Article on Fecal Water Syndrome

From The Horse magazine. There has been very little known about FW and this is the best comprehensive article I’ve found.

My gelding had that problem when he was 27. It cleared up with WaterWerks from HorseTech.com.

Fecal Water article - The Horse magazine

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HorseTech put together WaterWerks to combine a whole lot of things that individually had worked for enough horses to show they were likely useful in some % of cases. It’s a useful product for sure!

Me, I’d start with some simpler, individual products, like just psyllium or just This or That, at least if I couldn’t first try a different hay (like getting off Orchardgrass if on it, as that has specifically been implicated, over other types of grasses).

There are a lot of things now that have worked for some set of the FWS population, but unfortunately no one thing works for all, or even a majority :frowning:

The only thing that worked for mine was adding beet pulp!

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I know Jim the Feed Guy has his detractors here, but he recommends adding 1/2 pound of hay stretcher to each meal as a first-line treatment for FFWS. Up to a pound if it doesn’t work well enough. And it does seem to work for a lot of horses.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=971251838357822&id=100064190430439

Beet pulp is working for my guy as well.

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@JB here’s one for ya…Charlie has had zero FWS after treating for EPM with the Marquis and upping his Vitamin E.

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You’re kidding! That’s…amazing and so curious. I’ll tuck that little tidbit away for sure!

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We will see how things continue coming back around to summer…but just a cute, clean fluffy booty for the last half of this year!

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I think the idea with hay stretcher, beet pulp etc is to get some different fiber sources than usual into the hind gut. Hay stretcher tends to use a lot of “hulls” from various grains and legumes, with alfalfa for palatability.

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@FjordBCRF how long did it take you to notice a difference after starting the Marquis/vitamin E?

I don’t want to derail, but my horse has had a gross bum and loose poo as long as I’ve had him, a little over a year. Sometimes poo is well formed but also has water, other times it’s nasty cow piles. He gets a beet pulp based concentrate plus straight beet pulp and addition of a probiotic on the advice of my vet didn’t help.

We just started Marquis and vitamin E this past Monday. He also is getting Rebalance, banamine, esomeprazole, and will start Equishure whenever that comes in the mail.

So originally I was feeding a small amount of beet pulp like 2 cups wet, my vet had me up it to a full feed scope of dry beet pulp then soak. Yes, pony gained a splash of weight but no longer has poopy butt cheeks. I’ll take it as a win.

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Maybe after a week or two? I wasn’t actively tracking the FWS, but it was shortly after I started treatment that I began to notice the consistently dry butt.

My guys FWS has always started up when the temps go up, so we’re a little backwards than many. I’m had started describing it as heat induced FWS. I even got away with a more conservative clip going into winter which was a huge win. It’s enough to keep him cooler during rides but not enough that he needs his jacket to go outside.

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