PLEASE CAN ANYONE HELP!!!!

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charlie_D

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my daughter's 4 yr old coloured mare has had chronic diarrhoea since we bought her last year. the previous owners must have had her on some kind of medication as she was ok until we got her home and she hasn't been right since. she is ok on grass but on hay is terrible. rich haylage seems to be ok for her even though we have been told this should make her worse. we have spent a fortune on different remedies. bio-pro, bran, pink powder, benecol yoghurts!!, vitality health plus, changing and cutting out hard feed,experimenting with different types of hay, etc. physically she seems fine - no other signs of distress or ill health. the vet gave her codeine phosphate tablets which slow her gut down to aid digestion but says she cannot be on these long term. does anyone have any suggestions? we are considering feeding her silage, this may be the last resort and are thinking of cutting our losses and selling or giving her away even. we don't think we'll get much for her as although she is a brilliant horse, she is better off on grass all year round, which is impossible in our neck of the woods, and no one would want to buy a horse with such problems. we would tell anyone interested her problems as we wouldn't want her to go to anyone unable to cope - unlike her last owners who didn't seem to care a young girl was going to be her owner. if anyone has experience of this kind of problem please help. thanks
 
Have you tried adding salt to her feeds? We had a pony like this on the yard some years ago and the addition of salt encouraged the gut to take up more water during digestion.

Your vet will be able to advise on the type and amount to add.
 
Charl, a couple of things, I honestly wouldn't switch her to silage. It can cause diarrhoea and botulism poisoning. The other thing that struck me was that you have tried a host of things to cure the problem but each new thing you tried probably needed a month or so to let her gut settle and start building up levels of new gut flora (if she was going to). Maybe you've just tried too much in too short a time? You say she's fine in herself but has she been losing weight? If not, it's a real puzzle because somehow or another, her body is getting the nutrients it needs. Codeine works because it slows peristalsis down in the gut and can cause constipation, as anyone who has had to take it will tell you! I'd be VERY wary of feeding additional salt because too much salt can affect other systems and you would (a) be just masking the problem and (b) you could actually make things a lot worse.

It strikes me that she could have something like massive worm damage but you'll never know if it isn't investigated at a specialist centre. She might need to be endoscoped and/or biopsies taken. It could still turn out to be something so incredibly minor that you will kick yourself. Maybe just taking her right back to basics and seeing how she is after say 3 or 4 months. Then change just one tiny thing at atime, leaving loads of time in between.

Whatever you decide, please, please don't just give her away as she will be passed from pillar to post as other owners get desperate and she will end up a desperate, anxious, wreck of a horse standing in a ring waiting for the meat man. Please, if you feel that there are no more solutions, please be brave and retire her or pts.
 
Good advice from Box of Frogs. You could also PM H's Mum who developed Coligone, it is a good gastric settler.

Useful article here:

http://www.mvol.co.uk/fellowesfarm/news/3480

I would get the vet to investigate further, taking stool samples, bloods, endoscope, biopsy etc., as there are many possible causes for chronic diarrhoea, and once you identify the root of the problem you will have a better idea of how to treat it.
 
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