I’m using some pink stuff that comes in a purple tub they carry at my feed store lol. I think you can find sugar free brands if that’s important for you.
My 21 year old horse gets FWS when he is fed any type of course hay. It can be alfalfa which is rough and course or any type of first cut hay that has been let to grow to the point that the stems are thick and course. It irritates his hindgut. A change to orchard grass or other softer hay fixes it within a week.
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My horse suffered from FWS for a couple of years before I finally figured out something that works for her - pure psyllium powder. I buy it from Uckele. She’s a super easy keeper so all she gets for “grain” is a cup of timothy pellets, a scoop of CA Trace Plus pellets, and magnesium. I add just enough boiling water to that mix to cover it and let it soak up the water (takes less than a minute). Then I mix in a scoop (less than 1/4 cup) of the psyllium powder and mix so the whole thing is dryish. She doesn’t love it but she eats it begrudgingly. If I add the psyllium before I add the water the whole thing gets gummy and she refuses to it eat it.
But the point is that it works. I had tried less expensive psyllium pellets before and that didn’t make a difference, but the pure powder does - for her anyway.
Im pretty confident it’s from heat stress in our case. Another night in the 50’s and he was completely dry this morning. No other changes.
I am going to order some electrolytes and pysillium powder, @Pico_Banana thanks for clarifying the difference between the powder and pellets! The pellets came up first when I was looking.
Yes, that’s it. It’s much more cost effective if you buy the 25 lb bag. I bought the 5 lb bag first to see if it worked and then have been buying the larger one since.
I should have clarified in my post that she gets this both AM and PM. There’s an article on the Uckele website by Dr. Kellon that discusses doses. IIRC, she says they can get up to two cups per day. That would be crazy expensive, but I suspect that once you get it under control, you could probably taper down. Luckily for me, two of the included scoops per day works for us.
Awesome thanks for the info!
Right now he gets a soup of beet pulp, flax, and caltrace plus. It doesn’t usually sick for long. Would it be ok to mix in with the soup or better to top dress right before they put the soup in his stall?
I think it’s more of a question of how much water is in his soup than timing.
If he truly gets a soup, you could probably just mix it in with everything else all at once. What I’ve found is that if you put it in with a lot of water, it doesn’t turn the whole mix gummy. For my older horse, I use it as a monthly sand purge for her and she gets two gallons of water with her 3 lbs of TC Senior and the addition of the psyllium doesn’t really make much of a difference to the consistency. The psyllium does kinda turn into little gummy blobs, but there are so few relative to the rest of her food she doesn’t seem to care.
If his meal is a more typical “soaked but not soupy” meal, I think that’s where you might run into the gumminess issue if you add it all at once and then add water. So if his meal is merely wet but not soupy, then I would wait until that has soaked up the water before adding the psyllium. But it can still be done in advance, just needs to be in two steps.
Luckily I have my horses at home as I can imagine trying to work this out with staff might be difficult.
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Perfect thanks again. His really is soupy. When we got to the new barn, the staff wasn’t putting as much water in as I like and letting it sit for hours. The flax turned everything to gum, so they are good on the soup memo now. I like to get as much water in him as I can and I make him hay soup (hay cubes) before/after rides too lol. I’m glad he doesn’t mind it.
I try and keep things as simple as possible for barn staff so I’ll start with that and see how it goes.
@FjordBCRF my Endurance rider friends suggested Apple A Day e-lyte, as a reasonably palatable, low sugar, good quality one to try.
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Most of the buffet arrived today:
Still waiting on smartpaks tract guard:
He is also on CalTrace Plus with does have yeast cultures so I think I’m going to start with the psyllium and the electrolytes and see if that combo gets us anywhere before trying either one the other two. Fingers crossed 
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Good luck! Leif colicked a couple of weeks ago and when the vet came out he had us increase the psyllium to 8 ounces a day.
Yucky gummy stuff but it has worked somewhat.
If it works, Valley Vet is cheapest I’ve found. I buy the big buckets of Anipsyl. 20 lbs for 92 bucks.
Awww poor Leif! I hope he’s feeling better. Charlie coliced in the fall last year and I think it was heat stress related. I’m hoping this works along with the electrolytes and helps to keep him more comfortable in the hotter months. Yesterday he was dryer, but it was also cooler. We have some cooler days here now so hopefully that will help settle things down while the psyllium gets in his system. Thanks the for Valley Vet tip!
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He’s feeling better. Thank you 
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We are a little over a week on the psyllium husk and not seeming to have great success. I’m going to stop that and start the platinum balance and see how that goes.
With being on vacation this week and next, I have also discovered he will come in from being out 12+ hours overnight and sleeps most of the morning/afternoon without touching much hay at all. He has ample hay in the pasture on a mostly dry lot with some sad grass patches to pick at. It is hard work!
He’s nothing but consistent and more and more like his mother (I love to nap too) 
(Notice full hay ball and Portagrazer from the morning. This was taken around 4PM)
I ordered him one of those fancy iFEED Naturally automatic slow feeders that will be arriving next week. I’ve read some people dealing with FWS have had luck with those. I had been looking into them since last winter as it would be a good way to make sure that he’s not going so long overnight without hay but his old stall wouldn’t have worked for one. I bit the bullet on it to try now. I am planning to use Teff pellets which I introduced and he seems to LOVE.
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It’s quite difficult to find something that works. Good luck on the platinum balance!
Eating is hard work! 
Sometimes I have to drag Leif out of his stall after he eats in the morning.
And lucky you on the teff pellets. My tractor supply doesn’t carry them, and while I could order them it came out to almost 30 dollars a bag with shipping charges. Even ship to store.
I decided he would have to stay on Timothy pellets
Eating is terribly hard work! So far the platinum balance isn’t making things worse, but had to tell how much it’s helping.
The closet TSC doesn’t appear to be getting anymore teff pellets in (I bought the last bag) but there is another store a town over that should have some in stock in a couple weeks. I ordered two more bags from there to at least last a few months. I can switch to Timothy too if need be, but would definitely prefer the teff.
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Knock on wood…after a week on the Platinum Balance it seems like we’re getting somewhere. I just ordered the next container size up in hopes that this will keep doing the trick!
He’s also LOVING his iFeed feeder . I think it’s likely the supplement helping the most, but he’s getting a little bit of hay pellets in every hour he’s in the stall. The hay we have right now is hit or miss with him so at least he’s got something moving things along regularly even if it’s only a couple ounces at a time. If there are any LOST fans out there, we refer to the timed release of his hay pellets as “fish biscuits”.
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