How do you get your horse to EAT the stuff? My mare is usually a chow hound and will eat anything, but NOT RiteTrac. Even offering it will turn her off that grain for days…
What does she do if you dampen it? In my experience RiteTrac seems to “go away” very well- my semi picky eater will wolf it down moist, but not dry.
I use Equishure. I mix it into some soaked Alfalfa cubes. Putting it in dry grain is a no go for my horse and he eats most anything!
She won’t even consider eating it dry or wet, in her regular grain or the Purina Healthy Edge Senior (something like that) that seems to be horse crack and gets all my horses to scarf down meds otherwise.
I think part of the problem is that is FIZZES. My water is neutral pH (I have fish, so this is a known quantity) and I’m really not sure where the fizz comes from. When I syringe it into her, I have to mix it with oil. Mixing it with water was a seventh grade science fair project!
I can try with alfalfa pellets. It seems that one sniff of it now and she says “HELL NO!”
When I asked KER about wetting it, I was told the following, FYI:
“To help the EquiShure stick to the pellets a bit you can add a little oil and stir it up with the dose of EquiShure or add a little bit of water (not enough to make the pellets soggy). A word of caution with the water, you do not want to get the EquiShure wet too far in advance of feeding because it will decrease the effectiveness. Wetting it right before feeding will not be a problem.”
I’d try adding a little sweet feed or molassesed hay chaff of some kind to help with the stickability and palatability.
My SOP for this horse is TC Complete + oil + supplements.
When we added the RiteTrac, it turned her so off her grain that I had to pull ALL supplements (nothing crazy here–just Triamino, MSM and Quiessence) and the oil and just offer the TC Complete straight up. She’s only begun to clean it up again in the past couple days, which is perhaps about 2 weeks after our total failure of getting her to eat it on her own. She is NOT happy about it.
It sounds like there’s no magic formula here (not like there ever is, but I can hope!) I’ll try some alfalfa pellets and a tiny amount of the RiteTrac and see if I can work up to the full dose. She’s really pretty good when I shove it down her throat, but it is getting tiresome for all parties, and I’d love to find a way that she’ll eat it on her own.
Then again, I’m not seeing any real improvements in her loose manure, which is why I put her on it, so maybe I should just stop it all together? :sigh:
I tried Equishure awhile ago, and had to syringe it in the mouth after adding a little water and some applesauce.
I still say you ought to investigate bacterial infection.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;7037580]
I still say you ought to investigate bacterial infection.[/QUOTE]
I’m nearly there. Giving the biosponge a week to work.
Tess would not touch RiteTrac. Bleh!
I top dress her soaked beet pulp with 1 lb. of McCauley’s M-10, Probios, Quiessence, Thyro-L and EquiShure. Sometimes she leaves the beet pulp, but eats the suppliments. Go figure?
When I got Piper home, she had very loose manure (can you say, “Cow paddy?”) I started her on Probios. In a couple of days, her manure looked normal.
I am having great difficulty giving Tess the Pergolide tablet. I soak it in warm water and syringe it into her. I keep her head up, but she manages to hold it in her mouth, until I let her head back down, then out it comes. It is too dang expensive to be spit out! :mad:
Any suggestions for giving Pergolide?
[QUOTE=Auburn;7037639]
Any suggestions for giving Pergolide?[/QUOTE]
How big is it?
I’ve been very successful at sneaking in smallish pills by hand feeding a few yanks of grass and tucking the pill into the corner of the mouth as they chew.
Doesn’t work with grain or treats for me. Has to be grass.
Interesting that your horse will eat Equishure but not RiteTrac. Good thing I spent all that dough on the more comprehensive product, huh?
Mine eats his Equishure no problem. I do put maybe 20ml of water on the pellets, mix it so all pellets are slightly damp, then add the Equishure and mix so it’s distributed fairly evenly.
His poop issues were caused from irritation due to encysted strongyles in the burrowing in or out (most likely out) phase. We got to the point of doing a biopsy of the hindgut wall to find this out.
