Anyone feed Sand Clear year round in sandy pastures, even when there’s snow on the ground and they are eating off a round bale? In Michigan we have a lot of snow/melt cycles!
Psyllium has shown to be fairly ineffective at moving sand out - hay is much better
After feeding for a few weeks, the horse starts digesting it rather than it passing through.
There’s no sand intake if there’s snow on the ground. And, your free choice hay is doing a much better job moving sand out than psyllium can
Came to say this. The research was done by the Univ of Fl.
That’s what I’ve heard and read, too. However, the SandClear, recommended by my vet…definitely seems to have made a difference with my mare.
The last barn I was at, the owners at that time required Sand Clear once a month (for 7 days). As soon as they sold and moved, I quit it with my mare. No problems at all even with continued turn out on sand based dry lots. Heck, she would go out and eat dirt/sand. She has always been a consumer of dirt .
I recently moved barns and a boarder that was at the previous barn warned me I must put her back on it. Ummm…no. At this barn they are turned out on irrigated pasture and they eat out of feeders. Oh, but she might colic. I told her there were only 5001 other reasons they might colic and sand wasn’t the only one . My mare had been off of it for nearly a year and a half at the other place and nary a problem.
I read that psyllium is good for hind gut health but that it doesn’t move much sand.
If you are concerned about sand, do a simple sand check. Put a few fresh manure “balls” in a baggie and fill with water. Kneed and hang for five minutes or so.
Sand would settle out.
More than a tablespoon could be signs of sand in the colon.
I live in FL and have my whole life. I don’t feed any of that stuff and I don’t mash either.
What I do is deworm properly and feed enough hay all the time to keep their gut moving.
Been doing it that way over 40 years and only one gas c$&@;c in a pregnant mare caused by the foal turning. It resolved and every thing was fine
this doesn’t tell you anything other than “the horse is passing sand”, which is a good thing. It has no correlation to how much sand is in the horse, or even how much was consumed