Faecal water syndrome ? or something else?

[MereChristmas]

I am going to Finan tomorrow. I should have ridden today but was feeling icky so didn’t go.

I am going to ask if F can have hay and haylage mixed, continue with the Acid Ease until it is used.
I think that may be 10-14 days more.

I’m not sure of the next step.
If things have improved or not obviously continue increasing hay but should I get more Gastriad ( which helped after the omeprazole ) or Acid Ease or neither? Although the Acid Ease hasn’t stopped the FWS it seems to have stopped a few minor ulcer symptoms he had in December. He didn’t have these symptoms when on Gastriad either.

I don’t want to introduce any other new feeds or supplements although I am tending towards ringing Equibiome. Depending on their suggestions perhaps their prebiotics and / or the herbs and the test. I expect they will promote their own product but I want to know which sequence would be best.

Any thoughts?
Thanks

 

[Highmileagecob]

How old is your horse? With your comments about him having too many gaps, I am wondering whether you are seeing compromised digestion and/or chewing ability, as I was. I didn't find any of the supplements that I tried to be any use, but I am fairly confident I wasn't dealing with ulcers. With hindsight, I wish I had increased the short chop fibre years ago, but also with hindsight, not enough research was available. I mentioned the ongoing saga of faecal water to the new graduate vet, who came out to my cob before Christmas. She said she had never heard of the condition and was sure it wasn't serious. Hmmm. It looks pretty serious when your horse has dirty hindquarters all winter.

 

[poiuytrewq]

So a week in and the gut sponge had stopped working, this seems to be a thing. A new product works for days amazingly then we regress.

Last night i opened up a bit more grass so my pony ate less hay, more grass (muzzled) and came in clean this morning.
Weird grass is his saviour. Sadly he is tiny fat and has cushings so it’s would also be his downfall.
Ron Fields and Trinity are next on my list to try.

 

[Highmileagecob]

A 40 litre trug tub of well damped Graze On, split between two feeds was a turning point for my cob. Grass again.....

 

[meleeka]

So a week in and the gut sponge had stopped working, this seems to be a thing. A new product works for days amazingly then we regress.

Last night i opened up a bit more grass so my pony ate less hay, more grass (muzzled) and came in clean this morning.
Weird grass is his saviour. Sadly he is tiny fat and has cushings so it’s would also be his downfall.
Ron Fields and Trinity are next on my list to try.

Mine is the same. She’s fine all summer when she’s eating less hay. I did read about the colon having to work harder with hay so that might explain it.

 

[MereChristmas]

Thanks everyone
It seems it is a case of trial and error and someones error is another one’s fix.

 

[MereChristmas]

Today we start a little hay in with the haylage. This will be increased over the next few weeks.
I will use the remaining Acid Ease and see if anything changes.

 

[MereChristmas]

How old is your horse? With your comments about him having too many gaps, I am wondering whether you are seeing compromised digestion and/or chewing ability, as I was. I didn't find any of the supplements that I tried to be any use, but I am fairly confident I wasn't dealing with ulcers. With hindsight, I wish I had increased the short chop fibre years ago, but also with hindsight, not enough research was available. I mentioned the ongoing saga of faecal water to the new graduate vet, who came out to my cob before Christmas. She said she had never heard of the condition and was sure it wasn't serious. Hmmm. It looks pretty serious when your horse has dirty hindquarters all winter.

My pony is 18 this time. He hasn’t got horrid spaces but the dentist told me not to feed chaff as it sticks between the teeth and causes infections.
After a year without chaff the teeth and gums were fine with very few sharp edges.
He is fed Fast Fibre

 

[anguscat]

Mine is the same. She’s fine all summer when she’s eating less hay. I did read about the colon having to work harder with hay so that might explain it.

Interesting. As was when my horse was in more for a few days when he had a small relapse.

 

[MereChristmas]

Mine is the same. She’s fine all summer when she’s eating less hay. I did read about the colon having to work harder with hay so that might explain it.

Is there any proof / investigation into which of grass, hay or haylage are most difficult to digest?
Or is this another of those questions to which the answer is ‘ it depends on the horse’?

 

[poiuytrewq]

I don’t think there’s any proof about anything really.
There is a fb page and general opinion is the finer and softer the hay the better. This ties in with the above comment of the colon working harder digesting hay.
My current hay, we make our own so it’s the same all year is pretty coarse which I’m hoping is why this has been a particularly bad winter.

 

[cauda equina]

My experience has been similar to Tiddlypom's - one of them had the Equibiome test, all of them have oily herbs now and no one gets free faecal water any more
Prior to the herbs psyllium was the only thing that really helped

 

[MereChristmas]

Thank you everyone.

 

[MereChristmas]

My experience has been similar to Tiddlypom's - one of them had the Equibiome test, all of them have oily herbs now and no one gets free faecal water any more
Prior to the herbs psyllium was the only thing that really helped

A few questions..trying to build a picture of experiences
Did you feed Equibiome probiotics while waiting for the results?
Did you need to use their numbered supplements?
Did they test and then suggest just oily herbs?
Or any other?

