Poorly pony suggestions

fidleyspromise

fidleyspromise

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Pony is 23 yrs old and has been healthy. Forward going to ride as normal but not been ridden for about 2 weeks.
Lives out 24/7 with 100g rug.
Dentist last month.
Wormed annually in Jan with equest/equest pramox. Worm count and equisal tests done in summer.
Vaccination is Apr.
Feet done every 7 weeks - barefoot.
Body condition score: 3/5

Her daily feed is: 800g fast fibre (just increased as she lost a little weight), 100g linseed, progressive earth pro balance+, tumeric, boswelia.

Hay is put out daily, rinsed for dust as she has asthma. There is always a little left. She has 2 field companions.

Yesterday morning I got there to find her:
-bum, tail and all round hind legs caked in diarrhoea. - it smells very strongly.
-temp low - 37.2 in am and dropped to 37.0 by 2pm. (Vets Thermometer read 37.3).
-no appetite at all - hay, fast fibre mash, speedibeet mash.
-depressed look. Just standing with head hung. Shes usually into everything.

-washed her and added a 100g liner. Vet came and gave 3 jabs buscopan(sp?), steroids, can't remember the third and took bloods. Vet palpated all over and said there's lots of fluid.
Stools are just water,.

I went back 8pm and she had eaten a little. Maybe 1kg of soaked fast fibre. Put a neck cover on too.

This morning.
She was caked again so rewashed her. She wasn't warm so 200g liner on.
She is standing in an isolated corner of the field not interested in anything but comes when I go to her and follows me back.
Temp 37.2
I got her hay cobs, picked up protexin and quick fix, DandH hedgerow herbs and limestone flour.
Gave her quick fix and added herbs and flour to her mashes. She ate a little and then lost interest.

Vet called me back as I called to give an update - bloods show protein levels at 14 so extremely low but she hasn't eaten so could be due to that as a secondary issue.
Got steroid tablets so giving her those - breaking them into a powder and syringing them in her with molasses.
I added molasses to her mashes and again first showed interest then nothing.

I had a few carrots for the other horses but Til perked up so off I went and bought £20 worth of veg - apples, carrots, pears, celery, swede, parsnips. Put them in various buckets plus threw a few around to see if she'd be interested in finding them. She is eating more of them than anything else.

Edit: She has a himalayan salt lick as she usually enjoys it for 5 mins after eating. She is in a bedded down shelter with electric fencing outside so she has a little space to move but so I can see how many poos she has overnight.

Does anyone have any ideas - what it could be, what she might eat, anything at all?

Vet did say we may need to refer her for plasma transfusion.

I am really scared to lose my heart pony after just losing my heart dog.
 
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You could phone one of yhe feed companies and ask if they would send samples of their feeds. Also, maybe try speaking to premier performance, they might send a few free samples.
Hope she improves soon.
 
Carrottom said:
You could phone one of yhe feed companies and ask if they would send samples of their feeds. Also, maybe try speaking to premier performance, they might send a few free samples.
Hope she improves soon.
Click to expand...
Thank you. I'll give that a shot tomorrow.
She usually eats everything and in the shortest time.
The others taken half an hour to eat what she can in 5 so its not like her at all.
 
I also didn’t have a happy outcome from a similar sudden onset of those symptoms. For mine it was most likely a tumor somewhere, but we didn’t run further diagnostics. I gave the the best grass I had, tried to get her to eat anything she thought was worth eating but unfortunately she deteriorated after a few days and it was clear that we only had 1 option
 
Low/deficient vitamin E can cause muscle loss and wastage physical signs, and horses on a dominant diet of hay than fresh grass are more prone to it.
How that relates to low protein might be due to high oxidant status just from metabolism alone, destroying proteins and dna, which vitamin E, being an antioxidant abundant in fresh grass, protects from.

