When we did it for my horse it was $180 including sedation and excluding farm call. You do need to give a full dose of Gastrogard for the 4 days preceding the transfaunation, which does add a bit to the price, but still.
Yes, it was about $240, which included the farm call. Separate was the Gastroguard, which IIRC was about $190 (why on earth is that medicine still so expensive???). All in, I’m pretty sure it was still cheaper then the metronidazole. Never mind the other supplements I tried.
My aunt has a large pony with belly issues that causes loose stool. She found using diatomaceous earth has helped him tremendously. He gets 1 cup every am. I’m not sure what brand she gets but I posted a link below for an example.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/diatomaceous-earth-food-grade-diatomaceous-earth-25-lb
Wow! Thank you and @DutchMare …
I’ve been thinking thousands instead. I’ve spent way more than that on supplements.
For those who did fecal transplant, how did vet pick a “donor”? What I read just says healthy, with normal poop if I remember correctly. So could vet just go down our barn and pick one?
A local donor is best, as in a horse from the same barn. In my case, my two are at home with me, so my pony was the donor. I think sharing the same environment is best, but not required.
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My vet said another horse on the same farm eating the same hay was ideal. We just used my other horse, they live together so figured it was easiest. They also can’t have had any antibiotics within a certain time of donating—so a horse whose recent medical history you know is important.
Another herb to try is slippery elm. It draws water and forms a gel that bulks up the manure, and also coats and protects the digestive tract. A bonus is that any horse I have fed it to has liked the taste.
Hi all, I wanted to provide a bit of an update:
My guy is almost at 2 weeks of omperazole. I should note he is also still on the psyllium (which was only partially stopping the fecal water). Vet felt we should leave him on psyllium while trying omperazole.
I would say between the two the fecal water is almost entirely gone. Fingers crossed the additional 2 weeks will show some more insight on this. He is still a bit cranky about being brushed on haunches/hind end.
I will get further instruction from my vet regarding omperazole, but I did have a recommendation to try aloe vera juice/water for ulcer prone horses, so I will ask her about that.
Will continue to update!
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Good to hear that your horse is better. I had a horse that would do this anytime he was fed any orchard grass whatsoever. Timothy or alfalfa…he was fine. Slight allergy, according to the vet.
What good news!
Some fantastic information in this thread. I need to bookmark it, on a ‘just in case’ basis.
It will be interesting to learn if crankiness while brushing his hinder parts has become a habit, or if at some point he signals that he really does feel better back there.
Having now read many other gut/liquid-poop stories, I understand that maybe it isn’t unusual that it took 2 years to clear up my horse’s squirts and get to consistent nomal poop. He’s been all good for over a year. Recently we’ve had weather changes, training changes, and some attitude from the horse, but his poop has stayed the same normal. Yay!
Where I used to live, the vet said that he wished horses had a zipper that would allow us to get a better look at the inside of their gut whenever things were NQR in there. A very long zipper, of course.
Hello all, thought I would provide an update and look for some more wisdom.
We did about 8-9 weeks of omperazole, which maybe helped?? I am not sure really, as the fecal water/squirts were almost gone but never really left. His girthy-ness and dislike of being brushed never changed. Moved him to a new home in this time, which brought on the fecal water as it seems to clearly be tied to anxiety. He settled into his new home better then I could have expected and acts very calm…but the fecal water is still there (probably worse with the upheaval of the move). Continue omperazole through this move.
Vet feels its likely hind gut. Can also still hear faster gut sounds on exam, as noted in original post.
We are trying him on Secure Guard Gold. We JUST got access to this through my vet in Canada, previously couldn’t get it here. I know several of you mentioned it so my fingers and toes are crossed it helps. He’s on day 5 now, so will do a longer trial and see.
Still on pysllium. Also tried to marshmallow root powder without much results.
Thanks! Oh, the woes of a poopy horse.
Do you mean Assure Guard Gold?
Fingers crossed!
I just googled and Secure Guard Gold is the name it is being sold under in Canada. However, Assure Guard Gold is the same by Arenus. I am really hopeful about this. Even my vet said they are hearing such great review from US vets.
It’s certainly not cheap though. Wow!
oh good, that makes sense! I have never used it, but have several friends who have used it on tough cases with excellent results, while crying over their wallets LOL
I hope this works. FFWS is such a strange thing with no concrete fixes 
@HunterDuSc, how is your guy doing on the Secure Guard Gold?
Mine has been on BioSponge for over a month now and even though the company said it’s safe, I’d rather not have to leave him on it forever. Don’t get me wrong, it’s working but still.
As expensive as Assure Guard Gold is though, I’ll probably look into a fecal transplant this spring.
I’m going this weekend and getting some straight Timothy hay to wean him onto and see if that helps any so I can reduce the dose of BioSponge. He’s currently on orchard.
Just wanted to see how your guy was.
@rubygirl1968 sorry for the delay! The SecureGuard isn’t the magic bullet I was hoping for…it may help a bit, but nothing huge yet. I have ordered another container just to give it a fair go though.
Pretty frustrated at this point. I think I’m also going to ask my vet about fecal transplants.
Psyllium seems to be about the only thing that makes a significant change to the fecal water.
Have you tried switching out 50% of the hay for hay pellets? The pellets help absorb extra water in the hind gut and reduce hind gut irritation. You can try different types of hay pellets to see if one works better for your horse. Start with one large 3 quart scoop twice a day and build up from there.
In addition, adding Yea Sacc yeast will help the hind gut digestion. It’s not expensive. Combined with ample hay pellets this should really help.
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I’m sorry the Secure Gold isn’t helping more. It is so frustrating it makes me want to pull my hair out at times.
Psyllium helped mine but he didn’t have dry legs with it. I used Uckele gut for a long time and it worked pretty good but eventually quit.
Slippery elm powder worked well for awhile, much better than marshmallow root. I’ve tried yeah sacc, bio mos, smart Pak digest ultra, Equishure…
Equishure worked well for awhile and then stopped as well.
Anyway, enough of my saga. Anyone with a horse with this issue sympathizes with our plight.
This time of year stinks – poopsicles are no fun!
Hello everyone, I’m joining the fecal water group One suggestion I didn’t see mentioned here was to add a cup of bran to feed. My vet said he has seen that clear it up. I haven’t seen much difference yet. Been through psyllim, bio-sponge, opt-zyme.
Also it’s flipping cold here in Northern Ontario and some days I’m not sure if it’s better to wash/dry her legs/butt/tail the best I can, or leave it so she’s not soaked through to the skin. I can put her in the barn overnight but it still gets cold in there (only two horses in the barn). We’ve been lucky that only a few nights have been down to the -15C mark but it won’t be long before we’re flirting with -30.
