At 10:33 PM 6/6/2008, you wrote:

how much peppermint leaf or raspberry leaf can I add to his feed? I
ordered from herbal.com. I don't know how much is too much.

Teresa,

Blue gets peppermint tea in his water, and on his cubes for iron overload. He gets lots of it and loves it. The tea is very concentrated, roughly a 3 to 1 (three very generous tablespoons of peppermint tea leaf to one cup of water), steeped for about 10 minutes. Makes it easy to add to his water and pour on his cubes, and he gets about 4 to 5 cups of it daily.

Salt is another important thing to help make them drink. Blue gets two very generous tablespoons in his supplements, one morning, one night. For impaction colic a few years back, one of the things my vet used with one of our horses was a highly concentrated salt solution - he tubed it in and within less than two minutes, Mike finished a five gallon pail of water. I don't know how common that solution is, but it worked miracles, and my point is that salt is very, very important.

And Lorna is so right about draining the hay well, especially in hot weather, and spreading it around if you can. Hay can sour very quickly and if he leaves it in his tub, you'll have to clean the tub often.

Hang in there - you'll bring him around and find what suits him best.

Carol and Blue in Maine