Loose droppings..any advice?

Charlie Bucket

Charlie Bucket

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My 5yr old TB X has very loose droppings. It's not full on diarrhea, more like cow pats!

He has always had this on and off - like when the spring grass comes through but then it returns to normal. But this time round it seems to be constant - no sign of it easing up at all.

I was advised to feed him a probiotic supplement, so he now has 36g of Pink Powder once a day in his evening feed. (A scoop of Alfa A, 3/4 scoop of Spillers Slow Release Energy Mix, handful of garlic) Before the pink powder he had Equivite Mineral Balancer.

He is on restricted grazing, an approx 2 acre paddock shared with 2 other horses. He stands in and has hay for around 3 hours a day, and is ridden everyday (weather permitting).

He is not off his food at all (has a big appetite!) is happy and energetic in himself, lovely coat shine, bright eye etc.

Just wondering if anybody has experienced something similar and whether it is something I should be worried about? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks and sorry for making this a novel! :p
 
So much rain and lush grass,my mare has the same problem I'm still giving her 2 small feeds a day so I can look her over(suffers from Sweet itch) and she happy healthy and putting on weight, if she's like this min 3 weeks time I shall put some yoguth in her feed but not really worried.
 
I have never heard that about Garlic - I have fed it to every horse I have ever owned. It is loose garlic, in a bag from my local tack shop. Can't for the life of me remember the brand name, but it is a common well known brand.

When I say handful, I mean I put my hand it the bag and pull some out - a large pinch then, rather than a full handful.

My mare has the same, and her droppings are fine.
Could you go further as to how it is harmful? I'm intrigued as I have always believed it was actually beneficial to the diet helping with digestion, worming, coat condition and internal fly repellent. Thanks! :)
 
I'm having the same issue with my 13yr old gelding.

Have tried:
Haylage balancer
Neem
Pink powder
Diaeeze
Gastriguard

None helping, diaeeze a little bit better than the other things. Feeding a bit hay helps slightly but may have to put up with it for now :(

I too have wormed etc.
Haven't tried happy tummy charcoal yet...next on the list!
 
Oh no :(
I feel your pain! I was also advised tummy charcoal if Pink Powder doesn't do the trick.

Good luck and let me know if you have a breakthrough! x
 
I was going to suggest worm - but you have done that :-)
Mine went a bit like that and in the end after the pro-biotics made no change the Vet advised another wormer a couple of weeks after.
Especially with all the weather at the mo all manner of weird things going on ;-)
 
My mare had a bout of something similar sounding last year. Myself, several vets and equine hospital were stumped as all tests came back clear/normal - she was in every other way the picture of health but I couldn't for the life of me firm up her poos. After reading alot of articles about motility disturbance I just worked my way through a long list of suggested solutions.

To cut a verrrry long story short, I now feed her Happy Tummy and *touch wood* it seems to have made quite a difference. It's charcoal and absorbs any excess liquid and/or gas that the gut is failing to. It does it's magic then passes out with the droppings. The trigger for my girl appeared to be wet weather (!) and despite all the rain we've had she's still doing ok and out 24/7.

But as others have said, the spring grass and prolonged wet weather have left quite a few with loose droppings at the minute. I would say as since as he's holding weight, eating and appearing normal within himself then it's unlikely to be anything too sinister.

Feel free to PM if you want to chat about it any more.
 
Mine is doing the same - have only had him for a month but he's gone from only going out during the day to being out 24/7 since he's been here. With the horrid wet weather I've put it down to that for now - our grass isn't great so I'm giving him some extra fibre but its still cowpatty. He seems happy in himself so I'm going to wait until the weather clears a bit and then see if it improves, if not I'll try prebiotics.
 
Thank you everybody for your replies. I know, this weather is awful and seeming to be causing all sorts of nightmares! It's May for goodness sake...you would think it was still February!

I never feed haylage, always hay. He had a bout of colic from it a couple of years ago, too rich for him. I don't know whether it would affect him the same now but I'm not willing to risk it.

Again thank you for your replies so far! Tummy charcoal is sounding appealing, but I will wait and see if the Pink Powder has any effect first. :)
 
I've got one that always has an iffy tummy! Had vets check him out- no probs, they said feed ad-lib hay in a very small hole haynet so he has constant fibre going through him which helped. Have heard pink powder isn't very good, I have found brewers yeast works for mine, and I currently use gastri-aid which seems to work brilliantly for him even on a lesser dose. Have also discovered he is better on a molasses free diet as the sugar upsets him, and on the advice of a friend discovered that he has a mild biotin allergy, so no hoof supplements for him :(
I'd test certain things in his feed if it doesn't stop, and possibly get a worm count done in case he has worms that are resistant to a brand of wormer. As long as he's drinking plenty and looks and acts bright and normal then I wouldn't be too worried. :)
 
When one of mine had very 'cow patty' poos I tried Baileys Digest Plus. It worked within a couple of days and I always keep some in stock now just in case. It is also quite inexpensive which is another plus!
 
Have you done a worm count and bloods?
I did this to rule out problems in my horse as its been s long term problems.
Pink powder made no difference.
He get pure feed, Adlib hay and lots of turn out.
It was improving but had gone back to how it was due to this weather!

I'm going to try charcoal just have to decide which one to try!
 
my pony can get very loose at times. He's regularly wormed and on a high fiibre diet, so when he gets like this I buy ground carob from Valley View feeds and feed this for a week and it sorts him out.
 
blucanoo1990 said:
Have you done a worm count and bloods?
I did this to rule out problems in my horse as its been s long term problems.
Pink powder made no difference.
He get pure feed, Adlib hay and lots of turn out.
It was improving but had gone back to how it was due to this weather!

I'm going to try charcoal just have to decide which one to try!
Click to expand...

I can recommend Happy Tummy (from Fine Fettle Feeds). There are others on the market that are 'activated' which I understand to mean have been artifically manufactured and so not quite as porous as the natural stuff. So I imagine the less surface area of the flakes the more you'd have to use for the same effect... I could be wrong though :o

Also it's worth reading the ingredients of the supps as a lot of them have the same active ingredients as each other but are just flavoured slightly differently. Can safe a bit of time and money if you know which are v. similar.
 
I have just started feeding my mare gastri-kalm from Equus Health which is a charcoal supplement. Im feeding it for a different reason but Im told that it is very good for loose droppings and general tummy upset. The idea is that it helps to adsorb toxins and acids to try and keep the gut environment more balanced. As it doesn't have any nutritional value it can be fed with any other feed or supplements and won't affect the probiotics. It is also very cheap! It is probably just the combination of spring grass and the extreme wet but a supplement may just help to get him through it.
 
I had this with my tb last year. She was on pink powder anyway so I switched her onto haylage balancer and it did the trick.
 
thistledonicely said:
I can recommend Happy Tummy (from Fine Fettle Feeds). There are others on the market that are 'activated' which I understand to mean have been artifically manufactured and so not quite as porous as the natural stuff. So I imagine the less surface area of the flakes the more you'd have to use for the same effect... I could be wrong though :o

A.
Click to expand...

I think it is the other way round! - Activated charcoal is more porous, but it has gone through a treatment process to make it more effective. I think that activated charcoal is the most common type when used in medicine. I guess it depends on whether you want something exactly as nature created it, or something specifically designed for the job. As far as I know activated charcoal has gone through a heat treatment process so it is still a natural product - it is not
artificially made or had chemicals added...
 
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