Fed up!! Chronic loose poo/diarrhoea/ulcers!! Can anyone help??

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MissieSFW

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I have an 8 year old TB mare who I bought in September. Ever since she came she has had very loose droppings, ranging from at best squidgy unformed mounds through cow pats to at worst explosive diarrhoea. Over the winter she has consistently lost weight and condition and looks ribby and poor.

I have had the vet out 3 times since November for diarrhoea and colic, and they have run all manner of tests including bloods, faecal sample, ultrasound and scoping, none of which has turned anything up with the exception of the scoping which diagnosed low grade gastric ulcers (so minor the vet actually advised not to bother treating, although I wasn't happy with this advice so she has had a course of Abprazole granules as couldn't afford Gastroguard - has made a small improvement in certain things such as her coat condition and appetite for hay but nothing dramatic), however the vet didn't think that the diarrhoea was related to the ulcers, and sure enough the ulcer treatment has made no difference to the consistency of her droppings. She is fed a bland, high fibre diet consisting of ad lib good quality hay (which I struggle to get her interested in but haylage gives her the squits!), 1kg Alfa A oil, 2.5 kgs of Calm & Condition and 450g Baileys Lo Cal balancer per day split into 4 feeds, and can't see how I can really feed her much more but I still struggle to keep any weight on her. I'm at my wits end as have spent an absolute fortune on vets bills, feed and supplements and got absolutely nowhere! So far I have tried:

Quizzing the previous owner - said she could be a bit loose on good grass and haylage but nothing major so either she's downplaying it or she has got a lot worse since coming to me, as apparently kept condition last winter on same diet as now plus haylage!!
Cutting out various feed groups eg. alfalfa to see if she improves -she doesn't
Adding a Probiotic - Feedmark BioPro which she has been on since Oct with no effect whatsover
5 day Panacur wormer prescribed by vet for certain type of worms known to cause diarrhoea - no effect
Abprazole ulcer granules - no effect
Feedmark ulcer calm plus meadowsweet and slippery elm - may possibly be helping with the ulcers but no effect on poo
corn oil - as above!
codeine tablets - was prescribed these by vet during her last episode of diarrhoea at a rate of 10 twice a day for 7 days, dropping to 5 twice a day for 2-3 days. She had 4 doses then went the other way and colicked! Cue emergency vet callout.

I would be really grateful for any suggestions of where to go next. I have asked my vet about testing for intolerances, as my instinct is that she's picking something up from the grazing (god knows what) and was told the tests can be very expensive and not very reliable, however there is a £40 initial test for sensitivity to 4 different kinds of grasses which if it shows up positive can then be taken further, so I'm considering doing that. I have also asked them about supplements I could try, but they have said not to bother and just to keep everything simple and use codeine at a very low dose if she gets really bad, but I keep hoping that there must be some kind of answer or solution out there somewhere.

I am considering trying:
Switching her onto Pure feeds to strip everything right back to a simple diet with lowest possible sugar, starch etc
Activated charcoal
Colligone
Gastro Plus
Global Herbs Diareze
Boswellia (so-called wonder herb advised by Feedmark)
Aloe vera juice

But I don't know which to try first or whether I'm just throwing good money after bad and actually none of them will be effective for this kind of chronic problem with no obvious cause.

Any suggestions would be extremely welcome! So sorry this is so long but thought you probably needed to know the whole story!
thanks for reading :rolleyes:
 
My situation was no where as extreme as yours but my previous boy suffered with loose droppings and weight loss. I put him on Coligone powder for 6 months and he never looked back. He gained weight and general condition and the loose droppings stopped. After about 12 months I took him off the powder and just gave him the liquid when we were competing and that seemed to do the trick.

Current mare had issues with weight but not droppings and I have had brilliant results with Linseed Meal, she had a mug and a half a day and piled on the pounds. I give her brewers yeast which for her tummy as when I first put her on haylage she did get loose droppings but since she has been on the brewers yeast that has stopped.
 
Hi, that's interesting to hear you had good results with the Coligone. Was your horse a chronic case also or just from time to time on good grass etc?
Have actually tried linseed in the past (forgot to mention that!) but didn't make a jot of difference. I've considered Yeasacc / Brewer's Yeast but think they're in her probiotic anyway and as that's not made any difference I couldn't see why the 'pure' version would either!
 
