Hindgut acidosis and feeding supplements to a good doer

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bounce

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I'm currently convinced that my pony has hindgut acidosis and am considering getting him scoped for ulcers also but understand that if he has a hindgut issue the scope will not show this as doesn't go that far. Plus I have also read that gastroguard can do more damage if there is a hindgut issue due to food passing through undigested.

I'm trying to decide whether to give Ritetrac or another product a go before scoping him as I know that is going to stress him out further. He is a very stressy pony who can't stand the vets, needles etc and has to have large amounts of sedation for anything to be done to him. The stress of the scoping alone is likely to bring on ulcers if he hasn't already got them! Let alone the absolute nightmare of trying to get Gastroguard into him if he has to have it. Its practically impossible to use a syringe wormer on him and he wont touch his feed if it has drugs in it.

He is already on ad lib hay and 10 hours grazing a day, which I think could possibly initially be causing the problem due to high sugar levels, although the grazing is not so plentiful now. He is a very good doer so he only gets a handful of happy hoof to get his vits/minerals in and all hay is soaked to take any sugars out of it. I want to add oil to his diet as that is supposed to assist in ulcer cases but worried that he will put extra weight on when he is currently not in much work. I was also considering adding bicarbonate of soda as understand that is the main ingredient in Ritetrac from the searches I have done on here, or will it be neutralised before it reaches the hindgut?

I understand that you need to feed a lot of Ritetrac for it to be effective. Can anyone advise as to how they managed to feed the required levels of oil or Ritetrac when the horse was plenty fat enough already. And any experience of how quickly you can expect to see a difference in the horse?

Any other suggestions of what to try before booking the scoping? Or should I just get on with the scoping first?
 
bounce said:
I'm currently convinced that my pony has hindgut acidosis and am considering getting him scoped for ulcers also but understand that if he has a hindgut issue the scope will not show this as doesn't go that far. Plus I have also read that gastroguard can do more damage if there is a hindgut issue due to food passing through undigested.

I'm trying to decide whether to give Ritetrac or another product a go before scoping him as I know that is going to stress him out further. He is a very stressy pony who can't stand the vets, needles etc and has to have large amounts of sedation for anything to be done to him. The stress of the scoping alone is likely to bring on ulcers if he hasn't already got them! Let alone the absolute nightmare of trying to get Gastroguard into him if he has to have it. Its practically impossible to use a syringe wormer on him and he wont touch his feed if it has drugs in it.

He is already on ad lib hay and 10 hours grazing a day, which I think could possibly initially be causing the problem due to high sugar levels, although the grazing is not so plentiful now. He is a very good doer so he only gets a handful of happy hoof to get his vits/minerals in and all hay is soaked to take any sugars out of it. I want to add oil to his diet as that is supposed to assist in ulcer cases but worried that he will put extra weight on when he is currently not in much work. I was also considering adding bicarbonate of soda as understand that is the main ingredient in Ritetrac from the searches I have done on here, or will it be neutralised before it reaches the hindgut?

I understand that you need to feed a lot of Ritetrac for it to be effective. Can anyone advise as to how they managed to feed the required levels of oil or Ritetrac when the horse was plenty fat enough already. And any experience of how quickly you can expect to see a difference in the horse?

Any other suggestions of what to try before booking the scoping? Or should I just get on with the scoping first?
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working on the basis you have HGA. Bicarb doesn't make it to the hind gut. You need protected bicarb which is equishure. Equishure is one of the main ingredients in rite trac.
I would suggest you start by simply feeding equishure and see if there is any improvement in your pony. Neither rite trac nor equishure put on weight. Equishure simply improves digestion in the hind gut. Whether improved digestion would put on weight may be another matter if the pony starts disgesting it's feed properly. I feed 90g of equishure per day to around 500kg.

