What is a low fiber, fasting diet in prep for nephrosplenic displacement surgery?

[BlueDrifter]

My horse has had a second incident of NSS displacement, so he is a candidate for laproscopic surgery to prevent it from happening again. To make space in the flank, they want his colon to be empty, so recommend fasting him 72 hours before surgery.

I discussed diet with the surgeon and she suggested just grain and no hay – but my guy doesn’t get grain so I don’t want to introduce it. He just gets two cups beet pulp, two cups TC Balancer and vitamins right now.

She suggested I could up the beet pulp, but try to keep rations to about 50%, or 10lbs. She wasn’t wild about hay pellets being used saying they were fibrous. But I thought beet pulp was as well.

Anybody else have ideas?

[trubandloki]

Why is the TC balancer not count as grain in this situation?

[BlueDrifter]

I think it does count as “grain.” I over-simplified things. He already gets TC Balancer so I am okay keeping that and increasing it. They mainly want no hay, included hay pellets. I think to reduce bulk, but also to reduce gas. I somehow got the impression that hay might be more gassy than non-hay.

Tonight was his first half-ration, no hay meal. We have two more days to go!

[trubandloki]

Jingles!

[IPEsq]

It sounds like they’d recommend a complete feed instead of hay or hay pellets? A lot of those feeds are beet pulp based. So maybe that is why adding beet pulp is seen to be ok? 72 hours is a long time for a horse to fast. My horse had one of that type of colic. Very scary. I hope the surgery is a success!

[BlueDrifter]

Thank you! The surgery seems to have a high success rate and minimal complications.

72 hours seems like eternity to me, that is for sure – but it is half-rations, 10-12lbs a day, vs a complete fast. I think I will call the hospital today just to make sure I have it right.