My boy has a tendency to get the squits, and as he suffers from separation anxiety it gets word when he travels and hacks out etc, although he is a good eater and holds his weight well.

I have found charcoal, micronised linseed and brewers yeast added to his feeds have helped keep him more regular and the brewers yeast has relaxed him a little so he is less likely to stress poo!!

What's your mare like to handle? And what is her routine??

If she is not keen on her hay I would be inclined to feed her a large trug of Alfa-a or even have a look at fibre blox, I know simple systems make them.
 
My horse had chronic diarrhoea for a year post ulcer treatment. Nothing the vets gave him touched it. Someone recommended I contacted Jonny at silverliningherbs and he recommended a herb mix which cleared up the problem. Never had an issue again. So try Jonny - a course cost £30 and one lot solved the issue.
 
Thanks SpottedCat, I will look into that!
Doratheexplorer - she is very easy to handle, not a stress head at all. Goes away from others without any problems and never box walks or gets stressed even though she is brought in alone at night (my shetlands stay out). Arguably you could say this causes her some stress but she has only been coming in since the beginning of Feb as we didn't have stables til then, so her problems precede that, and the benefits of getting her off the grass for a few hours probably outweighs any potential stress. She also has a stable mirror. She is out all day with company and ad lib hay in the field. I have given her extra Alfa A and chaff as a forage replacer but seemed to make her worse! maybe the chaff had a sugar coating?!
 
Mine was a chromic case, there was no real cause or specific trigger, he was always loose and then sometimes awful. He was wormed, blood tested and pulled apart by the vets and they didn't really have any ideas. I really struggled with his weight over winter for the first 2 years I had him and then after the Coligone I had the opposite problem, no more conditioning feeds for him!
 
That sounds just like Annie! Sounds like it may be worth a try. So hard to know what to try in what order, and then with knowing what to feed as well just makes it all a minefield!!
What did you feed your boy?
 
I have a mare who had a very bad case of colitis and had severe Diahorrea on and off. The vet hospital told me to feed Alfa A and sugar beet to help bind her dropping and Happy Tummy charcoal to settle her stomach as well as Protexin. Once she improved I moved her onto Hifi Molasses Free but kept her feed mainly sugar beet. I have continued the Happy Tummy and am really pleased with the result as no reoccurance of the colitis or diarrhoea. I have a loan pony who had some stomach irritation presumably from worm damage and her stomach issues have calmed down completely with sugar beet and charcoal. Again she has had no reoccurance since this diet change.
 
Some horses can't tolerate C&C - one of mine lost weight and went loopy on it - and I've seen horses that couldn't deal with too much soya oil too.

I've used Protexin with great effect on my TB's over the last couple of years. If I were you and ditch the C&C, feed umollassed beet, unmollassed chaff (Alfa A or Hi-Fi unmollassed), micronised linseed or Omega rice (a linseed and rice bran pellet that brilliant for weight gain), Protexin and a good vit supplement.

I've definitley found that less can be more when feeding TB's so lots of hay and a simple fibre and oil rich feed.
 
@ MissiSFW

Did you check for hindgut acidosis? It is amazing, very little people know about it but it is as common as gastric ulcers in race & competition horses.

The PH value should be about 6.7 to 7 in the feeces, once when it drops under 6.5 in many cases the troubles start.

This is allmost caused by the feeding history and it can be supportet by overdoing protein for an example. Once the horse has to start to digest protein in the hindgut by bacterial action the gut flora will change and might become acidic.
As well overdoing concentrates (starch) will cause this in the same way.
 
I would also recommend Protexin. I had a foal born who contracted C-diff at 2 days old and nearly died. She did recover well but it left her with a sensitive tummy and the Protexin really helped. When I had to do things such as worm her, change her field, travel her etc I'd give her one of their concentrated syringes (called Quick Fix I think) the same day and it would boost her gut flora and really help to keep her system normal. Worth a try?!
 
I could write a book on this subject. I've found (through many tests and lots of £) that my horse has had a previous worm burden as a youngster and has some damage to the hind gut. I can't cure it, but have to manage it as best I can. For mine it's not his tummy, but the reabsorption of water in the hind gut that's the problem. When the ground is wet I just tweak the supps and he's fine. In summer, rarely a problem. Anyway, I've tried lots of supplements and feeds and found numerous things that have worked.

