Mare soaking wood pellet bedding!! HELP

[SophieHoney]

Hello everyone,

I have a mare who just soaks her bedding, she drinks and wee's buckets! (Her passport says she's 19 but dentist thinks she's nearer 23-24) Vet tested her for cushings a while ago but came back negative, but she's being tested again this week. We've had her 5 and a half years but she used to live out all year round so we didn't really notice the excessive peeing until she started to live in at night in winter about 2 years ago. She used to be bedded on straw but I was taking 90% of the bedding out every day because it was soaking wet! The pee used to run out of her stable and onto the yard and into other stables it was that bad! So yard owner got very annoyed as this was affecting other liveries. We switched to Liverpool wood pellets about 2-3 months ago and all was going well whilst the bed was new, but just a few weeks later the whole bed gets soaked every night! (I must add, we sealed all around the stable with cement to stop it flooding the yard!!) I started off taking the poo out and then taking small bits of wet out every other day, then every day. Adding 3 bags a week - putting in dry, not soaking - but this just isn't working anymore. The bed is absolutely soaked every single morning and there is pee running out of the stable all over the yard! A base has formed from the bedding but my mare pees so much she just soaks everything!!

Can anyone help? Either how to manage the bed for an EXTREMELY wet horse or how to manage cushings?? Myself and everyone at my yard are convinced she has cushings or possibly a kidney problem? As she drinks and drinks and gets so thirsty and then pees buckets!! Like i said earlier, vet is coming out this week but if there's no cure/successful management of whatever she has, then i need to manage her bed! Any help or advice would be much appreciated, i'm desperate!!
Thanks!

 

[xgemmax]

I think obviously asking the vet is your first post of call, have you tried taking out all the wet everyday and not leaving a base? My gelding wees a lot but I still manage only taking the wet out once a week on wood pellets so she must be weeing a hell of a lot!

 

[SophieHoney]

Definitely, a friend told me about some injection?? or something that helps manage cushings so hopefully the vet will come up with something. May have to give that a try as deep littering/forming a base is just not working!! Will take all the wet out and mix new bedding in. She really does, she's like a tap!! Thanks for your help!

 

[be positive]

I had one that started drinking excessively and peeing constantly, he was diagnosed with cushings but the drinking/ peeing continued so going against what was logical and approved by the vet I introduced a fairly high level of electrolytes into his diet for a couple of weeks, my gut feeling was that he was flushing out too much which in turn made him drink even more, he slowed down the drinking, the urine became more concentrated, less frequent and a normal colour, I then gradually cut the salts down until he just had a spoonful each day, it seemed counter productive but it worked for him, don't do it without your vet agreeing as it could damage the kidneys further but we had ruled out kidney damage/ infection and needed to do something as he was losing weight as well as being distressed by the constant need to pee.

 

[SophieHoney]

that's really interesting actually, i'm glad you found a solution!! i will see what the vet says about cushings etc and suggest trying electrolytes, just done some research! Thanks so much for your help!