Help! Any tips for fussy eaters on Antibiotics recovering from gastric infection?

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BonnyB

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So basically our mare was admitted to our local Equine Hospital with a gastric infection and now she doesn't really feel like eating (or drinking for that matter). We have tried Happy Hoof, Sugar Beet, Horse and Pony cubes, Conditioning Cubes, Alfa-A Oil, wet food and dry food, carrots and re the water she was on a drip so has almost gotten used to not drinking normal water and she thinks Molasses water is not nice.
Any suggestions would be HUGELY appreciated, we are running out of things to try!
Thanks
 
I've been having lots of problems with my mare. Thankfully appetite is no longer her problem, but when it was, I put up this post and got lots of helpful replies.

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=438620

The best seemed to be soaked Spillers High Fibre Cubes - half a kettle of boiling water, then cold to cool and further soak it. She goes nuts for it! She's also loving soaked grass nuts. readigrass was a favourite too.

Anyway lots of suggestions on that thread, or just search most of my recent threads, chances are they will all be of a similar nature!!

Good luck.
 
Thanks for linking me up, a lot of suggestions and I'm pretty sure we'll exhaust them all! We were going to try her on 'slop' today and see what she makes of that, and if that seems better than normal food we'll get her a bag of Spillers like you said
Thanks again!
:)
 
Try apple juice in the water, she must start drinking again, is the water tainted with chlorine by any chance, I had a pony who had to drink river water for a few weeks till he got used to mains.
Sometimes when my boy was unwell I lifted his bucket up to his mouth. He loves Mare and Youngstock, which is an oat based muesli with a light molasses coating, only a little though .. it is rocket fuel!
 
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Hi Have you tried Horse Quencher - excellent product which really encourages horses to drink (I have no connection to the company so no bias!) you just add a scoop of the mixture to a gallon of water and leave to "brew" for a while - http://www.horsequencher.co.uk/ really worked for my very fussy horses.

Re antibiotic powders in feeds, try opening the packet and leaving it open for a few hours before you add it to the feed, it helps to get rid of the smell of the powder - my horse was on antibiotics for a couple of months and had previously had to have daily IM injections as he would not eat the feed with the powders in.

Good luck
 
if it's the antibiotics you can't get down then you MUST syringe them in. Feed wise will she eat grass? may be better calling your vets and see if turnout is ok?
 
Thanks for all this!
We took her some water from home today and she seemed to think that was much better, but they did say she was drinking more than she had been recently which is good.
She's been having the anti-biotics intravenously, but she has been quite suspicious of any food we have been offering her though she thought pasture mix was okaaaaaay, but she is allowed home tomorrow (fingers crossed) so hopefully she'll feel more like eating when she comes back! :)
 
Does she like peppermint? If so DD few drops of peppermint oil to her water ande also to her feed.

A live yogurt product is good at getting the digestive system to perk up again. I foound that syringing it into the mouth directly until they get used to the taste - after that had no problem with taking it. found that Apricot flavoured yogurt was most successful
 
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