In the case of my horse, the behavior was not attributed to the hind gut until a few months in. Diagnostics that were done included: gastroscope, full lameness work-up after treating gastric ulcers didn’t take care of behavior including; neuro eval, flexions and hoof testers, c-spine and back x-rays, ultrasound of all 4 suspensories and some additional soft tissue, X-rays of hocks and stifles, ultrasound of stifles, a bone scan. 2nd and 3rd opinions of all imaging were obtained. We did a ton of bloodwork, including testing for EPM and testing several times for Lyme. We also had Chiro and massage out to evaluate. The horse had some red herrings that pointed away from a GI cause. Eventually with the combination of all the negative diagnostics and worsening of behavior, my vet basically passed it off as behavioral but agreed to treat the hind gut with misoprostol and a hind gut supplement. It wasn’t until I moved and consulted a GI specialist that we got a proper diagnosis and treatment plan.
I am not surprised that the horse needed to move, just puzzled that anyone would feel that the weight of a rider would be helpful.
Everyone has different ideas about the management of pain and illness in their horse, and I’m sure you did what you thought was best. :yes:
Me and a board certified ACVS and ACVSMR veterinarian.
I’m sure you did what you, and they, thought was best and I’m very sorry that he wasn’t able to recover. I know how difficult it is to lose a good horse.
Interesting.
I’ve got a stop-to-poop horse who is normally very forward and eager to please, but slams on the breaks just to poop (sometimes based on a need to poop that doesn’t lead to successfully passing a pile). You can force her to move when she tries to stop, but she won’t poop if you do so. Forcing her forward (as one trainer insisted upon exactly once) will lead to evasions and and eventually to moving forward with her back all hunched up and a stiff, short stride, but no pooping on the go. It strikes me as a physical issue, and we’ve developed strategies to ensure she does not experience GI-related discomfort as a result of riding (e.g. warmup and poop break regimen, shorter rides when working on more athletic things, taking her directly to her stall to relieve herself after dismounting – there’s no quality riding to be had when she’s experiencing GI discomfort so I am motivated to prevent that discomfort).
Left to her own devices she makes a toilet spot in the most sheltered corner of her paddock and assumes an exaggerated posture to pass manure there. I’ve never seen her poop while moving under any circumstances.
My vet has also described her GI tendencies as increased cecal motility when experiencing physical stress.
And to top it all off, she has a history of displacement colics.
Thank you for sharing what your vet found in your guy’s abdomen. With my horse we’ve done all sorts of diagnostics and treated anything even remotely abnormal to try to rule out physical issues, but the pooping thing doesn’t resolve even when she otherwise seems to feel fantastic. Your post makes me wonder if we’ll one day find an abnormal intestinal attachment during colic surgery or necropsy…
Your horse sounds very similar to mine when he was dealing with his hind gut issues. If I could get him moving, which was not easy at the best of times, his back felt absolutely awful–like it hurt my back to ride him, even at the walk–he was just so tight. Have you tried aggressively treating the hind gut? Within a few days of starting the protocol from my new vet, the behavior went away entirely. He turned back into the happy, forward thinking guy that he always was. His stress about passing manure even when not being ridden went away (even just standing in the cross ties it clearly made him uncomfortable, lots of stomping, tail swishing, sometimes biting at his sides).
So sorry to hear that. I would not be surprised given the displacement colics, from what the surgeon told me. But it may depend on the type of displacement. I’m not super educated on this only having this one case and another non-viable twist case 25 years ago.
I think CSU is actually working on a study now for frequent displacement cases (a friend of mine was asked to have her horse participate–and maybe interestingly for you, they had a theory hers had a hormonal component (mare), but that horse doesn’t otherwise show the behaviors you and I have been talking about).
As for aggressive treatment of the hind gut, I tried Sucralfate (no change), Succeed (had improvement with this especially regarding hypermotile cecum symptoms and gas and dealing with omeprazole rebound), Relyne products (no change), RiteTrac or Equishure (did well at first, seemed to have more success with it when horse was on stall rest but still young and eating a ton to maintain, or on more grass in season), Omega 3s, chia, aloe, and a bunch of different pre and probiotic mixes/doses, fed most everything in a mash.
This is all very interesting. I might mention everyone’s comments to my vet in case there is interest in trying to correlate performance issues with GI pathology.
My new guy will slam on the brakes at the trot to poop. But they taught him to do this in Europe to better maintain the footing. He will go on if I insist, and most importantly, he does not stop while cantering. I think there’s a very clear behavioral difference between wanting to stop (or thinking they should stop) and physically needing to stop.
Thanks. I know that awful feeling you’re talking about! No fun! Luckily, my horse and I have a routine now such that it rarely gets to the point that she’s so uncomfortable.