Protexin - not on it at the moment, but has been genius in the past.
Haylage Balancer - he's not on haylage, but this works really well and quickly too.
Biotal Equine Gold - again, really good.
Dodson and Horrell Yeasacc - fabulous stuff, on it now as a tiny amount

I took mine off all mixes, fancy chaff and went right back to basics. He now has hi fi lite and horse and pony nuts and that's it, because mine has always held his weight and is a good doer.

I also put him onto older, longer stem grass as by restricting his grass intake, he was grazing on the newer, more yummy stuff and that didn't help either. Weird, but it worked!

I hope some of this helps. I was forever washing bums and tails. Good luck and keep us posted :D
 
Coligone is very good stuff...

Personally I would look at changing the diet. My TB is currently on pure feeds and doing very well on them. I would also look at putting protexin in the feed (their rabbit stuff is a miracle worker, saved one of my rabbit's lives!) and giving Coligone, and seeing how you get on with that.

Could she have malabsorbtion syndrome?
 
I second Silver Lining herbs, they are excellent. Ditto Coligone.
Do you feed her many carrots? I had one whose system just could not cope with more than 1 small carrot twice a day. Any more and he got totally liquid explosive diarrhoea. Nothing else ever affected him like that. I know of a 4* horse who can't cope with carrots either.
Another thing to try is Forgastrin, which is charcoal powder. It has always helped mine and is surprisingly palatable to them. Nice and cheap too iirc.
 
@ Willbur_Force

yip and what you have done has a logic. One of mine (I allways buy rescue horses) has the same.

Once when she is out on wet grass she will blow up like a ballon in the microwave. Too much fresh grass and a high moisture content does not work out with horses like them.
It does cause a fermentation in a rate the horse can`t deal with.

The next thing with them is, because of this the synthesis of B vitamins in the hindgut is not working proper and due to a lack of Vit B12 they tend to be always a slight bit anaemic.
Pic 1 is as I did get her, Pic 2 is 7 weeks later and Pic 3 was now after nearly 3 years

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My youngster was 3 yr old when he suddenly developed this problem. I couldn't back him until he was 5yr old as he just wasn't strong enough to carry any weight.
We spent thousands on vet fees only to be told when he was 5 that they couldn't figure out what was wrong and suggested we consider the possibility of PTS.

He was a serious case, you could see him mildly colicing usually once a week. His work load was very low as I never rode him when he was bad. I had to wash his back end everyday without fail otherwise the diarrhoea would burn him. He was bloated, windy and constantly 'leaking', lacking weight and dull coat.
he was fed in fast fibre and calm condition.
Protexin was the best start, that dried him up partially.
Then someone suggested coligone. That also worked quite well and we were able to get him to an acceptable level with about 1 bad day a week and he gained weight.

Then at YHL I saw healthy tummy advertised. It worked amazing for him! I went through 2 bags and then went to plain alfa a and sugar beet. Now I've added Baileys no 4 to it and he is fine :) and he looks amazing! He is now competing and he is even carrying a bit too much weight.

I get very occasional loose days so I'm going to add coligone back into the diet as he is soon going to start his eventing career at the age of 7 :) which is quite something as at one point I thought he was a gonna.

I've recently spoken to a friend of mine who is a nutritionist and he said alfa a is a bicarbonate buffer (alkali) and fed in small amounts prior to riding can stop acid splashing in the stomach. I've tried it with Tom and I have to say he's not so grouchy to girth up. Good luck
 
Wow, she sounds just like my boy! Cannot recommend Pure Feeds enough, it's made all the difference in the world to him. He also has gastri-aid & we finally don't have a tail full of sh@t every day.

Really would suggest giving it a go.
 
I suffered this for years with one of mine who also suffered Ulcers, by chance i switched to a different feed containing no Alfa.

Differance was amazing he's been off all Alfa now for 2 years & i had 2 episodes of slight scouring both times have been when he has had a change in hay or swapped paddocks. In both instances it has cleared up within a 1/2 a day. Before it would last a a whole winter varying in how bad it could be, most times it would be that bas we would have to sedate the horse as he would be running round the stable when the scouring would start & then would back himself upto a wall & press his bum on it to try to stop the diarrhoea.
We tried so many products but everyone would normally help slightly for a week or two & then it would get worse again even on whichever product we where using.

Im not saying your horse is intolerante to Alfa but if i went through this again i would definitely start cutting things out for a month logically. Including grass if needed.
 
