No poo, when to worry?

Annagain

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M is on box rest as of yesterday morning for what we hope is a strained fetlock. He's on the yard on his own as all the others are out 24/7 but he's anti-social anyway and seems relatively chilled, considering. He's been on box rest before and been fine.

Having been on very fresh good grass until yesterday morning, yesterday there was plenty of poo, but overnight there were only two (admittedly pretty big) piles and all day today there's been nothing.

There's been lots of wee (grass was very wet after a lot of rain) and he's happy in himself, a little on edge as he can be in the early days of box rest but he's eating his feed (and bute) well and devouring grass when he goes for a quiet stroll (three times today for 10 mins each. He's barely touched his hay. He's bright and drinking as normal (which isn't a huge amount)

I'm going to go back in an hour for a poo inspection. I'm hoping it's just that he doesn't have much in his tummy but should I start worrying?
 

Pearlsasinger

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TBH I wouldn't worry unless he stops eating. Every colic case I have ever known has stopped eating very early on. Then I would get the vet asap. It sounds as if your horse just ins't really taking enough bulk through his system to produce much waste.
 

be positive

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If he is eating his feed well I would not be too concerned but I would give him an extra feed when checking later, something fibre based and ideally wet and sloppy to keep things moving, I give mine well soaked grassnuts and chop if they have a sudden change of diet as it helps their systems cope with the change, hopefully he will start eating some hay when he realises that is his only option.
 

Annagain

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Thanks. He had a bucketful of grass chaff and sloppy fast fibre at 8 so hoping that's on its way through. He's never a big fan of hay but I think coming off lovely fresh green grass to a net full of countrywide haylage for laminitics (he's not, but has a sugar allergy and it's all we could get in a hurry on a Saturday) is really not very appealing.
 

Annagain

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Panic over, we have poo. A great big sloppy one at that! It's also directly in line with his hay bet so he must been standing at it eating when he pooed. Given him another bucketful of chaff and fast fibre just to make sure, which he's tucking into as I type.
 

Dizzydancer

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Glad he pooed!!
My mare is on box rest at the moment and had colic Friday (on arrival at the vets thankfully!) my management plan has changed now as I didn't want her putting on too much weight while on rest so was restricting her in the day and adlib at night but now she is adlib 24/7 to prevent further colic as we think she gorged overnight.
 

wingedhorse

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My horse didn't poo from 12pm to 9pm, including 2.5 hours of travelling, which I thought unusual, nearly always poo in lorry. He was eating and drinking but no poo. I phoned vet, and said up to 12 hours can be normal. Could be normal or early signs of colic. My horse then poo-ed about 15 minutes later. I've now learnt this horse seems now to be able to go 9 hours without poo-ing and can be normal, but seems to be an age related change.
 
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