he lead a horse to water, he can make the horse drink.
Perhaps it's too dry for them. Ya could try adding some Scotch to flavor it up a wee bit;)
Mike I tried soaking beet pulp as well. I'm going to have his teeth floated this week. It was just so sudden and so odd.
Anon, if so how come Huckabee isn't president?
Funny thing, I got a new bag of feed yesterday and he would eat it from my hand, but not from any container. He may be a nut job. The mare is eating just fine now, but my gelding is still playing games.
I imagine if he gets hungry enough, he will eat whatever is there. One of our dogs tries to pull that stuff every now and then. After a day or two she gets hungry and eats, even if she doesn't like it. And she knows that if she doesn't eat what's in her dish right away, her sister will suck it down when she walks away.
I was going to suggest having his teeth checked. When he eats, does he drop most of it back out of his mouth? How's his poop? Also, anytime you change food, it could take a couple of days for them to get used to it. That's normal :) Same for kids :)
Ginger see a post later this week.
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