Feeding the Shetland on death's door.

[Danielle_E.]

You are correct, in a starved animal alfalfa IS and has been proven to be the best forage to give. We all think the opposite but they have done research about it. Of course you don't give a BIG amount but when everything the horse puts into their mouth is important you need to get the extra calories in no matter what. More than likely this is a horse that doesn't want to eat much at this point so feeding a grass hay is not going to help because of he small amounts. I would substitute one of those small feeds with alfalfa and they will gain weight much quicker and get their strenght back as well. Do a search on the net about feeding starved horses or contact a rescue that have had a similiar situation to yours and see how they proceeded and what their results were.