Older horse with loose manure

[XenaK]

Hello! I've got a 20 year old Quarter Horse gelding that has always had very loose manure, and liquid that will come out when he passes manure. He's up to date on worming, had a fecal test done recently, spring shots and teeth floated, etc. Currently he's being fed straight oats, per the vet's recommendation. I'm also giving him a basic probiotic that helps somewhat, and recently introduced a small amount of bran into his diet (again, vet's recommendation). He gets 10-12 hours of turnout on a grass pasture daily, and a mixture of grass and alfalfa hay. I've tried taking him off grain totally and switching hay, both with no change. The vet said that it's likely his colon is just aging with him, and he's having trouble retaining water.

This has been ongoing for over two years, ever since I purchased him. Does anyone else have experience with older horse diarrhea and how to stop it? Thank you all

 

[JLG]

Hi I did start to have this problem with my old boy. I started giving him Nettex gut balancer and then changed to Feedmark Biopro and this helped. I'm not sure why a vet would recommend straight oats to an oldie, and bran I think has been proven to have very little nutritional value. I fed alot of fibre both in short chop form and hay/haylage. It can be an age thing but I'm not convinced that the vets recommendations are appropriate. You could try some of the feed company advice lines - althopugh they do inevitably push their own products, you would get some up to date thinking about feeding an older horse. I doubt that bran and oats would come up. I hope this helps but pm me for more if you would like.