I went to a farm supply store in another town yesterday. It is near a racetrack and always has interesting items in its supplement section. They had some gastric supplements one of which looked a lot like a gallon of pepto bismal. Has anyone tried pepto on a horse with stomach issues? Not as a cure for stomach ulcers so much as a way to sooth a horse the might get short term stress related stomach issues. They also had a product that looked like a gallon of Maalox. Any comments on products like these for horses?
We used to give it to horses with diarrhea, and it was useful for that, but IMO Biosponge is significantly more effective so we give that if possible. IIRC the dose was pretty large, too. Maalox can help with the symptoms of ulcers (particularly with foals that stop eating) but doesn’t actually fix the issue, and again the dose is large-- I feel like we gave 60 ccs at a time to a 400-500 lb weanling, and a horse got 2-3x that. So I would only use it temporarily and only if I couldn’t get Ulcerguard or Nexium, Ranitidine or generic omeprazole.
I’ve used pepto-bismol with good results on young sheep with diarrhea. The amount you’d have to give to a horse is a little staggering.
In general, I see it as a symptom masker rather than a cure. With the lambs we were using it as supportive care to buy time so they didn’t dehydrate. With some kinds of diarrhea you actually do want them to expel whatever is toxic so it should be used with some thought. I wouldn’t use it for a horse without checking with a vet and doing the work to figure out the cause.
It is not recommended for use in horses anymore. It contains Salicylic acid ( which is an NSAID) and could cause or aggravate ulcers. There are many products out there for horses ( many are pink and in big bottles) and most function to reduce acid. If you are concerned about ulcers there are quite a few options. Pepto should not be one.
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I just wanted feed back. The feed store in question has lots of unique supplements including some that they produce and label themselves. Shopping there is always educational.
I agree that I would not use it. Probably it’s not cost effective, either, based on how much you might need to dose. I remember being able to find an inexpensive liquid antacid for horses at the feed store when we were testing a few theories about ulcers and the horse was boarded (and I wasn’t sure they could reliably give ulcer meds on the correct schedule). I used the liquid antacid for a couple of weeks until I got my horse home.
