Sandy turnout- anyone feed a supplement for sand colic?

milliepops

milliepops

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Or am I just giving myself MORE things to stress out over?? My horse is turned out on sandy ground and there's not a lot of grass. I keep wondering is I should be feeding something to guard against sand colic?

Previously I had her on clay so this is very different for me. I'm the world's most paranoid owner so can always find something to fret over!
 
Well during the winter my horses and the liveries are turned out in a sand turnout, sometimes for as long as six months of the year. They have hay hutches to eat haylage out of but the haylage does get spilt on the sand and horses sometimes eat it from there. Not a lot you can do about it really. I have done this for eight years and touch wood, have not had any cases of colic except for my gelding who had a piece of intestine drop through a membrane near his diaphagm. Nothing at all to do with sand.
 
I do.

But then I had a Shetland that kept having colic and ended up going to Rossdales as my (then) Vets couldn't find out what was wrong with her.
After first thinking it was Strangles in her lungs and then pumping her full of very strong antibiotics she was ultra sounded / xrayed at Rossdales and found to be full of sand!!
I am on sandy grazing but it is apparently quite rare in the UK.
They have a lot more cases in the US where they on or near the coast.

I now feed Equine Americas Sand Out. You can buy on Ebay for £23 plus postage.
I feed for 7 days, leave for 21 days and then start again.
It contains Psyllium husks which are a natural product so no side effects or harm done.

I would like to add that there are some schools of thought (as per Internet) that doubt it's effectiveness, but on re ultra sounding my pony afer 6 weeks of every day use, the sand had gone!!

I would also like to add that very sadly I ultimately lost this dear pony at a very young age and it was thought that her digestive system was not as effective as it should have been.

I was also advised to feed plenty of fibre ie. hay, chaff, sugar beet as part of her diet as this helps to push sand through in a normal healthy horse.

Also to feed hay and short feeds on a rubber mat rather than on the mud.

I hope this helps.
 
None of ours every had a problem on sand. We'd feed hay/haylage off ground on grassy areas, but never nuts etc. Long as there's grass/hay out there I wouldn't worry.
 
A study conducted at
the University of Illinois reported that ponies dosed with
psyllium in an attempt to remove sand were not any more
efficient at sand removal than ponies given a control diet.
They concluded that psyllium had no apparent effect on
sand removal from the horse’s large intestine. The
University of Florida tested four means of sand removal: 1)
hay fed at 1.5% of body weight, 2) hay fed at 2.5% of
body weight, 3) hay fed at 1.5% of body weight plus psyllium
fed in a single daily dose and 4) hay fed at 1.5% of
body weight with psyllium fed twice daily. The results
indicated that feeding large amounts of hay (2.5% of body
weight, 25 lbs. for a 1000 lb. horse) uniformly produced
the largest sand output. Other experiments studied feeding
wheat bran and dosing with mineral oil as methods to
remove sand. Both protocols proved ineffective for sand
removal. In summary, there does not appear to be any
advantage to feeding or treating with psyllium, bran or
mineral oil over a basic hay diet for removal of sand from
the digestive system of horses.

http://www.ker.com/library/equinews...v2n319.pdf
 
Ho hum, mixed opinions as usual ;) I'm probably stressing out over nothing. There is nothing to suggest there is anything wrong with my mare and I stuff her with hay overnight. I have an overactive imagination when it comes to horsey disasters, I'll be the first to admit that :D
 
While I have read the above, from experience we stopped all our Sand colics at the large TB stud I worked on by feeding Sand Clear once a month every month. The results were marked and Rossdales/NEH recommended it.
 
Aarghh :eek: :D Thanks for info Laafet. I'm SO undecided now. My mare seems perfectly healthy but I'm always terrified of not doing something really simple and her paying the price. At least those Psyllium supplements are fairly cheap;)
 
When I had the horses in Holland they were turned out on sand paddocks for most of the year and the whole yard was on sand (the whole country is!)

The yard there used to feed a sloppy boiled Linseed feed once a week and we never had a case of sand colic Vet said feeding this was far more effective than any of the highly expensive supplements.
 
My vet said go out into the field and yank up some grass. If it cones away with sand attached and roots etc then to feed it. If the grass just breaks off then perhaps not worry!
 
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