Metronidazole for Diarrhea

[msj]

I’ve seen this recommended for diarrhea control/aid by several people on this board. I’ve got an old guy (27 yr old QH) with what seems to be chronic diarrhea come winter. Last year I was able to get him doing pretty well with Dia-Gel and yogurt. Not this year.

I’ve ordered Bio-sponge but it won’t get here for a few days. I’m hoping I can get him some borrowed time if I put him back on Stomach Soother, which helped once before but after ~ 6 months stopped being effective.

This is going to be my next choice after bio-sponge.

Can anyone tell me if this is a pill or a liquid and how do you give it to your horse. Are you able to top dress it on their feed, or do you have dose orally with a syringe? Or how?

Also, what is the dosage? This horse is ~1200 lbs.

My vet practice isn’t open, except for emergencies on weekends, so I can’t call until tomorrow.

[skyy]

Metronidazole is an antibiotic used to treat specific causes of diarrhea (ie chlostridium and other bacteria). It doesn’t treat the diarrhea per se. Diarrhea can be caused by many things for which you don’t need an antibiotic. I have only seen it come in pill form which ends up needing to be ground, mixed with water and orally syringed because it tastes so bad. It puts many horses off of their feed so you want to syringe it after they have eaten.

Edited to add: even if you have access to metro, you should not start treatment without having your horse examined by your vet or at least speaking to them. As for the Bio Sponge, please be careful with that too. It is very useful but treatment can quickly go the other way and you can end up with an impaction. Especially with an older horse, I would not start it without consulting a vet.

[msj]

[QUOTE=skyy;4541291]
Metronidazole is an antibiotic used to treat specific causes of diarrhea (ie chlostridium and other bacteria). It doesn’t treat the diarrhea per se. Diarrhea can be caused by many things for which you don’t need an antibiotic. I have only seen it come in pill form which ends up needing to be ground, mixed with water and orally syringed because it tastes so bad. It puts many horses off of their feed so you want to syringe it after they have eaten.

Edited to add: even if you have access to metro, you should not start treatment without having your horse examined by your vet or at least speaking to them. As for the Bio Sponge, please be careful with that too. It is very useful but treatment can quickly go the other way and you can end up with an impaction. Especially with an older horse, I would not start it without consulting a vet.[/QUOTE]

skyy, thanks for the information. I know it’s antibiotic that can help when the bowel gets inflamed as I did google it and there is some good info on it. Don’t worry, as soon as the vet practice opens tomorrow, they will get a call. The one vet is about as fond of the old geezer as I am if not more so as she’s treated him pretty much for a good 15 or more years. This will only be the 3rd winter and 2 summers that I’ve had him.

But I’ll be very honest here, if I can’t get this guy’s squirts and diarrhea cleared up and under control, it’s pretty much the end of the line for him. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, has RAO (heaves), and Cushing’s. I went thru this last winter and trying to clean his butt is no fun at all when the temps are single digits and teens. It took just about all summer to gain back the weight he lost through January to about March not to mention trying to get all the Vaseline out of his tail from coating his butt with it. Even with his tail done up in a mud tail it still got all gooey.

[FlashGordon]

[QUOTE=msj;4541397]
skyy, thanks for the information. I know it’s antibiotic that can help when the bowel gets inflamed as I did google it and there is some good info on it. Don’t worry, as soon as the vet practice opens tomorrow, they will get a call. The one vet is about as fond of the old geezer as I am if not more so as she’s treated him pretty much for a good 15 or more years. This will only be the 3rd winter and 2 summers that I’ve had him.

But I’ll be very honest here, if I can’t get this guy’s squirts and diarrhea cleared up and under control, it’s pretty much the end of the line for him. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, has RAO (heaves), and Cushing’s. I went thru this last winter and trying to clean his butt is no fun at all when the temps are single digits and teens. It took just about all summer to gain back the weight he lost through January to about March not to mention trying to get all the Vaseline out of his tail from coating his butt with it. Even with his tail done up in a mud tail it still got all gooey. :([/QUOTE]

Aww I am sorry to hear about your old fellow’s troubles… I remember you going through similar things last year with him.

I’d definitely discuss the Metro (Flagyll) with your vet and give it a shot. We use it quite often at the vet clinic in dogs/cats with chronic diarrhea, and I myself was on it for awhile after contracting C. Diff from a hospital stay. May take a few rounds. Maybe do the Bio-sponge after the antibiotics?

[skyy]

I didn’t mean to come off as the “heavy” or as disapproving. I had a horse a few years ago with a radial fracture who was put on metro and colicked as a result so I am a little gunshy of metro. We recently went through a round of indeterminate diarrhea at my barn and we used Bio Sponge (which I had leftover from an almost fatal indeterminate diarrhea with my ISH who went from pipestream diarrhea to impaction). The vet said that as soon as we see any slightly formed balls in the diarrhea we should back off of the Bio Sponge. I would hate to see your guy go from diarrhea to impaction but I do understand the tough spot that you’re in. Good luck with him.

[msj]

Flash -thanks! I do hope I can get the old guy cleared up. I have adored this horse ever since I first saw him, which was ~ 15 yrs ago when one of his previous owners brought him up from VA for eventing. After several yrs a dear friend bought him, used him for pony club with her niece as well as just pleasure riding. He went lame and she gave him to another friend as a companion. He then came to me in the late fall of 2007. I must admit I spend more time on and with him than my own horse, but my horse doesn’t have the problems this guy has.

Skyy - you didn’t come off heavy at all. You were smart to make sure you warned me of potential problems.

I know it’s hard on a forum to judge just how much the various posters knowledge level is and it’s a whole lot better to be safe than sorry.

[sid]

I just mixed up the pills with feed. Horse ate it right up.

Very good med for a horse with a possible anaerobic bug in the gut.

[msj]

[QUOTE=sid;4541629]
I just mixed up the pills with feed. Horse ate it right up.

Very good med for a horse with a possible anaerobic bug in the gut.[/QUOTE]

This guy goes through spells of leaving feed and then cleaning everything up and asking for more. Right now we are in the ‘asking for more’ phase. He also gets 3 grain meals/day and 2 of them are mixed with beet pulp so I’m hoping if the vet does prescribe it, that he’ll just scarf it down.

I also know from my vets and reading this forum that a lot of older horses get diarrhea and it’s very hard to clear up. He’s pretty good on grass but since the day after Thanksgiving the boys have been relegated to the sacrifice paddocks to keep the big pastures from getting too torn up. But he always has had loose and soft feces and they were getting softer as fall went on whether he was on grass pasture or not.

[blackstallion2]

You may already have tried it, but my older TB mare has prolonged bouts of diarrhea and usually metamucil works. It takes a few days but works like a sand clear tx. Also, a friends aged pony was losing weight due to chronic diarrhea. Eventually a dentist was out and pulled several teeth. Almost immediately the diarrhea cleared up.

[msj]

[QUOTE=blackstallion2;4541711]
You may already have tried it, but my older TB mare has prolonged bouts of diarrhea and usually metamucil works. It takes a few days but works like a sand clear tx. Also, a friends aged pony was losing weight due to chronic diarrhea. Eventually a dentist was out and pulled several teeth. Almost immediately the diarrhea cleared up.[/QUOTE]

Haven’t tried Metamucil yet. :sigh: How much do you give? The horse is ~1200 lbs. Every time I hear of something new to try I get hopeful.

I had the dentist out doing teeth on this guy at the end of September and he also was done in April so I don’t think teeth are a problem. The fact that he did this last year makes me pretty sure this is going to be an ongoing problem. As I think I stated earlier, this guy has always had loose and soft feces always and sometimes it gets worse and then we have some fecal ball formation and I’m hopeful. Unfortunately this has gone on that it’s starting to become chronic.

