Daily gastric support - bonus if its available in Canada

[AMWookey]

Background:

My husband’s horse (11 yr old TB) had 4 colics spaced out over the course of the last year. All fairly mild except one minor impaction, but all needed vet intervention to push through.

The first two we could explain away, but the more serious impaction and then one right after a week later, we decided to scope. He scoped with grade 4 ulcers.

Huey has been basically out of work as we moved home to our own farm. He has access to good quality hay 24/7, is fed beet pulp, alfalfa pellets, loose salt, madbarn omneity, and equijewel (flax based fat supplement). Prior to the diagnosis of ulcers, he had his hay, shelter and water in a dry paddock and access to a 3 acre grass paddock but it was end of season. Teeth and vet care done regularly. We moved him off the grass bc my vet felt that while they were in excellent weight, the chewing of short, late season grass was likely not producing enough saliva.

They came in at night for the month while he went on a round of gastrogard and sulcufrate (sulcufrate 2 x daily). When we scoped him the first time he fasted 16hrs and still had food in his stomach. They couldn’t get to his pylorus.

Rescope was done, I fasted him a bit longer, still food, but not as much. Still ulcers but greatly improved. We got to his pylorus and it was more triangular shaped (opening) and a weird right angle. My vet had never seen stomach anatomy like his. So that is cool not…

We are doing a second round, and we made a few changes. Winter months, they are coming in. They have 15 by 12 stalls with half walls, tons of shavings and 30 foot ceilings. I can pull outdoor blankets and put on warm but light stable blankets. They clearly love their time inside to sleep, and get pampered. Hay in the stall is in a slow feed low hay net, hay outside under cover is a unnetted round or square.

I would love to find a good quality alfalfa that I could feed a flake at night (we did that in the states) but I haven’t been able to locate any here. I would also like to find a palatable gastric supplement (he is picky and won’t touch visceral), that I can use as a top dress in the evenings. I need to be able to feed it once a day for their meal indoors, bc if there is something new, he Will leave it for my horse. Who will already be getting hers

Anything we are missing? My vet agreed that management wise, we are doing all the ulcer prevention right on paper and get a gold star for that. The horses get the benefit of 2 adult amateurs with no kids who make their needs the focus of their life, so it doesn’t really matter how much of a PIA something is, if they need it, they get it.

[sascha]

@AMWookey

I would love to find a good quality alfalfa that I could feed a flake at night (we did that in the states) but I haven’t been able to locate any here

Sorry you’re going through this! Where is here? Someone on the board may have tips about rooting it out in your area.

Next thought is to try soaked alfalfa cubes. Those should be fairly readily available.

[AMWookey]

Good point! I’m an hour west of Ottawa, Ontario

He does get 2 lbs of soaked alfalfa daily, but i liked the saliva and chewing with the actual alfalfa. I thought may a nightly addition of hay cubes may work in a pinch.

[jvanrens]

Have you tried posting an ISO on the Ottawa Equine groups or one of the Farmer groups? You might be able to find someone who small bales alfalfa. There’s is lots of alfalfa around but most of it ends up as haylage at dairy farms.

[SolarFlare]

You might want to try Advanced Appetite - it’s a liquid gut supplement with aloe, slippery elm, licorice root, and chlorophyll. It’s made here in Ontario, and comes in several flavours. I’ve found my picky eater is fine with any of them. The owner Steve even made up smaller bottles of each flavour so I could try them out before purchasing a larger jug, and gave me a good deal on pricing for the testers.

He’s in Sarnia area but ships via courier if needed (often he’ll drop off to me in person when he’s in the area, as he has a number of racehorse clients near me).

Advanced Appetite | horse health

Steve Binkley
greengoop4horses@gmail.com
226-374-6093

I find texting/calling him is best - his email likes to filter to spam quite a lot

[danacat]

I’m using RelyneGI – once a day in evening feed (forage based) but can be used 2xday. My horse is picky too, wouldn’t eat Visceral either, but he doesn’t even notice the RelyneGI. I also give him Neighlox in the a.m. with his breakfast. He likes that as well but I introduced it slowly. So far so good! No sign of ulcer return.

This horse (+ all my other horses) has always and still does get a lot of alfalfa, so I can’t say that it’s the ultimate ulcer fix / preventative – but alfalfa pellets or cubes should be available to you? if you can’t find it baled.

[sascha]

Out of my area, but some suggestions - FB groups. Throw some suggestions at your search bar “Ontario Hay for Sale” “Ottawa Farmers” “Farming 613” etc. and canvas groups asking for what you need. Someone will hook you up. There are dairy farmers in the area that should be able to help you find some if not be able to outright sell you some.

Also check Kijiji and Ontario Farmer (it’s a publication) - I’ve found the online classifieds can be helpful - a bit hit and miss, but worth a look.

[Pippigirl]

Are you able to source Purina products? The Agribrand Purina now has available Digestive Balance that’s supposed to be similar to the American Purina Outlast. I’m not sure how well it works because it’s not readily available where I am. Too bad Blue Seal Sentinal version or other brands are available in Canada.

I’ve seen alfalfa hay listedon the fb group Ontario Equestrian Connection in the past.

My horse wouldn’t eat soaked alfalfa cubes or soaked pellets so I ended up trying dry mini alfalfa cubes. That version was accepted. I feed them in a shallow pan on the floor. Lots of saliva is produced.