Horse with squitters - Help!

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DebP

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Hope someone has some suggestions to help my boy.

His poop is quite normal, but he is passing a lot of liquid as well. His bum and legs need washing every day, which I'm sure he's fed up of. Some days the poopy liquid is so bad it's running off his fetlocks.:(

He gets a couple of small feeds of high fibre cubes, chaff and bran. He's on haylage balancer. He gets haylage in the stable and is turned out most days, but only for a couple of hours. Tried him on charcoal, but made no difference.

I've had him for 2 years, and had no problems until this winter. There isn't really a pattern to it either.

any suggestions welcome

thanks
 
It's started late autumn, but has been much worse for the last couple of weeks. Some days he's worse than others
 
He's wormed regularly. Don't think it's an issue for the vet, was looking for some suggestions on supplements & feeding that might help
 
try a large spoonful of natural yogurt in his feeds for a good few weeks, it worked on my daughters tb as he was the same, helps balance all gut..obviously if no imprtovement, try changing from haylage to hay perhaps?
 
One of mine gets a bit like this in Autumn, I put him on thrive seems to help I have realised though its the grass that does it as his in more now its better, it could be the haylage your feeding it can be quite rich my other horse cant cope with just haylage, I also use a prebiotic but cannot remember the name of it, its in a blue and white tub about £11 that does help too.
 
It was the haylage that did this to my boy.....made arrangements with the livery yard that he was on then, to swap over the hay and voila......problem solved within a couple of days! (i do soak my hay too).

His system just couldn't cope with Haylage and the fermentation process that it goes through to be made.
 
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I am feeding 2 5ml scoops of marshmallow, 1 scoop yea sacc, 1 of fenugreek, 30ml aloe vera juice, but this is for suspected hind gut acidosis with loose poop and the watery bit after, he was changed from haylage with balancer to just hay 3 weeks ago but the problem persisted. After 4 days of these additions water has stopped and poop is in loose formed balls and he is a lot happier :-)
 
McCauley said:
It was the haylage that did this to my boy.....made arrangements with the livery yard that he was on then, to swap over the hay and voila......problem solved within a couple of days! (i do soak my hay too).

His system just couldn't cope with Haylage and the fermentation process that it goes through to be made.
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Yes I have exactly the same problem with daughters little Irish lad. As soon as I change him from haylage to hay it stops in a couple of days. Unfortunately the hay isn't that good, so really could do with him on haylage but it's just not to be. I have tried haylage balancer and then when that didn't help, I rang naf and they very kindly sent me a free tub of thrive to try along with it but sadly it made no difference at all. Such a pain soaking the darn hay too! Sorry couldn't be more helpful but at least you know it's not just yours and it is a common problem. All my others eat the same haylage with no problems at all!
 
Never had these problems years back when i was a child, but then we only had hay....and the horses/ponies coped beautifully...shame its haylage all the way now, surely horses digestive systems aren't made to cope with fermented feed?! :)
 
SOME horses can get a reaction to haylage - but it's usually the type of haylage to blame rather than haylage generally. Haylage can be anything from below average hay to rocket fuel depending on grass type, when it was made, how wet or dry it was when baled etc. Put it this way, I have about 80 horses - including about 30 stabled at present - and NONE have shown a reaction to ad-lib haylage (other than a bit of weight gain.) My supplier bales for me - he knows I DON'T want the rocket fuel variety which is much more suitable for racehorses!
 
Had exactly the same problems with my lad. Big hairy cob with supposedly white legs and tail! Tried all the usuaml supplements, charcoal, yeasacc etc until I saw few threads on phoenix horse form suggesting clay. Currently using keratex zeolite and for 1st winter in 2 years have clean horse. There another one recommended called bentonite clay from ebay bit isnt made for equines so I stick with the zeolite. Added bonus is that my daughters grey ponio has got his dapples back since we started him on this.
 
Thanks everyone. Hay isn't an option on my current yard. The haylage this year is much 'better' than last year, (it's made on site), I thought this was likely to be the issue. I think the clay probably sounds like my next option to try, and fingers crossed for less good haylage for next year!
 
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