Wet droppings

Orchardbeck

Orchardbeck

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Hi, my mare is producing normal consistency droppings, but with a lot of liquid. She has been like this since before Christmas after we changed her feed to Calm and condition and chaff with probiotic vits, linseed, magnesium, devils claw and joint supplement.

She has been wetter the past two days than usual. I wormed her on Monday with equest pramox, and I have also been gradually mixing a bit of Alfa a with her chaff to eventually switch her completely to Alfa a. She gets haylage as her main forage.

Any ideas how I can dry her up? Will he Alfa a b causing this? She has to have haylage on vet's advice as hay is not good enough quality. We've been building her up as she was poor before Christmas but I would say she is good again now.
 
If this has been a problem since you changed the feed, I'd be blaming the feed! It sounds Luke for some reason the new regime isn't having a beneficial effect on your horses digestion. I would change back to whatever you were feeding before. Did you change onto haylage at the same time as you changed the hard feed? Otherwise I'm not sure why you'd think it was the haylage causing the problem. I have heard of some horses not getting on with haylage because it upsets their digestion, but you didn't say this issue started with a change to haylage. Bear in mind that though you want the horse to gain weight, a digestion that isn't functioning properly will mean that the horse isn't properly absorbing nutrients anyway. Once you've solved the problem, I would only change one thing at a time in future, eg hay to haylage, change of chaff, change of nuts, change of supplement etc, rather than swapping everything at the same time. That way if there's a recurrance of the problem you'll know which product has caused it.
 
S&s, thanks, yes I did change the feed at the same time as the haylage. In a nutshell, she had colic in early december, as a result of
 
Argh, phone. Result of not great quality hay, so that was the most important change to make. She had been kept on the lean side but got a bit too lean, especially whils recovering so we were recommended a soaked feed like calm and condition, which we had to give at quite high levels to build her up, along with molassed chaff, probiotics and linseed. So really it could be the c&c, especially as I added extra water to make it sloppy.

She inevitably put weight on, but I would like to get back to basics. I changed her chaff gradually to hifi unmolassed which seemed OK, but I wanted to cut back the c&c and give her more via the chaff hence the alfalfa. She did come out in hives for a day the first time we added a little but they went. Maybe I should just go back to the hifi and chuck the alfalfa away!

I checked the pramox instructions and it does say a side effect is loose droppings but only for up to 72 hours.
 
My tb has always had issues with getting the runs, esp. in the winter. Alfalfa definitely makes his worse, when I stopped the alfalfa and just put him on a grass hay (timothy we have here in the states) and a probiotic, it pretty much stopped completely. But it sounds like this started with the change of feed, so maybe it's a bit of both?
 
Dancing, thanks for your reply. I read a few articles about how horses can be sensitive to alfalfa, which like you say is a particular problem in the states! I think i'll try making the c&c with less water (the recommended amount, I know it has sugar beet in it!) and to back to the hifi unmolassed and see if that helps. To be honest, I'd quite like to get her off the calm and condition altogether now she has regained the weight, but she likes it and I don't want to change anything more, so we've reduced the quantity.
 
My guy is only 14, but I actually put him on a senior feed as well, it's beet pulp based and low molasses/sugar content, he's been good since being on it. Otherwise he had the runs PLUS acting like a maniac with the high sugar feeds! what is c & c comprised of out of curiousity?
 
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