Hm, what you should take care about and consider in with alfalfa is some side effects.

Alfalfa is very high in calcium and it does contain bigger amounts of phytin.

So if you feed a pound this might be OK but if you feed bigger amounts it will smash your ratio calcium - phosphorous.

At the same time when you overdo calcium the uptake of zinc will be reduced (other traceminerals as well) and zinc is what you need for to build some digestive enzymes.

Also the phytin is a inhibitor for the uptake of zinc.

Zinc does play a rule in about 300 enzymatic and also hormonal processes in the horse. It is essential.

Why does (Alfalfa) or better the calcium work with castric ulcers?

Very easy, it is the same principal like with limestone (calcium) and acid.

When you have a sink full of limestone or a kettle you use acid for to descale it. During this process the acid will be neutralized.

This is the same thing like with Renny for us. But like we know Renny can cause indigestion.

Alfalfa is always looked far to insulatet or single spottet. When ever you have an effect, you also will have a side effect.

In the moment Alfalfa is promoted as the overall supa dupa thing. Well it is cheap to plant and it will be sold with a better margin than any other feed stuff.


So there is a hype.

I get continuos blood`s from racehorses from different countries for a controll.

It is very noticable that the horses from a country like France where they feed big amounts of alfalfa all show the same results (problems) in the blood or even hair mineral analyses.

They are all very high in calcium, at the same time low in phophorous and out of range.
As well they are low in zinc but for this sometimes too high in copper.

This does stand in relation to the interaction of the elements to each other.

Furthermore, if you overdo the calcium, you put the kidneys under pressure and supressing zinc does also mean reduced healing properties.

Zinc is also in interaction with the DNA and cell divison and much more.

So the benefits out of alfalfa are more than questionable.

If you have a horse with gastric ulcers or gut trouble you mostly better of when you use beetpulp.

Beetpulp does contain about 20% of pectine and together with the gastric acid this will build a protective slime for the mucosa.
As well it is absolutely easy to digest the fiber is about 50% better digestible than the fiber from hay.
 
thanks very much for the two very interesting posts on alfalfa. She has been off the Alfa A Oil and on nothing but unmolassed sugar beet since Sunday night, and since last night her droppings have been much improved. Not normal as in proper balls, but mounds at least as opposed to cow pats and diarrhoea. She was also wormed for encysted redworms with Equest last night which I suppose may also have had an impact, but so far your theory would appear to be standing up!
The next stage is to add in something more conditioning and also a vit/min supplement - my dilemma is whether to go down teh route of linseed meal and a separate supplement (if so which one?!) or to try the Pure Condition from Pure Feed Co which seeems to have got some rave reviews. If you have any advice on this front I'd be very grateful! The calories in Pure Condition come mainly from full fat soya oil- I'm not sure whether this could cause problems in itself for a very sensitive horse? If so would linseed be better?!
 
I can`t give you a proper advice for UK I don`t know what is available. I am more focused on the continent and Ireland.

There is one thing I can tell you, if you want a balanced diet look for a balancer that is not a compound feed or only a more concentratet mixed feed.

Vits and minerals have to be fully independent from any other things like protein, carbohydrates, starch or fat.

For to give you a rough idea, have a look at his and then check what is available more or less similar in your country.

If you gor for something like this you can feed "straights" in the way your horse can deal with and you need only very little.

Depending on you horse (weight and work) maybe about 70 gram per day and nothing else.

http://www.freetrainingsystems.com/..._content&view=article&id=61&Itemid=59&lang=en

But you should check first about your hay, the balancer above is strong in copper for to level out the copper deficiency in Ireland.

The best fiber source you ever can get is beetpulp. It is the so called "super fiber".

If you need to top up protein, the best source ever is Soybean meal. Use only little it is highly concentratet.

Fat? Well the best fat source for a horse might be rapeseed oil or even soja oil.

A horse like yours will not need any starch so you can do a powermix from enough hay, beetpulp, Oil, if necessary soybean meal.

So, why to buy it bagged as fast food, make it up your self. So you know about what you have and you don`t need to wonder about fancy ingredients.

Good luck to you, you will find the right stuff and do it right.
 
Thanks for all the info :) maybe it's the sugar beet added to his diet that cleared Toms problem.
Either way I'm happy, he is much healthier now, really interesting read on alfa alfa :)
 
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