Whether hay makes a difference or not would you recommend adding oily herbs first or doing the test first?


Thanks

 

[cauda equina]

A few questions..trying to build a picture of experiences
Did you feed Equibiome probiotics while waiting for the results?
Did you need to use their numbered supplements?
Did they test and then suggest just oily herbs?
Or any other?

Whether hay makes a difference or not would you recommend adding oily herbs first or doing the test first?


Thanks

No, I waited for the results before tweaking the diet
Yes, I did use the numbered supplements as recommended
No, they tested and made various recommendations, one of which was oily herbs
They also recommended alfalfa which I won't feed, and bruised oats which I haven't got round to

We've completed the courses of numbered supplements but I'm carrying on with oily herbs for the whole herd (all 3 of them), not just the one who had the test
I also feed dried hedge herbs and leave non toxic weeds in the field alone.
The feeling in human medicine is that a diet with many different plantstuffs is good for the gut, which is good for the body as a whole, and I assume the same is true for horses

As for adding the herbs without testing - I can't think of any reason not to give it a go
If you subsequently decided to do the test you might end up with a different baseline.
Or you might decide that the problem was resolved so you didn't need to do the test at all

 

[Tiddlypom]

Equibiome suggest feeding their own pre biotic and also oily herbs to any horse awaiting the results of the test (which takes 8 to 10 weeks to run). That is what I did with Molly, the homebred who I had tested.

Molly was so uncomfortable and unhappy that this was the last throw of the dice for her, we (vets included) had run out of other options. So I did scrupulously follow their full post test protocol inc the numbered supplements with just that one horse, as the alternative was PTS. It has worked very well indeed. The other two mares did not ever show similar symptoms, so I did not run the Equibiome test on them, but after seeing how well Molly did I put them on the oily herbs, too. They are doing well on them.

 

[MereChristmas]

No, I waited for the results before tweaking the diet
Yes, I did use the numbered supplements as recommended
No, they tested and made various recommendations, one of which was oily herbs
They also recommended alfalfa which I won't feed, and bruised oats which I haven't got round to

We've completed the courses of numbered supplements but I'm carrying on with oily herbs for the whole herd (all 3 of them), not just the one who had the test
I also feed dried hedge herbs and leave non toxic weeds in the field alone.
The feeling in human medicine is that a diet with many different plantstuffs is good for the gut, which is good for the body as a whole, and I assume the same is true for horses

As for adding the herbs without testing - I can't think of any reason not to give it a go
If you subsequently decided to do the test you might end up with a different baseline.
Or you might decide that the problem was resolved so you didn't need to do the test at all

Equibiome suggest feeding their own pre biotic and also oily herbs to any horse awaiting the results of the test (which takes 8 to 10 weeks to run). That is what I did with Molly, the homebred who I had tested.

Molly was so uncomfortable and unhappy that this was the last throw of the dice for her, we (vets included) had run out of other options. So I did scrupulously follow their full post test protocol inc the numbered supplements with just that one horse, as the alternative was PTS. It has worked very well indeed. The other two mares did not ever show similar symptoms, so I did not run the Equibiome test on them, but after seeing how well Molly did I put them on the oily herbs, too. They are doing well on them.

Thank you both that will help a great deal towards my decisions.

 

[hobo]

So a week in and the gut sponge had stopped working, this seems to be a thing. A new product works for days amazingly then we regress.

Last night i opened up a bit more grass so my pony ate less hay, more grass (muzzled) and came in clean this morning.
Weird grass is his saviour. Sadly he is tiny fat and has cushings so it’s would also be his downfall.
Ron Fields and Trinity are next on my list to try.

That is exactly how my mare is she is beautifully clean now she is out at night and eating much less hay.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Is there any proof / investigation into which of grass, hay or haylage are most difficult to digest?
Or is this another of those questions to which the answer is ‘ it depends on the horse’?

It's not a study about digestion, but I had a vague recollection of a Swedish study about horses, and their food. Not sure it's actually the one I remembered, but google found a study which came out 2015, and also a magazine article from 2017 about the same study. Apparently the study was made because someone realised that the majority of seed mixes used to produce horse feed, was actually created to be optimal for cattle.

Maybe things have changed a lot since the study was made? Perhaps it is/was just a Swedish problem? Since I'm not a horse owner, I'm fully prepared to be told that I'm barking up the wrong tree here, but I'm thinking, that in case you're feeding your horse grass/hay from a seed mix meant to be ideal for a cow, that could affect the digestion?

In case anyone is interested, the study tried to find out what the horses themselves choose to eat if given a choice. They used broodmares, with or without foals by their side, on Broline stud (Harness racing/Trotters). They had wanted to broaden the study to also include other types of horses, but didn't get enough funding to do that.
The study took place during the Swedish grazing season (May to August/September, I think), 2011, and 2012. They planted a field in what looked like rectangles to me, but the study referred to them as squares, anyhow, the broodmares was allowed to graze the field during 3 periods each grazing season.

