Anyone use Purina W/S Well-Gel?

[beowulf]

I have a horse in my care that is an extremely picky eater. After a heavy course of GG for over a month, combined with sucralfates and UlserShield, the second endoscope revealed MORE ulcers!! We are treating w ranitidine. Horse is on grass with free choice hay and four feedings of BS Sentinel 4x day and beet pulp 2x day -vet recommended Well-Gel.

My problem is he has no appetite, and is extremely picky! Would barely touch his grain and is always suspicious of new supps. Got him to eat a little of the Well-Gel with molasses mixed in… What else can I do?

[Texarkana]

I’m curious, I’ve never heard of Well-Gel. Is it literally a gel?

And oh boy, Beowulf, your horse and my horse could be sensitive stomach/picky eater twins. I can totally commiserate… hope you figure your guy’s appetite out!

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=Texarkana;7600044]
I’m curious, I’ve never heard of Well-Gel. Is it literally a gel?

And oh boy, Beowulf, your horse and my horse could be sensitive stomach/picky eater twins. I can totally commiserate… hope you figure your guy’s appetite out![/QUOTE]

I have never heard of it either. It is supposed to replace food entirely for horses that cannot or will not eat. Luckily this is a boarder horse and NOT mine, but the amount of time I spend trying to convince him we are not poisoning him is crazy! Sorry to hear about your guy too - at this point, as much as I like the poor gelding, I am glad he is not mine – the $$ in ulcer medication in the past month alone his owners have invested in is staggering.

The supplement itself has the consistency of lime (the kind you deodorize a stall with). It’s green from the dehydrated alfalfa meal. You have to get it wet to feed, and it turns into a gelatinous batter that is a PIA and extremely messy. It does not soak or mix well with the sentinel pellets. It’s a really strange product and ill admit I have NO experience with it. But the horse needs to eat it!

[Simkie]

Oh my, is it ever costly! WOW!!

I know I wouldn’t be keen on leaving one of mine on that stuff for long just due to cost, but maybe it will get him over the hump and back on track to eating regularly again.

Did they do any biopsies when they scoped? I’d wonder about some disease process in the stomach itself if ulcers were worse after extensive omeprazole use. Cancer? Maybe H. pylori (do horses even get H. pylori?)

[CrowneDragon]

@Simkie;7600125

Oh my, is it ever costly! WOW!!

:eek:

After a month of Ga$troGard I’d be pretty peeved at no improvement and having to buy that!

What the heck is in this stuff??

[HeatherCK11]

If the horse will eat alfalfa, build him up to free choice and allow him to have that as his primary hay. It has excellent buffering qualities.
Attempt to eliminate all or as much sugar from the diet as possible.
Corn oil, if you can get him to eat it in grain, is shown to coat the stomach lining.

These all were recommendations from a university who treated by horse who had severe ulcers. He too, was on gastrogard, for what seemed like eternity.

[evd]

I don’t have a picky eater but I have a 5 yo ottb who started on it about 2 weeks ago. He was scoped for ulcers in November and he didn’t have any active. But there were old ulcers. His weight was coming up finally, then he broke p2 in March and I had it repaired.
I put him on UG while he was at tufts and for the first few weeks at home but his weight plummeted.
My home vet suggested well gel as a way to get his weight up without increasing his energy too much.
He’s a good eater, so I’m top dressing with 1/2 cup dry 2x/day at vets recommendation. Vet suggested not feeding full amount or mixing with water, I think because it is really expensive and suspect messy. (Vet’s tech said she used it for her hard keeper same way and got a great result.)
Two things: when we first started on it, day 3 or 4, my guy got really bad hiccups. I stopped it for a day and then reintroduced but a smaller amount then worked back up to half cup. The other happened last night. After he ate he was licking and chewing. He had a wad of the stuff stuck to his teeth. Yuck. Looked a bit like a dog with peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth. I gave the poor boy his alfalfa cubes and he cleared it right up.
I’m so far into it with this guy that the wellgel is just another expense. We are hand walking and my number 1 priority is keeping him quiet. I think he looks great and his weight is coming back on. He’s been on senior, fed at tufts and first few weeks home but I’ve switched him back to Ultium. And he’s on smart gut and smart digest.
Good luck. Picky eaters are such a challenge.

