Squitty bum when on haylage . . . help !!

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wonkey_donkey

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One of my horses has an ongoing squitty / runny bum bless him. It's obviously the rich haylage he is on but all the others were ok after a few weeks of getting used to it but he has stayed the same
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Any tips or remedies (new or old) that you guy's can suggest to 'firm him up' please !!

Ps, I'm 100% happy the haylage is fine and he is well in every other way
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When mine had a loose back end I was advised to give a pot of natural yoghurt daily to balance the bacteria in the gut..and it did work
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but also would try mixing hay/lage if it persists as sometimes its just too rich..
 
hey, mine gets like this at the start of winter if i just give him haylage straight away.. so this winter i gave him mostly hay with a tiny handful of haylage for about 3 days then gradually increased him to half hay half haylage after a week.

he was fine on that so i kept gradually reducing the hay over the following 2 weeks, now he is on 2 nets of haylage per night and is totally fine!! must just be a sensitive boy and needed time to adjust.

now and again his poo gets loose again, if that happens i just stick him on some half hay for a couple of days to firm him up :P

ditto the yoghurt idea though, cheaper than supplements, give him actimel
 
I had a mare who got v loose on haylage, and at first I tried pink powder, but with no luck. I put her on Bailey's lo cal balancer, and it solved the problem
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I thought you should always mix hay and hayledge for a few weeks anyway first? One of ours has got the squits - so glad I don't muck him out!!!!
 
He was on a slow intro with a hay/haylage mix when they first went on their winter ration but that was in September!! I reckon his 'tum tum' would be adjusted by now if it was gonna be !!
I'm reluctant to go back to a hay mix because he does cough on hay, albeit he shares some of his companions out in the field without too much of a problem.
I'll try some of the other tips though thanks
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You could try dry bran. (Not wet - it makes it far worse!). Dry bran just firms things up a little. Start with about 1/3 of a scoop and build up if you don't get a reaction in about 48 hours. You don't want to stop him solid so its better to work upwards. If you use dry bran for more than 3 or 4 months its might be an idea to add limestone flour to supplement calcium but other than that it is perfectly safe to use forever. It has no food value to speak of and causes no behavioural side effects or anything.
 
We feed bran to the stallion at the yard. He has IBS and when the hayledge is a bit rich his poo is just pure liquid, I think the bran does help him. Dry bran.
 
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