Need advice with new horse please!!

Well, isn’t he a cutie pie! Thanks for sharing!

He’s adorable. Thanks for the photos. I wonder, from the expression on his face and from his ulcers, if he’s not a worrier. If he is, then you’ll have good leads on how to train him. You’ll be looking for ways to preserve “the tranquility of the horse”.

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Sorry to revive this post but you all were great at giving advice and I could use more! I gave Jack a few weeks off, lots of low key bonding, some ground work and easy lunging, it was really good for both of us. Started riding again lightly about 2 weeks ago and he has been great! He has been on gastrogard for 60 days now and just started tapering Thursday. Rode him Saturday and he was a different horse, super nervous, a good boy considering he was probably in pain but clearly something was bothering him. Just walked him today and asked for a bit of trotting to see how he’d go and it was clearly not something he felt comfortable doing, would go a few steps but with his head in the air and clearly nervous… I haven’t yet scheduled the third scope but I’m pretty sure it is going to show the gastrogard didn’t work (again!). Had the same problem after a day or two of tapering last time, clearly the stomach acid came back with a vengeance, even on half a tube. The second time around we made a lot of dietary changes as well, added Purina outlast, aloe juice, got a nibble net so he would have hay all night… He was/is on sucralfate as well. So my question is: now what?? I think it makes sense to keep tapering gastrogard, I don’t think it is going to work on him at this point and neither does my vet. I ordered a supplement called THE equine edge gastroPLUS which works differently and had great success in racehorse trial. I also put him back on ranitidine to deal with the acid being produced. Poor guy. I feel so helpless!

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Sorry to hear you are still dealing with ulcers. There are number of good threads here on COTH regarding various ulcer treatments. I know from reading several, that not all horses respond to all medications - sometimes it takes several to find what works. Good luck to you both. :slight_smile:

Outlast is a nice product but are you using it as directed? I know we were not. You are supposed to feed it before you ride (not as a supplement in his food). We switched to Legends GastroCare as that is designed to be feed with their grain. https://www.southernstates.com/catalog/product/p-11123-legends-gastrocare-supplement-40-lb

That really sounds like ulcers. Hopefully you will get him sorted out.

What a lovely horse. I can see why you are so fond of him.

I don’t know enough nutritional science to make any recommendations for the ulcers – but hang in there! It’s hard not to feel discouraged and overwhelmed when you’ve put in time and tried what you knew to try, and don’t think it’s working. Know that you will figure this out. And Jack will, too. I thought my new horse would never have normal poop, and it did take months of gradual improvement to get his digestion in order. But he poops just like he should now! :slight_smile: (My non-horsey friends do not get the fascination with and lengthy discussions of horse poop.)

Sounds like Jack has found a good landing out of his life adventures so far! :slight_smile: