Getting the anorexic horse to thrive - need suggestions please.

[Helicon]

What has worked for you to get an anorexic horse to gain and hold weight?

We have a 13-year-old gelding that has been at my farm since he was a yearling. He was an orphan and has always been a hard keeper. He gets treated for ulcers on and off over the years. He lives out 24-7 with his best friend and is usually on a light work schedule 2-3x per week. He normally gets ultium gastric, healthy glo nuggets, alfalfa, free choice hay and pasture.

Recently he dropped a ton of weight and then stopped eating altogether… Per vet we are drenching him with sucralfate twice per day, giving omeprazole 1/4 tube, and the vet has floated him and tubed him with water and electrolytes twice. He is eating grass now and nibbling on alfalfa pellets. So we are improving, but not out of the woods. We have ordered “Full Bucket” probiotic paste. Any other ideas or suggestions?

[Texarkana]

Stopping eating altogether is something more than sulcralfate and 1/4 tube omeprazole can likely handle. Have you done bloodwork or scoped him?

Had he stopped eating before or after the float? Sometimes over-floating will put them off of all food… it happened to my old guy just a few months before his death and I swear the stress of that shortened his life.

Otherwise, my suggestion will be to find what he likes! I’ve had to do the “equine smogasbord” offering many times. Anything you have, offer it. Small amounts in lots of separate pans or buckets. Try it wet, dry, anyway that may entice him. Once you find something he likes, get him eating as much of that as you can. Don’t bother with his regular rations until he is eating willingly.

[clanter]

we have a 40 year old pony who did the stop eating deal, the only way I could encourage him was to put an iced oatmeal cookie in with his feed which eats eagerly.

Basically no teeth, gets all he can or well eat senior feed in three feedings

But recently has taken a liking to alfalfa hay we get from California for the yearling

[joiedevie99]

What does the scope look like? Have you scoped after treatment? I feel like a broken record, but I’ve had quite a few horses not healed after the standard month on a full tube of gastrogard - including one that we treated for over a year.

Any sign of delayed gastric emptying disorder on the scope? That can cause these sort of ongoing issues independent of management.

[Helicon]

joiedevie - he has not been scoped recently. The ordeal would stress him out and since his ulcer issues have been chronic we just assume when he gets picky that they are flaring up. I agree with you that treating for month and thinking you’re done is a pipe dream. The vet wanted him on Sucralfate only, but I asked if we could keep him on the omeprazole, and he okayed it. This time though he is not bouncing back.

What is delated gastric emptying?

Texarkana - his bloodwork was normal. A year ago the vet removed a cancerous growth from under his eyelid. It has not come back, but the threat of something like that worries us. The vet floated him after he stopped eating. He had been floated on an annual basis by an equine dentist who does hand floats. When our vet examined him he felt like he had a lot of points that could make eating unpleasant. We were hoping that that would be the solution but he is still not eating well.

[hoopoe]

The cancerous growth may not have come back locally, but you need to discuss with vet the possibility of metastatic disease

[firefoot]

I agree with all the previous suggestions and just wanted to chime in about tumors. Years ago, we had a horse, about 15 or so, who went off his feed mysteriously. We checked for a lot of things and thought maybe it was an infection as he had been on stall rest for a puncture (which had healed by the time he went off his feed). He would graze pretty well out in the field but wouldn’t eat his feed in the stall and lost a lot of weight rapidly. We ultrasounded his abdomen and it was riddled with masses. Obviously, he was put to sleep. If your guy has a history of cancer, it could have come back in another place. Might be worth doing a little more exploring.

[Guilherme]

We had a youngster who went for some training and stopped eating. The trainer noticed and told us immediately so we took some of the regular feed we’d been using but he would not eat it. We tried all the normal stuff horse owners do and nothing worked. He continued to lose weight and the trainer told us that he could not work with him and come and get him (and refunded the money we’d paid, minus his expenses; good trainer, that). Our vet looked at him and suggested some injectable meds (steroids IIRC) and they helped for several weeks. He stopped loosing and actually gained a bit. But then then they stopped working.

We then took him to the vet school at UTK and after examination determined that he had an undiagnosed, progressive deterioration of digestive tract of unknown etiology and had lost more than 50% of his ability to digest what he ate. The very act of eating likely caused discomfort. They could not pinpoint any specific disease process (cancer or the like) without extensive (and expensive) testing including possible surgical exploration. And even if they could find the cause and stop it there was no way to regenerate the lost tissue in the gut. After some difficult consideration, we put him down.

Sometimes weight loss is a problem but not a catastrophe, but sometimes it’s both. If the “unusual suspects” have been tried and found wanting then it’s time to get a real diagnosis.

G.

[eclipse]

Delayed gastric emptying means something is stopping his stomach from emptying properly! My horse went through this (just like joiEdevies horse) for over a year and it was due to pyloric ulcers that were blocking his pyloric sphincter! Along with his glandular and non glandular ulcers, it was just a recipie for disaster and a long long road to recovery! Basically when the stomach doesn’t empty properly, food etc, backs up, it empties very slowly, they stop eating and drop lots of weight…mine became anorexic! While scoping is stressful for an already ulcery horse it is the ONLY way to know for sure what you are dealing with and if treatment is working! While I am a believer in omeprazole I am only a believer in NECESSARY omeprazole…yes mine HAS to live on it but there are more horses that don’t and it can cause them to actually have more problems…just ask PNW! Also, omeprazole doesn’t really help delayed gastric emptying, many vets now think it doesn’t get that far down…if your dealing with that as well as regular ulcers you need to know as you’ll more than just omeprazole!

