Horse with IBS !!!!

[RatzFatz]

Has anybody any advice or had a horse with this problem.

Earlier in the year Finn had a prolonged course of anti biotics, since then he has had very bad diarreah, green, smelly and like water!

He has had many tests by the vet including bloods and poo sample analysed, these have shown nothing wrong. The vet says it is irritable bowel syndrome caused by the anti biotics.

He is on codeine phosphate tablets 60mls, 15 tablets a day split over 3 feeds but these are doing nothing. We have tried, Pink powders, pro biotics and yogurt in his feed but the problem still exist.

Recently he has started to look poor, he is about 16 years old and usually thrives in the summer but at the moment looks terrible, he is also loosing his summer coat and seems to be going bald. He is only being lightly hacked at the moment

He is turned out about 6 hours a day, he has soaked hay at night and is fed a senior mix and conditioning nuts and Hi Fi.

Has anybody else had this problem, any ideas what to feed that might clear this up?

thanks

 

[11davisk]

I'm so sorry about your horse. What were the original antibiotics supposed to be treating? (the one's that caused the IBS) One of the feeds you are feeding him might be causing his diarreah. Maybe his system just doesn't handle one (or a combination) of those foods. I would take him off everything but hay for a week. Then I would slowly introduce food one at a time but only if he improves in that first week or two. Then just introduce a new food weekly or bi-weekly. That way if he gets diarreah again, you'll know the cause. If he doesn't improve, take him off hay and put him on grain alone. Good luck! Keep us posted!!

 

[zigzag]

Yes we had a horse with this, had to feed him dry food to try and bung him up a bit, this did improve his poos (he was also on Bluechip) but sadly died six months later

 

[appennea]

My horse had similar. I found upping fibre using sugar beet helped loads and was further helped by feeding top spec balancer and cutting down coarse mix.

 

[seabiscuit]

Have had the same- this is a large scale food intolerance.

try cutting out grass and all mix if that is what you feed. Try feeding only hi fibre nuts and bland hay. If still reacting no nuts just hifi with a mineral supplement. introduce other things slowly- trial and error.

 

[Taboo1968]

Echo what DofftheDerby has said..... Cut out the grass and any mixes, get as much fibre in as you possibly can..... Dengie Alfa A, Dodson and Horrell Alfalfa......and a mineral supplement (Feel good 30 one is good) If weight loss is a problem, have you thought of Full fat Soya? I have a horse that colics at the slightest thing and he was cut right down to Alfa A and minerals and then once stabilised on that, given full fat soya in each feed along with four haynets in stable, constantly full......

Hope you get it sorted.... let us know!

 

[Loopy Loo]

My mare was diagnosed IBS 3 years ago following a course of antibiotics. We went through the whole process of eliminating different feeds etc. In the end we've managed to stabilise her by turning out 24/7, on very low dose of Prenisolone and no hard feed at all (luckily we have good grazing and a large field shelter) During the process of trying different feeds she also had several nasty bouts of urticaria. She now looks the best she has for many years and is back competing and winning.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

RF - so sorry about Finn. My little rescued girl has significant liver damage and has needed a highly specialised diet drawn up to support whatever remaining functioning % of her liver that she has. The nutrition team at Dodson & Horrell have been superb and have taken a personal history, then their head nutritionist, Dr Theresa Holland gave further advice and they wrote to me to confirm all that they had said. I would recommend speaking directly to them with as many details as you can possibly gather - they are wonderful - I cannot recommend them highly enough and only hope they can do something to help you and Finn xxx

 

[henryhorn]

I would put him on as high a dose of aloe vera liquid as you can (phone Forever Living about dosage), I buy mine from Holland and Barret but they won't have experts for horse doses in there!
The aloe will soothe his inflamed gut wall and allow it to heal.
We have had an older horse with the same symptoms but his turned out to be thickening of the gut wall which didn't respond to any treatment.
If he didn't respond to probiotics then it can't be the gut flora being wrong, it's more likely to be a reaction to food he's eating.
Whatever is causing it the aloe will offer some relief from the pain and irritation inside, so can only help.

 

[Fahrenheit]

Hi
I also have a horse with IBS, my vet wanted to put her on steriods but because she was pregnant at the time we couldn't so I had to try and manage the condition until after she foaled, anyway I spoke to the specialist vet at the practise and he recommended Brewers Yeast and a feed called Saracen ReLeve, I had trouble getting hold of either from our local feed merchant and being new to the area didn't know many places to try, anyway I managed her condition by restricting her grazing to a small paddock (we believe her IBS was triggered when we moved from poor grazing near London to rich West Country land and the rich grass was definitely the triggering factor) and feeding Pink Powders in her hard food, we also only feed her nuts, she doesn't get sugarbeet or anything like that as that triggers it as welland she is on hay when everyone else gets haylage because haylage also triggers it. When the vet came back he couldn't believe what great condition she was in and the IBS was under control that he decided not to give her steriods.

 

[miss_bird]

My horse also suffers from this, she had it when i got her and the previous owner just said the runny poo was from the excitement of the journey, as it turns out it is spring ans summer grass that triggers her off.
Come the winter she is totally normally, when the grass is poor and she is on hay and hard feed she just seems to dry up.
Not sure what will happen this winter as i had to cut haylage instead of hay this year.

 

[RatzFatz]

Hi

Just a quick thanks for all the replies,

We have completely cut out all hard feed for the last 2 days. grazing for 4-5 hours and hay at night only, we are going to see if this makes any difference. Not sure how long it would take before we notice any change.

He had 2 long courses of anti biotics once in about Feb after a stable injury (pretty horific) he got his hind leg caught in the bars( internal stables) after kicking out at a horse walking by!! The bars have obviously now been removed.

About a month later he had a puncture wound in the opposite hind leg that got infected. So all in all lots of anti biotics!!!!

H, Mum we looked at your site for Coligon after reading about it on here. Will see if removing the hard feed makes a difference if not will call you.

This lovely horse loves to work and is missing out at the moment as its difficult to work a horse that projectile poos all over the place, plus he must be feeling dreadful

Once again thanks for the replies