Most popular was English ryegrass, Tall fescue, and Kentucky bluegrass/Smooth meadow-grass.
Red fescue, and White clover was tasty, and together with Kentucky bluegrass best at covering the ground, and tolerating being grazed, and trampled.

I found 7 different English name suggestions for Foderlosta (Bromus Inermis), so I'll just say it's a brome, or bromegrass of some sort. It was tasty, but didn't grow well.

Less tasty was Timothy (which is/was? commonly used in most Swedish hay, it's supposedly good for cows), Meadow fescue, and Cock's-foot/Orchard grass.
Mostly rejected was Alfalfa/Lucerne, and Common bird's-foot trefoil.

Wild herbs was mostly rejected, and they also grew poorly.
Of the so called weeds, Dandelions, and Couch grass/Quick grass was especially popular.

As I understood it, if all grass was around the same height, the most popular types was clearly the mares main focus. If a less popular type had newer, shorter grass, whereas the favourites had been allowed to grow to become a bit older, and taller, then the types with newer, shorter grass would usually become a bit more popular. But some squares almost never got eaten at all.

The squares with the tallest grass usually became the squares where the mares preferred to poop, and if they pooped in a square, they normally didn't want to eat in it.
When a real drought period happened to occur, the mares ate absolutely everything down to a stubble.

Sadly I didn't see any exact number of how many horses it was that participated, but they used both the stud's own broodmares, and the broodmares staying at the stud to get inseminated by the stud's stallions (I presume that meant staying the whole grazing season, due to quarantine, and potential diseases, but I could be wrong). In either case, it was a mix of some mares participating both years, and some only participating 1 year. Interestingly enough, they said all the mares seemed to have the exact same preferences regarding their food.

I assume the soil, and weather conditions might've affected how the plants grew, and more varied types of horses could've also added something to the study etc, but it is what it is. Maybe someone still found this interesting.

 

[MereChristmas]

Thank you @FinnishLapphund
That is very interesting

 

[Flyingsolo]

I suspect you may see quite a positive change once on the hay instead.

 

[MereChristmas]

Update..13/3/23
The Acid Ease was finished during the snow, approximately 9, 10, 11 th of March.
I saw F on 7th and because of bad weather not again until 13th.
I won’t know until tomorrow what proportion of hay to haylage he is getting now
however his bum was although not perfect, cleaner yesterday the 12th than previously
Fingers crossed

 

[MereChristmas]

If he continues to improve I may not need the equibiome test
I will then think about helping his digestion with a general maintenance gut supplement.
Possibly NAF Gastriad which is what the vet recommended after Omeprazole and Sucafrate were finished

 

[MereChristmas]

Just to note..change over to hay begun 28 Feb..

15th March the hay/ haylage ratio is about 50 / 50

 

[MereChristmas]

I caught a poo in the muck skip today!
No liquid around the poo and no new wet on his bum although there was a little dried there.

 

[anguscat]

So a week in and the gut sponge had stopped working, this seems to be a thing. A new product works for days amazingly then we regress.

Last night i opened up a bit more grass so my pony ate less hay, more grass (muzzled) and came in clean this morning.
Weird grass is his saviour. Sadly he is tiny fat and has cushings so it’s would also be his downfall.
Ron Fields and Trinity are next on my list to try.

Yes…my horses recent relapse was because his grass turnout had been reduced because of bad weather.

 

[meleeka]

Mine is better now the grass is starting to come through. She’s also small and has cushings, but her field looks bare. I’m planning on putting the track up at the weekend, so we can actually grow some grass, then they’ll be strip grazed all summer, which will lessen the hay she gets. I could really do with some spring weather now to hasten things along.

 

[MereChristmas]

I have been checking F’s bum and tail everytime I see him.
His tail is much cleaner. The under hair isn’t stuck together. His bum is so much cleaner, not perfect but not messy.
He is getting well over 1/2 his net as hay.

He is a pain though because he pulls his bed to one side and lays his body in the bare area on the rubber mats and rests his head and neck on the bedding. The urine drains to where he lies. This means he has mucky hocks and his thigh and that part of his rug get wet nearly every day.
Now working on a plan to teach him to leave his bed alone. If he did he’d be dry.

 

[Highmileagecob]

The results of old Dobbin's gut biome analysis showed he was deficient in a couple of areas, one of which was associated with long stalk fibre, hay or haylage etc.. As he has two full size nets dally plus short chop fibre, I assume this is compromised dentition not chewing as he should. Since introducing short chop fibre and a more varied diet, his faecal water has cleared up for the first time in around eight years. He is still on a low dose of NSAID, and is doing well. Any chance of you changing the bedding for your horse to something he can't scrape aside?

 

[MereChristmas]

Any chance of you changing the bedding for your horse to something he can't scrape aside?

Working on it. Unfortunately there is a hollow in the floor the urine runs there. He can see out more that way round.

Does any one know if I filled the hollow with soaked wood / straw pellets and put his straw on top they would stay in place?