[Texarkana]

Oh wow the Well Gel IS expensive!

Honest curiosity-- I wonder why vets recommend it for ulcers in addition to what the horses are already eating. I could see using it in lieu of current feed or for a truly anorexic horse… but WOW that is an expensive top dress!

[stryder]

My vet tubed it into my horse when she wouldn’t eat anything, so I don’t have any experience with whether she would eat it if she had a choice in the matter. I think it kept her alive while we got some of her other issues sorted. It’s highly concentrated, complete feed.

If there’s any way to hand graze the horse it could help perk up his appetite. When my mare first started eating after being so sick, she preferred one type of plant over another at the beginning. The vet told me to graze her in an area that wasn’t normally grazed by horses to minimize exposure to worms, and the barn owners let me bring her nearly into their yard. He said there was something about grazing that triggered appetite and I found that to be true. When I reported to an herbalist about what types of plants she preferred, the herbalist said some were good for detoxifying, others had extra protein, etc. They weren’t the same plants every day.

Good luck.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=Texarkana;7600314]
Oh wow the Well Gel IS expensive!

Honest curiosity-- I wonder why vets recommend it for ulcers in addition to what the horses are already eating. I could see using it in lieu of current feed or for a truly anorexic horse… but WOW that is an expensive top dress![/QUOTE]

I wondered too but this is a fantastic vet. Horses owners are very involved in making horse feel 100% better. Great people.

Vet thinks horse has a gut emptying issue. Which is why I believe he suggested the Well-Gel. The first scope revealed several small ulcers, second showed they had resolved but many others sprouted up around the lower curvature close to the squamous.

He really isn’t digging the top dress. Even with molasses. Anything else I can try?

Fwiw alfalfa is not an option for this horse. It was tried in the past with no improvement and he wasted all of it.

[Heinz_57]

@beowulf;7600494

He really isn’t digging the top dress. Even with molasses. Anything else I can try?

Applesauce? Apple juice? Maybe hydrating it with applejuice would help. But it doesn’t sound like he’s loving it, and even with a top dress of something really tasty mine have eventually rejected whatever it was I was trying to force-feed.

My picky eater with little appetite has perked up quite a bit on TC senior and a bottomless hay net full of expensive meadow grass hay. To the point that he will actually eat the BOSS I mix in (which he hates).

[rcloisonne]

Was he getting a full tube of the brand name Gastrogard or a generic? The usual dosage is a full tube for 30 days followed by 1/2 tube for another 30 days. In addition, some horses need more than one month at the full dose. The “fantastic” vet should know that.

IMO, if Gastrogard isn’t working, it’s doubtful ranitidine will do much. It’s also a PITA because it has to be given 3X/day.

Does the horse have loose manure? Thinking RDC (right dorsal colitis aka hind gut ulcers) which can’t be Dx via scoping. Treatment for that involves minimizing roughage for several months.

If not, I second feeding alfalfa hay, soaked alfalfa cubes and/or pellets. If he doesn’t like local alfalfa hay (and in the northeast this can be really crappy if grown locally), try Standlee’s compressed alfalfa bales. Tractor Supply usually carries it and can order it if not in stock. The Standlee stuff is like crack for horses. Even the most finicky horses seem to love it.

Good luck. You’re doing way more than most BO’s would do for a boarder’s horse. I hope they appreciate you.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=rcloisonne;7602942]
Was he getting a full tube of the brand name Gastrogard or a generic? The usual dosage is a full tube for 30 days followed by 1/2 tube for another 30 days. In addition, some horses need more than one month at the full dose. The “fantastic” vet should know that.

