My 9 week old foal has been eating sandy soil. A little history - he has had watery stool since his foal heat. They moved back to my farm when he was 2 weeks old, I noticed him eating soil, thought it was just a foal thing, but he was taking big bites. So moved him to only supervised turnout so i could make sure he didn’t chow down on soil. Started him and the mare on gutx in case he was ulcery, started Full Bucket 2x a day, at 8 weeks started sand clear, have done a fecal to look for bacteria non found. Tried a muzzle but he lays down and digs it in the dirt to try to get it off, it fills with soil and he eats it. Started Lactaid 2 tabs 2x a day, took the mare off grain in case he was allergic to something. Soaking his poo daily and still has lots of sand, on free choice minerals. Forgot to mention, the pasture they are in has great grass and has been rested for the last year.
Today, vet out and we decided to xray. He is full of sand even with the supervised time out of the stall. He is now on no turnout, stall only and hand walking so he doesn’t eat any soil for at least the next 3 weeks and then we will re xray. Vet wants daily dose of Metamucil or sand clear but getting him to eat all his dose is hard.
So my questions -
Any Advice?
How to get him to eat all his dose of Metamucil, psyllium, sand clear?
I can block of a bit of the barn that is on concrete, any ideas other than buying loads of mats to make it safe so they have a bigger space?
Can you put mom and foal on a real pasture?
They are in a pasture that has had no other horses on it for over a year. Great grass is not the issue unfortunately.
In humans, soil eating often is the result of a mineral deficiency. Could that be the case here?
He is on free choice minerals, has a salt lick and blood work looks good.
You can’t determine nutritional status of more than Vit E, and selenium, from blood. Pretty much anything else outside of normal is disease status (which could be caused by too little or too much of a given nutrient, to the point of extreme).
Psyllium is a really poor mover of sand, as proven in trials, at least in the amounts typically fed, so don’t keep trying to get him to eat it. To be effective enough, they found that you have to use about 1gm per 1kg body weight. For context, that’s 500gm for a 500kg (1100lb) horse. There are 454gm in 1lb. If he’s really loaded up, then he really needs the NG tubing to get it out, or you’ll be looking at surgery.
The other effective option is NG tubing of psyllium and magnesium sulfate, once each of 3 days.
Free choice minerals don’t do anything unless it’s salt. Horses don’t know what they need beyond that, let alone how much.
A 9 week old foal can’t digest more than milk. Personally, given this, I would get him on Progressive’s Foal’s First Starter & Creep, fed according to his age and weight.
What is the mare eating?
If your vet feels ulcers might be a problem - and eating dirt can absolutely be a sign - then he needs a proven drug for treatment, not a supplement.
Obviously you can’t keep using a muzzle, not only because it doesn’t stop him from eating it, but because it also prevents him from nursing.
Foals First creep feed is made to be fed free choice, they have minimum amounts required to not need Rejuvenaide but no maximum. I suppose there could be foals that would eat way too much if given the opportunity but I have never seen that happen.
It sounds like pica. I would also suspect a mineral deficiency of some sort. Maybe start milk based pellets. Is he too young to start on a ration balancer?
My foal tried to eat his mom’s tail. I had to braid her tail and put Vicks vapo rub on it so it smelled bad.
Yes, he can’t digest non-milk things until he’s about 4 months old
