weird eating habbits?

[oldhorses98]

my loan horse is a 16.2 Irish sports horse and has had a few cases of compaction colic (sorry if wrong spelling) and has lost a huge amount of weight because of this as its was nearly a 48 hour ordeal, she also eats a lot of her own poo, is this connected? and is there any way to stop her doing this? and how would everyone put weight back on her? she is currently on mix, chaff and bran she also has 3 soaked Hay nets a day and 4 hours of grass every other day as that's all we are aloud at my yard and regular riding.
thanks everyone for the advice
oldhorses98

 

[ihatework]

What do the vets and horses owners think? How old is the horse?

I'd say the basics would be adlib forage, make sure worming up to date, teeth okay and blood profile normal.

Any horse (IMO), but especially one prone to impaction needs more than 4 hours every other day turnout.

Also rule out eating their bedding being cause

 

[Dizzydancer]

Can't help with the eating of her faeces although in dogs it usually because they are lacking something.
I would speak to a nutritionist about what to feed to put on weight as with the colic you need to be careful- I don't know if bran is the best thing given her history of compaction as it tends to bind them up rather than help move things through.
I imagine your yard routine wony help her as she isn't getting consistent grazing/adlib hay so her gut won't be working as it is designed- I would be looking for a yard with better turnout so she has chance to be out grazing everyday

 

[be positive]

Is this something that she has had before you got her on loan or only since moving to this yard? in my opinion 4 hours turnout every other day is unacceptable and is likely to be the main cause of her colic, if she belonged to me I would insist you moved her to somewhere she had proper turnout every day.
Eating her droppings is a sign she is missing something in her, not ideal, diet, she really needs to be on ad lib hay and a high fibre low sugar/ starch diet, I think any horse that has had colic more than once needs it's whole management looked into, she must have unrestricted hay if she is going to gain weight and avoid further colic, I would cut out the mix and the bran and put her onto something simple like soaked fast fibre, linseed and a decent vit/ min supplement or balancer but what she really needs is turnout to allow her more movement and some decent grass inside her every day, her guts need the same going in each day so they function properly, a course of probiotics would help settle things down.

My priority would be to start looking for a better place to keep her.