[Sansena]

Agree with the above. Also -though he’s a bit young- test for cushing’s using the TRH-stim. test. Inappentence can be a symptom.

[ReSomething]

I had an old man with the disinterest in food that comes with Cushings. I had to create a diet that had the calories he needed in the small volume that he would eat.

Sounds like you have more problems than that but fwiw he got about ten pounds of tc sr per day split into two containers. In one was three to five pounds of soaked till fluffy alfalfa, in the other I added a half cup canola to the tc for an extra 1000 calories and used a scale for the tc. Free choice hay if that means enough hay that he stepped on it. He ate his feed overnight in a an area separate from the other horse, if he got fed during the day he had an opinion about being cooped up, being left by the other horse etc and would not eat, the grazing wasn’t generally good enough to keep him well fleshed.

[Fharoah]

I would start with bloodwork. 1/4 tube of gastrogard is good for management but if your using compounded omeprazole I would use a larger dose.Given an hour before breakfast. Could you find a grass field? In 2017 my horse had a very bad colic with distended small intestine, and multiple loops and allot of reflux. The proceeding month I only fed him grass, fine stemmed hay, gastrogard and water. Ulcers didn’t cause his colic but I figured he may have had them and gastrogard was supportive. If you have access to pasture I would gradually introduce her to pasture and nothing else to start. If she will graze happily that is where I would start. If you don’t have access to pasture try some really fine hay. My horses go crazy for fine grass hay. Fertilizer does tend to make grass grow thicker my horses love the local unfertilzed finer steamed hay. I would use a slow feeder to limit Waste. If you can find forage that she will eat I would start there and only add a ration balancer to start. Will she eat third cut alfalfa? The third cut tends to be allot finer And is too rich for most horses but since your horse is thin I would give her small amounts at a time . Alfalfa Is good for ulcers and helps put weight on. Over time I would consider a ration balancer, rice bran pellets, soaked alfalfa pellets And corn oil. In the 37 years I’ve had horses in my life I have found that feeding horses up with grain usually doesn’t work very well, even beet pulp makes them feel full. I have seen hard keepers thrive with the right forage!

[scrbear11]

I agree with everyone else - bloodwork to see if there is some undetermined reason for the anorexia.

I have a 24 year OTTB who is a hard keeper, and on-and-off anorexic (will eat grass during his “episodes”). With him I do have to switch feed every so often. He also eats a HUGE amount of grain. I wouldn’t feed any other horse so much. He is stalled half the time so his nutrients are in his face and he is almost forced to eat. Currently he’s eating 20 pounds of Triple Crown senior. He gets this in one feeding and grazes on it over the course of the day. He also gets another 15 pounds of alfalfa. Again - I wouldn’t feed any other horse like this, but I’ve learned what he needs and what he can handle. And, he also does graze on the grain all day. He doesn’t scarf it down in on sitting.

Sometimes horses like these have some sort of anxiety related to eating. This guy may do better being kept in for a portion of the time so he feels like he can eat his food.

[Helicon]

Thanks all for the thoughts and ideas.

Here is an update on our case, in case it helps someone else. We took him to the clinic for a scope. They found grade 3 glandular ulcers which they said are difficult to treat and very painful. He also has grade 2 stomach ulcers which they said were probably not worse due to our efforts to treat him. They said it takes much more aggressive treatment to cure glandular ulcers.

He is now on a full dose of Gastrogard daily for a month, plus sucralfate three times per day, and twice per day Misoprostol and SMZs -for possible infection. Because he is not eating, we are syringing this stuff to him seven times per day. Our fingers are crossed that he starts to eat soon.

[eclipse]

Sounds exactly the same protocol Sullivan was on…fingers and toes crossed for you!

[Helicon]

Well it turns out the ulcers were the least of our horse’s problems. He had displacements in his colon and a very narrow valve at the cecum, which was restricting passage of food. The latter may have been the source of his problem for years. They did surgery on him yesterday and he is in ICU today. We are hoping he recovers fully and finds joy in eating again.

[Toblersmom]

I hope he is on the mend soon, and eating like a, well, like a horse!

[brody]

@Helicon

Well it turns out the ulcers were the least of our horse’s problems. He had displacements in his colon and a very narrow valve at the cecum, which was restricting passage of food. The latter may have been the source of his problem for years. They did surgery on him yesterday and he is in ICU today. We are hoping he recovers fully and finds joy in eating again.

Aww. Best thoughts. I’m dealing with an anorexic pony at the moment. So distressing and a little frustrating too. Sigh.

[ReSomething]

My goodness. Sending healing thoughts and hope this does the trick, poor guy.

[bingbingbing]

So sorry to hear he needed surgery, but glad you are finally at the bottom of his anorexia. Jingles for a speedy recovery and having him feel much much better soon.