[blackstallion2]

Two heaping tablespoons in every meal works on my mare, just plain, not flavored . She likes the taste. When you noted he was up off pasture, it reminded me of her. She eats off the ground a lot because she makes such a huge mess.

[Mary_in_Area_1]

We’ve used Metronidazole for several different horses with chronic “squirts”. It has worked every time, with no negative side effects. Several horses needed to be on it for a couple of weeks for the diarrhia to clear up completely.

We tried Bio-sponge on 2 of the horses with no change in the manure, but the metro worked right away.

Good luck!

[HT_Mom]

If you hear that Metronidazole is okay for you to us for this, let me know as I have roughly 600 pills left over from a recent sickness my horse had. I would love to donate them to someone who can use them instead of having them sit on a shelf.

Please note that we had to take our guy off of them because it made him go off his feed and become very anemic.

Cheers,
Margaret

[SRF1]

I have used metronitozole on several horses with great success. I would mix the pills with about 60 cc pepto bismol and syringe in their mouth. Fortunately doing it that way I never had any side effects and it worked great. I gave 10 pills am and pm 500 mg.

Good luck!

[cloudyandcallie]

We use metronidazole to kill anaerobic bacteria in the gut.

I dissolve it in water, and either mix it with a Coke (my horse drinks a Coke every day) or mix it in soaked grain.

If you dissolve the pill in water before you mix it in with whatever your horse likes to eat, it really helps to hide the taste.

It costs about 150 for a bottle from my vet.

[msj]

For everyone from Mary in Area I, HT Mom, SRF 1, cloudyandcallie and all previous posters that were positive to the Metronidazole, so far the one vet in the 5-6 woman practice I use wasn’t too helpful about it. But they do know the horse so I can’t argue with them YET. It’s OK because this horse’s usual vet is out of town right now and if the Bio-Sponge doesn’t help or his current Stomach Soother and yogurt combo doesn’t work, I have no qualms about going over and begging on bended knee to try the Metronidazole for this horse. HT Mom, thanks for the offer of the extra pills but right now I’m going to try and follow Dr’s orders.

Right now I have him on a combination of Stomach Soother and plain yogurt and I’ve actually seen more than 1 pile of manure that had a sort of ball formation so I’m hoping that the SS will help tide him over or even clear him up. I’ve had him on SS before with pretty decent results but after about a 6 month period it was no longer effective and I pulled him off it. If I’m really lucky, in 6 months we’ll be back into warm weather and he’ll be on pasture too. I can only hope.

[Yip]

I use metro in my aged sheltie and it is the BEST. Clears up the runs in just one dose for him, but it’s an antibiotic and should be used for 5 days. My vet understands that I’m just treating symptoms and keeping Cody going as long as he’s happy and comfortable.

I had never heard of metro for horses, but thank you for posting this. My TWH mare gets the runs 1-2x a year for no reason we can find. I can keep it on hand and try it with her next time.

But, you’re saying Metro = Flagyll? I did not know that. I know I can get Flagyl online a lot cheaper than from the vet. It’s ok for a small dog, but for a horse, I’d be shopping for price.

Yip

[Marshfield]

Just in case you didn’t know it is among one of the nastiest tasting medications that exists. I have gotten some great client feedback on Pro-Viable which is a newish product from the makers of Cosequin

[Yip]

I beleive it. I have to wrestle a 25# 14 yo. blind sheltie to the floor to get it in his mouth. If he doesn’t swallow the first time, I’m done for. Just recently, I began using the Pill Pockets in kitty size, and he took it on the first try, probably because he couldn’t smell it. It was like a miracle!

The co. ought to make Pill Pockets for horses.

Yip

[system]

Metronidazole, trade name Flagyl is used alot in small animal medicine for the treatment of stress colitis, as well as giardia infections since it is a great antiprotozoal. You do have to be careful because it can work to good sometimes. There is an injectible form of it that is light sensitive, I just dont know if they use the injectible form in equine. It is injected IV very very slowly.