Peanut, Our Old Man

We have now had Peanut for 5 months. He has found his place in the herd and feels comfortable enough to come into the barn to eat. At first he was afraid to come in the barn to be fed, but now he comes trotting in and actually stands at the feed room door looking in the window just waiting for food. He really enjoys being fed. We have been trying to get some more weight on him. I make him a wet bran mash type thing. I wet a scoop of bran with a scoop of 12% pellets and then he gets a half a scoop of Horse Chow 100. It's a 10% complete feed. I just started to give him the half a scoop. I think I might change him all the way over to the Horse Chow. It's an awesome feed that doesn't give horses too much protein and a lot of needed bulk. That is what's so wonderful about a complete feed. I have also thought about feeding him a senior feed. The man at the sale barn said that Peanut was about 17 years old. But his front teeth are pretty short, so I think he is probably more like 20 of not older. My father in law said if he is 20+ that peanut might not gain more weight. Well, I just want Peanut to gain more weight up along his backbone. Peanut gets fed his hay separate from all the other horses. I want to make sure that he eats all that he gets. The other horses eat their hay out in the pasture. I am afraid once Peanut looses his fuzzy hair that he will be a bit ribby. He does have an apointment for his shots coming up and I am going to have his teeth floated. He doens't drop any grain, but I just want to make sure that is not the reason for him not getting as round as I would like him to. He is only 14 hands, if that, and so I wouldn't think, that for a smaller horse, it would be so hard to get him to gain a little weight. I don't want to start riding him a lot come spring time and have him loose a buch of weight. He is a neat boy. And I can never imagine someone wanting to just get rid of this horse. He was just dropped off at the sale barn. The Kill Buyer was bidding on him when my father in law convinced his horse trading buddy to bid on him. The horse sold for 225 dollars. But you all know that story, so I won't go into detail. The kids all have really enjoyed having him here too. Yesterday Big Cowpoke and Little Cowpoke were arguing about who's horse Peanut was. Big Cowpoke told Little Cowpoke, "Peanut is my horse, I just let you ride him." We all love Peanut. Even Cowpokette can't get enough of him. Every evening when we feed horses, she has to go and sit on him. Peanut puts up with us messing with him. At first he wasn't too sure about all the attention, but now he doesn't mind. As long as he has food in front of him, you can't get him to budge. I am not too into letting Cowpokette ride quite yet. It makes me super nervous. But she really does like sitting up on the horse. She moved her hips back and forth because she wants to go. It takes a lot of concentration to pet him on his neck and tell him good boy. I think her tongue helps her out with balance. Pure Joy. I just might have my horse lover child after all. I really hope that Peanut can stick around a lot longer to take her places. Because you know she is going to have to keep up with her big brothers. She thinks she can do everything they do.

But if any of you have any ideas for up keep on an older horse, let me know what you feed. Peanut has free choice pasture and gets hay too. I don't want to feed him something that will get him hyper, my kids ride him. So, nothing that will make him too hot. I welcome any suggestions!!