But sudden bowel changes are not generally in the symptom cluster of vit E deficiency, it generally happens slowly as its fat stored and fat soluble, rather than create an acute illness episode. I mention that just in case it’s useful regarding the weight loss.

Have you recently changed hay batches? Despite a new batch smelling good and being good quality, sometimes a change over can cause gut changes and sudden changed poops. It happened to mine recently. While waiting for a pallet I added a small % of great smelling wrapped hay, to make the usual supply last a bit longer until next delivery, and both of mine, different ages, had some poops as splatters…I couldn’t believe it. Just a small amount given yet their bowel biome was changed by it and it caused temporary 4 days of some poops being very cow-pat like. Many others were solid normal. So intermittent.
It also coincided with very foul wet rainy cold windy weather after months of mild calm weather. These factors combined can sometimes be enough for poop texture change. They were more reserved than normal but appetite didn’t change. Just some unsettling of the gut biome, then resettling to firm poops.

With yours not having appetite is concerning and being withdrawn, yet encouraging the fruit/veg was eaten.
A scan as others mention would be helpful.
My fingers crossed for you both she overcomes this and starts feeling better.
 
fidleyspromise said:
Pony is 23 yrs old and has been healthy. Forward going to ride as normal but not been ridden for about 2 weeks.
Lives out 24/7 with 100g rug.
Dentist last month.
Wormed annually in Jan with equest/equest pramox. Worm count and equisal tests done in summer.
Vaccination is Apr.
Feet done every 7 weeks - barefoot.
Body condition score: 3/5

Her daily feed is: 800g fast fibre (just increased as she lost a little weight), 100g linseed, progressive earth pro balance+, tumeric, boswelia.

Hay is put out daily, rinsed for dust as she has asthma. There is always a little left. She has 2 field companions.

Yesterday morning I got there to find her:
-bum, tail and all round hind legs caked in diarrhoea. - it smells very strongly.
-temp low - 37.2 in am and dropped to 37.0 by 2pm. (Vets Thermometer read 37.3).
-no appetite at all - hay, fast fibre mash, speedibeet mash.
-depressed look. Just standing with head hung. Shes usually into everything.

-washed her and added a 100g liner. Vet came and gave 3 jabs buscopan(sp?), steroids, can't remember the third and took bloods. Vet palpated all over and said there's lots of fluid.
Stools are just water,.

I went back 8pm and she had eaten a little. Maybe 1kg of soaked fast fibre. Put a neck cover on too.

This morning.
She was caked again so rewashed her. She wasn't warm so 200g liner on.
She is standing in an isolated corner of the field not interested in anything but comes when I go to her and follows me back.
Temp 37.2
I got her hay cobs, picked up protexin and quick fix, DandH hedgerow herbs and limestone flour.
Gave her quick fix and added herbs and flour to her mashes. She ate a little and then lost interest.

Vet called me back as I called to give an update - bloods show protein levels at 14 so extremely low but she hasn't eaten so could be due to that as a secondary issue.
Got steroid tablets so giving her those - breaking them into a powder and syringing them in her with molasses.
I added molasses to her mashes and again first showed interest then nothing.

I had a few carrots for the other horses but Til perked up so off I went and bought £20 worth of veg - apples, carrots, pears, celery, swede, parsnips. Put them in various buckets plus threw a few around to see if she'd be interested in finding them. She is eating more of them than anything else.

Edit: She has a himalayan salt lick as she usually enjoys it for 5 mins after eating. She is in a bedded down shelter with electric fencing outside so she has a little space to move but so I can see how many poos she has overnight.

Does anyone have any ideas - what it could be, what she might eat, anything at all?

Vet did say we may need to refer her for plasma transfusion.

I am really scared to lose my heart pony after just losing my heart dog.
Click to expand...

This sounds like lymphoma.

If I’m right the sooner you get to vet hospital, the better. Suggest it to your vet as well, mine ended up having three transfusions before showing improvement.