IMO, if Gastrogard isn’t working, it’s doubtful ranitidine will do much. It’s also a PITA because it has to be given 3X/day.

Does the horse have loose manure? Thinking RDC (right dorsal colitis aka hind gut ulcers) which can’t be Dx via scoping. Treatment for that involves minimizing roughage for several months.

If not, I second feeding alfalfa hay, soaked alfalfa cubes and/or pellets. If he doesn’t like local alfalfa hay (and in the northeast this can be really crappy if grown locally), try Standlee’s compressed alfalfa bales. Tractor Supply usually carries it and can order it if not in stock. The Standlee stuff is like crack for horses. Even the most finicky horses seem to love it.

Good luck. You’re doing way more than most BO’s would do for a boarder’s horse. I hope they appreciate you.[/QUOTE]

Thank you for your reply. He got a full tube for a month and a half, no half dose. He is now doing a second round of GG. Vet was expecting a better recovery than what we got.

I would peeps ally love to feed alfalfa but it was tried before I took care of him with no result. Neither the trainer nor owner are interested in revisiting.

For now, he is doing okay with the WG being mixed in with a 1/2qt Timothy cubes. He is still getting the same amt of grain but now only after he finishes Timothy.

His stool isn’t loose, but is never perfect rounded balls either. Thank you for the insight, I will ask his vet if it is a possibility. He is on a hind guy supplement (AssureGuard) as well.

[stryder]

OP, could the horse’s ulcers be due to Delayed Gastric Emptying? Here’s a thread from a couple years ago. Some of the posters on that thread have a lot of experience with DGE.

http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?362031-Could-this-be-an-ulcer&highlight=Delayed+Gastric+Emptying

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=stryder;7603233]
OP, could the horse’s ulcers be due to Delayed Gastric Emptying? Here’s a thread from a couple years ago. Some of the posters on that thread have a lot of experience with DGE.

http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?362031-Could-this-be-an-ulcer&highlight=Delayed+Gastric+Emptying[/QUOTE]
That’s what the vet believes. Thank you for the link.

[icarus]

Late to the thread but my vet just recommended this for my horse who literally can’t eat at the moment (except grass…which is all dying).

Can I syringe feed this to him twice a day? He is super picky and can’t eat grain (chokes) so I cannot use it as a top feed. If I just add a bunch of water I don’t think that he’ll eat it voluntarily. Thoughts?

[IPEsq]

Oh, shoot, I just read about a medication for delayed gastric emptying in horses, but I can’t recall what it was…If I can think of it I’ll let you know. There may have been a thread on here as well that I found via my Google search. I think I got there while searching related to my horse’s stall rest anxiety.

In the meantime, have you tried aloe juice?

[beowulf]

Are you sure it wasn’t Well-Gel?

Nice to see this thread bumped up… The horse isn’t in my care any longer, however, he was on pleeeeennnttyyyy of aloe juice before he was transitioned to the Well-Gel. The vet said the aloe juice did zilch and is just a marketing scam.

I saw the horse 2 weeks ago at a show and he is fat sleek and happy and looks much better than he did with me. They continued the Wel-Gel for about 6 months and then transitioned him to a PSSM type diet with very, very little starch and lots of fat.

@ icarus sorry to hear about your guy. Here’s what I suggest - find an old bute container (or any really) put the scoop of Well-gel in and some water, shake until it’s a consistent film. If you cannot feed it over something, syringe it out… but it will be very messy. You could try mixing it with apple juice to see if he slurps it out, but it’s really best top-dressed on things. Good luck with your horse. I know it’s expensive but I saw first hand the huge difference it made.

[Simkie]

No, it’s bethanchol chloride. Here’s one recent thread that talks about it’s use:

http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?476988-Drug-Resistant-Ulcers

[IPEsq]

[QUOTE=Simkie;8375463]
No, it’s bethanchol chloride. Here’s one recent thread that talks about it’s use:

http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?476988-Drug-Resistant-Ulcers[/QUOTE]

That was it!