90 g for me is 3 very small scoops. I feed it 3 times a day to one and twice a day to another. I mix it into soaked alfalfa pellets and no one objects to eating it.
I started feeding 2 last Nov. One, who had ended up in horse hospital with colic, improved within days. The improvement continued. The other was slower, probably a couple of weeks and he has continually improved since then. He has gone from
dangerous and totally stressy, certainly unrideable, to being so laid back I sometimes feel I should get off and carry him.

I was in a similar position ie stomach, scope and possibly GG or hindgut. After reading everything I could I decided to try the hind gut first with equishure and scope afterwards if it failed.

Equishure isn't cheap and I think you would have to be prepared to try it for at least 3 weeks which is a large tub. It is probably no more expensive to try than scoping and GG.

If you were going to go for the hind gut first I would use equishure rather than rite trac to try and narrow things down a bit.
 
I was going to say Equishure too, it's fantastic stuff! No, it isn't cheap but it does what it says & I found that once my horse had stabilised I could drastically reduce the dose. I did have a few problems feeding it initially, but to be fair at that point I was struggling to get him to eat anything at all so adding anything was always going to be difficult. If you think he'll be difficult start by adding a tiny amount & build up, it'll take longer to see a result but hopefully it will mean you can eventually get a full dose down him. When I got him eating it, even at below recommended rate, I got a dramatic improvement very quickly - his appetite improved, he stood better (we also had problems with laminitis at the time) & he didn't look anywhere near as tight along his flanks. Try it, it's worth every penny.
 
Another vote for Equishure - we've got one who has been very poorly with hindgut issues (to the point we had started to discuss PTS). He is only young and think he's had gut troubles all his short life. We are under a programme with vet Donna Blinman - so far the only vet who has helped him at all.

He was scoped twice by prev vets, and given gastroguard, and each time deteriorated afterwards, presumably partly because of the fasting involved prior to scoping.

He is now off equishure but still on his programme of supplements and bacteria. We are making slow but steady progress.
 
Having had a few issues with two of our horses this year, we talked to vet about scoping etc. In the end, we used a test kit called "Succeed" (and a further lab test) for blood in the poo. The Succeed test gives a result which allows you to decide whether the blood has originated from the stomach (gastric ulcers) or the hindgut (colonic ulcers). However... some acidosis may be early stage and not have resulted in ulceration/bleeding, so there can still be acidosis but a negative result. The test is not as accurate for gastric ulcers as a scope, but it's a whole lot less stressful (you collect a poo sample - you don't need to starve the horse for 12 hours, transport them, sedate them and scope them ;) ).
In the end, we went down the Gastroguard route with one horse, and a change of feed/supplement route with the other. The GG horse rejected the tubes after the first three, so the GG was added to his feed on vet's advice. His course is now complete and it's a case of trying to work out what feed/management leads to the least windsucking (his obvious symptom). Very interested to read about the Equishure - I might have a look at that!

The end of the process will be a second lab test for both horses after 6 months of treatment/management change, to see if we have had an effect with what we've done :)
ETA - this is the Succeed test the vet got for us - I dont know what additional lab test was used I'm afraid! http://www.succeedfbt.com/
 
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Thank you all for your responses. Just after posting I had a rather bad bout of food poisoning so have only just felt well enough to get back to the computer to respond.

My main concern I guess on the Ritetrac is the quantity of powder you have to feed and the amount of times during the day as obviously my lad is only getting a handful of chaff once a day and it is going to take more than that amount of food to mix it in so will undoubtedly put more weight on. I will have to see how little food I can get away with mixing it up with I guess.

My vet did mention the test from Succeed but also said that if we got a positive from it then we would have to scope anyway so may as well just scope first. Although from the info on the Succeed website that may not be the case. More information to look into I guess.

I have started him on the bicarb mixed into linseed so will see if there is any difference with this before buying the Equishure.
 
My lad has been diagnosed with hindgut issues - I was told previously that you can test the PH level of the droppings to check the acidity of the hind gut. Might be worth looking into? PH strips are cheap and readily avail....
 
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