It still didn’t end well as his hindgut ruptured on the day when he was meant to come back home from hospital, but his lymphoma situation had improved at that point.

It is still terminal, but treatment (I believe with steroids, don’t quote me on that though) does give them an extra year. ETA: this is once their condition has stabilised.

ETA: it’s really horrible to see them like that, I’m really sorry you’re going through this.
 
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Their is growing evidence of wormer resistance with Equest now, and their have been quite a few cases of encysted redworm burdens despite robust worming programmes, which would cause low protein and diarrhea.

I *think* the symptoms would be more likely to appear in spring so this may be irrelevant but worth asking your vet about.

I lost my mini shetland recently to a mass in her stomach. She had very low protein but no diarrhea. On ultrasound her stomach was full of fluid as it couldn't drain away due to the mass.

Really hope she recovers quickly whatever the cause. Thinking of you too because I'm sure you are worried sick.
 
Thank you everyone. Speaking to vet first thing to get her referred (just got a loan approved and had to wait for that before I could do anything).
Encysted redworm was mentioned. Hay is from our local farmer same as past 7 years but 2 other ponies are coughing with it.
I will reply to others tomorrow as my head feels like mince.

I'm just back from yard and the carrots are all gone, the other veg a bite out of them here and there.
She did a bigger poop, still cow pat but the most formed yet.
I have a camera on her to check periodically. She's not lying down much (not sure if thats good or bad) but she has a big, thick bed on top of mats and she's had her steroids.
I dont think she's gone an hour without someone checking on her as friends popped in when seeing their horses.
 
I have seen encysted redworm eruption present like this a few times.
Have you had any hard frosts where you are? We had a few nights of super hard frosts, and that can be sufficient to send any redworms into the gut wall ... and now it's warm again, they absolutely can start to migrate. Don't go by months/seasons/etc, because the worms don't have a calendar and are simple creatues that react to environments.

I've seen it end well and not so well, but the ones with rapid reaction like you've done did end well.

Whatever it is, it sounds scary and makes feel sick tio imagine my old boy like that as well. They are fragile animals and we love them very much. I hope it's quickly diagnosed and fixed. FINGERS CROSSED
 
My suggestion is only about a potential side effect, low B12 can lower the appetite in both humans and other animals. According to my googling "horses typically produce enough B12 on their own through microbial synthesis in the gut, especially if they have a healthy hindgut flora and adequate cobalt intake." Which makes me think that with the diarrhoea you've described, her inner microbial synthesis is probably affected, and maybe that have disrupted her B12 levels?
Doesn't help/change anything with whatever is causing her other symptoms, but if the veterinarian can find a fixable cause to this, and her appetite comes and goes, maybe temporarily skip over cobalt, and go straight to giving a B12 supplement to see if that could help.

Not surprised you say your head feels like mince, difficult enough when it's your heart pony that is sick, but even worse when it happens close after having lost your heart dog. Sending lots of virtual hugs. {{{{{Hugs}}}}}
 
Rabbit had pretty much the exact same symptoms, and I had 2 weeks worth of steroids, some gut binder stuff and now I keep him on a gut supplement and he bounced back fine x

His temps were all over the place, head hung low, not wanting to eat his usual feed x I also had bloods pulled on him to see what was going on and he showed lower levels of B12 and vitamin E, so I supplemented those for 2 weeks too and that helped him x

I'm also aware that I'm incredibly lucky as he is only a young horse so has some more resilience than an older equine...

Sending lots of love your way x
 
Seen ponies with red worm, poo like water, must be low in well everything almost everything, walking skeletons, but recovered and that was many years ago

The veg and fruit are good and with some sugar to keep her going through this

Hope it's easily solved

Eating and showing interest in life are great signs so is the latest poo

Fingers crossed x
 
Sorry no advice other than I would put my money on worms too. Had a case present exactly like this at my yard, pony was infested and it was very touch and go.

I really hope she pulls through for you!
 
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