[QUOTE=RedHorses;7037786]
His poop issues were caused from irritation due to encysted strongyles in the burrowing in or out (most likely out) phase. We got to the point of doing a biopsy of the hindgut wall to find this out.[/QUOTE]
EWWW.
What sort of symptoms did you see with that?
I kid you not… the vet’s term for it was “poop juice.” :lol:
A distressingly large amount of excess liquid, frequently sans poop. It was never diahrea, his poop was still in balls, nicely shaped, retaining shape upon ground contact, splitting open without splattering into cow patties - all in all what I would consider well but not over hydrated. But the poop juice at times coated his butt cheeks and made wide stripes down his hind legs including the fetlocks (and his thick tail of course). In the summer it made a hefty fly attraction, and in the winter it’s too cold here to wash something like that off.
I am lucky that he was a very good drinker, so we had no hydration or colic type issues. The vet figured that his hindgut was irritated and the excess liquid was his body’s attempt to ease the irritation.
Ewwwwwwww :lol:
Is he better now? Did you have to keep him on the Equishure long term, or just to get him through his worm migration?
I don’t know yet. The excess poop juice is gone for the most part. He had a couple of days this spring with very mild extra juice - possibly a spring hatch out of encysted worms which were promptly nailed with the spring Quest (after fecal).
Last year he got worse for a couple of weeks starting 7-10 days after each Quest which is why I suspect the burrowing out is the irritation point as the timing seemed about right for his body to expel the little dead encysted worms. This getting worse thing didn’t happen after the one ivermectin he got (for a different parasite) which made sense as the ivermection doesn’t kill encysted worms. He got overall better and better after recovering from each post deworming setback, and by the end of the year had only two days dirty after the post freeze deworming (I was thrilled 
). He had only one day of a little bit of excess juice after this spring’s dewormer so I am confident that we’ve got the population down to a manageable level.
He’d been on Prednisone to help with the inflamed gut and I was very conservative in bringing his dosage down to zero (after a couple of failed attempts to reduce the dosage earlier last year) so it took until early March to get him completely off that. He’s still on Equishure as I had bought another big bucket of the stuff and the vet agreed that it would be a good plan to keep him on the Equishure until it runs out. Then we’ll see if he’s healed up well enough to go without it (the vet thinks he should be fine). I think we have another couple of months to go, but he’s been doing so well that I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to check under his tail as the first thing every day. :lol: It is finally not the first thing I think of when the vet asks me how he’s doing.
The original expectation with the Equishure was that if it helped he’d get it for six months and then we’d see if he was okay without it as the vet had had success with six months of Equishure in most other horses. Only a few had to keep getting it ongoing.
Sorry, can’t help you as my mare snarfed up the Equishure the moment it was put in front of her, along with the poprocks and anything else we may want to give her. I did read the ingredients though and they are pretty simple (like basic baking ingredients simple) so I’ve started making my own version and saving myself $100/month. She still eats it up no problem! I have no end date in mind as it seems to keep her belly happy. Maybe towards the end of summer competition I’ll try her off it.
I always thought Equishure smelled quite nice and sweetish- did you check the expiry date- maybe it’s out of date and gone rancid. I can understand her not wanting to eat it then!
Just wanted to add, RedHorses, fascinating but also ewww^^^
Can you share your homemade ingredients?
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The nutritionist I work with runs a feed business also and makes her own EquiShure (encapsulated baking soda essentially). My horse scarfs it down without hesitation. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed a smell opening the bag so I don’t think it has much flavor. I will stick my finger in tonight and give it a taste test.
Word of advice on the homemade version - I’ve read on here before about people making their own homemade versions because it seems so simple. The reason Equishure works is because the baking soda is encapsulated in a fat product so it won’t be destroyed by stomach acid before it can reach the hindgut. If you are just feeding baking soda and a fat together, you might not be achieving the goal you set out to.
55% by weight baking soda and 45% by weight vegetable shortening (Crisco) not lard. Mix with a hand blender and feed 1/4 to 1/2 cup one to two times per day.