Mine has been scoped for gastric ulcers a few times, and for the last couple of years has had a perfectly smooth, pink, ulcer-free stomach when we’ve scoped – if only hindgut were so easy to see directly! We’ve never found thickening of intestinal walls on ultrasound or abnormal blood results that weren’t transparently related to different, acute issues, so there hasn’t been much of a smoking gun in her case for hindgut ulcers. She’s been on sucralfate and succeed at different times in a rule-things-out approach, but has never had what I’d call aggressive hindgut treatment. Luckily, my vets are really open to brainstorming with me, so I’ll mention your success with misoprostol and see what they think.
Awesome—it was a combination of taking away his long stem forage (hay) for a month and then weaning him back onto steamed hay, platinum balance (probably any hind gut supplement would work here—though this worked better for my guy than the smart pak stuff), misoprostol, and sucralfate. Later he had a bout of loose manure and fecal liquid, which was resolved with a course of metronidazole and ultimately a fecal transfer.
ETA: I would only take away the hay again in pretty dire circumstances but I think he did need it. His right dorsal colon did show significant inflammation on ultrasound.
Did your horse have loose manure or fecal liquid before he was treated/diagnosed? Between that, the inflammation you found on ultrasound, and the response to treatment it sounds like you were able to connect a lot of dots!
I’ve seen this twice, and both times it was hind gut ulcers.
Meant to reply to this when I was on CotH yesterday but got pulled away. Thanks for the heads up about the CSU study – I’ll be curious to hear about what they find down the road! And I agree that it is very interesting to exchange notes with others who’ve had similar experiences on this front.
My horse’s issue definitely falls into the “performance issue” category – her way of moving is compromised when she needs to pass manure, and she doesn’t seem to be comfortable doing so while moving. It doesn’t create much of an issue for riding now that we’ve adapted our routines. BUT for a long while now I’ve had some concern that whatever is causing issues with pooping is also why we are frequent flyers in the colic aisle of the vet hospital.
She’s been tentatively diagnosed multiple times with right dorsal displacements based on various diagnostics (notably ultrasound). No surgical confirmation, as luckily she’s scraped by each time with medical management (it’s a good horse who hears the words “surgical candidate” and starts turning the corner while waiting for an OR to become available). So who knows what’s actually going on in her abdomen, but it is interesting to hear that anatomical abnormalities can cause the sorts of things we’ve experienced.
I agree with you after having owned this horse for a decade or so, and having ridden several others who want to stop or have been trained to stop, that there is a BIG difference between a horse that wants to stop and a horse that needs to stop. Unfortunately, it sounds like OP has also experienced the need to stop phenomenon. Fingers crossed they are also finding the discussion in the thread interesting/useful.
Yes he did, intermittently, then it became constant, which was when we did the metronidazole. (The other symptom he had which was related (sounds funny to say), was that his manure smelled terrible. When he couldn’t successfully be weaned off the without the fecal liquid returning, we did the fecal transfer.
Maybe I should add that in my case (and who knows if this had to do with all the ways I tried to manage his hind gut or not over the years), the necropsy did not find any stomach ulcers or any signs of chronic or preexisting damage in the large or small intestine. Some lesions were found but the pathologist concluded they were a result of the trauma from the twist. No chronic signs of intestinal wall thinning or thickening (I have read that frequent displacement cases or torsions that are corrected will show thinning and vulnerability to rupture rather than inflammatory cases that show thickening). And his stomach was perfect. I had suspected hind gut ulcers or acidosis at times but if that was the case, it seemed I had that under control.
The surgeon is a colic surgery expert and said that the attachment defect was probably why it twisted where it did and why it was so quickly non-viable–I think he would have had to have already been in the hospital to have a chance. And given the proximity to the cecum and his symptoms, I wonder if it caused him to have referred pain or cramping sensations or something.
I suffered badly from IBS for a time, which is ideopathic. One of the medications that helped me was one that affected the nerves and muscles of the GI tract. That drug was pulled because of stroke risk for some patients. I have since been able to get a better hold on symptoms through bodywork–dry needling, chiropractic of my lower back, and Rolfing. Main reason I got there was I started having unrelated nerve pain that would travel down my legs. After multiple MRIs. no cause was found. I found a chiro who helped me reactivate some nerves and muscles (and calm down the angry ones), and at the same time, my GI health improved. Sometimes I can tell I need a tune up before I have pain because I have an increase of GI symptoms.
Anyway, that’s part of why I considered the pooping behavior a part of his rehab/reconditioning work for his back and pelvis and nervous system. Because horses are different, in addition to the therapies I used on myself, I also used a cranial-sacral type therapist and medications like steroids and Robaxin, and groundwork to help him stay more in a parasympathetic state and be less flight/fight.
