What to do for IBD-like issues? Update, better then getting worse again

[IPEsq]

Background - horse with neck issues and gut issues. Recently completed treatment with GG, in the weaning off phase. Much improvement in behavior. Also injected facet joints in the neck. Much improvement in under saddle behavior.

Except when he has a hypermotile gut day, then behavior sucks. He can’t poop and move…an ongoing problem…he has trotted (and even jumped a low vertical) and pooped exactly once in the going on 2 years I’ve had him… doesn’t matter how many times you growl, kick, spank, he won’t move. That’s his general default response to not feeling well. Sometimes he stops just when he thinks a big poop is coming in the next couple of minutes. As he is green and smart and impressionable, I try to ask him to keep going a little bit so that we are stopping on my cue not just when he feels like it. But of course that makes him stressed. So then there are more poops. Today, the last 2 were within 30 seconds of each other. Fairly decently sized piles. Only the last pile (of 4 total within the ride) got a bit cow patty looking.

Once he gets all that out of his system (literally, lol), he is forward and compliant and happier, although obviously stressed out by that point.

I’ve tried a lot of things for his gut health including all of the general management things (free choice forage, etc.). Tried probiotics, horse lives on Equishure, gets alfalfa, beet pulp…

I just happened to get an email from Platinum Performance today about Bio-Sponge. I read an old thread on Bio-Sponge where the poster had a horse with constant cow patties. The 7 day treatment dose cleared the horse up but symptoms resumed after stopping Bio-Sponge. PP says there’s a little bit in their PP Equine supplement, and that it can be safe to give at lower doses long term.

Anyone else done this and if so, fed how much? For just loose manure or did your horse have hypermotility issues triggered by other things like exercise?

[Simkie]

Does a full dose help him?

I’d start there, first. Full dose to effect, then taper.

[IPEsq]

Haven’t tried it in any dose yet.

[csaper58]

Try to keep a notebook or a calendar of the dates he is gassy and what he eats. This includes all treats, when he gets a new bale of hay, any change in his routine, etc.

If you board put a sign on his stall ‘No Treats Needs Special Diet’ or words to that effect. I have seen so many people just go stall to stall feeding treats. Someone made my horse sick with watermelon rinds.

This brand of probio is reco’ed by the vet school here, it has helped several horses with cow plops. Valley Vet and Amazon carry it.

www.nutramaxlabs.com/horse/horse-digestive-health/proviable-eq

Call PP and ask about the long term use of BioSponge, they have all the research on that, and great customer service.

Ask your vet about Gas X or ‘baby gas drops’ for when your horse is hypermotile.

[IPEsq]

It’s a decent sized boarding facility, so every meal (he gets hay 4x a day) is off of a different bale. He’s fed on a pretty regular schedule. I’ve had some other boarders ask if they can give him something… it’s not a place where I’ve ever seen someone feed a treat without owner’s permission. He is picky and won’t eat anything weird. He has even turned down homemade horse cookies.

It’s more common for him to have these issues in the afternoon or evening. Today, it was in the morning. So, a bit unusual. I’ve tried to find clear patterns and haven’t succeeded in that yet. Last week, I rode more often in the evenings and only had one sort of off day.

[csaper58]

My horse is very similar, gut wise.

He used to eat coastal bermuda grass hay, I now have him on timothy + alfalfa hay, he is much better.

have you tried a new species of forage?

Also, wetting his food may help.

[IPEsq]

His food is mostly wet, being most of the volume soaked beet pulp. He dunks his own hay. If I could feed a tim/alf blend, I think he would be the happiest. Second to that would be brome and alfalfa. Unfortunately, the majority of the hay here is orchard grasses which don’t treat him as well, and unless I win the lottery and can buy my own farm, his grass hay is out of my control. He eats so much hay that it just isn’t feasible to not feed the barn’s hay. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with it…they don’t feed bad or moldy bales or anything.

Sometimes he is picky about his hay. The last stack we were on had some bales that were heavy on brome which he loved. The ones that were mostly orchard he didn’t like for some reason. I dunno, the other horses ate it fine. But, he went off his hay enough to have an ulcer flare. Boarders do their own evening hay if they so choose to feed then, and I’m often spending time looking for the “right” bale to crack open for him so he will eat well overnight.

There’s one large stack that I can’t wait for us to get to to see how he does…it was just cut and seems to have a good variety in it. Alfalfa, Timothy, and a bunch of different grasses. (Don’t tell the BO who is scared of alfalfa! Those of us who feed separate alfalfa have a coop situation going and we can’t even store it in the same part of the property as the rest of the hay.) Not sure if they’ll go to that next or feed some of the first cutting stacks that I haven’t looked closely at yet (one of the later cut had a broken bale that fell that I peered through).

I just can’t believe how high maintenance he is sometimes!

[IPEsq]

I just got off the phone with Platinum. They don’t recommend the Bio-Sponge for his issues.

They instead suggest taking him off his RB to see if soy is part of problem and feeding the PP Equine plus PP Healthy Weight for more Omega 3s for anti-inflammatory properties with his beet pulp. They are going to send me some samples.

[csaper58]

Sounds like the horse is telling you what the issue is.

The vets thinks my horse’s gut ferments the sugar in the hay more and faster than normal. Creating lots of gas, and an unwillingness to eat hay.

Thus the switch to the lowest NSC I have available to me, and a much happier horse.

[IPEsq]

Today, rode in be evening. Plan was to trot some cavaletti. He had eaten his alfalfa and about half of his lunch grass hay. (Approx 2 flakes grass had been around 3.5 hrs since lunch). I throw another flake to see if he’s interested while getting the cavaletti and my tack out. He eats some.

Starts off the ride great. But after just a couple minutes of trotting has to stop. Puts his head down, moves slowly. Acts like he’s got to pee but doesn’t. I walk over the cavaletti. He gets stalled out over it once, lets out some farts, then is happy to move along. Rinse and repeat this cycle for a while. Add in some other rider distractions. Only poops twice though, which given the timing is pretty normal.

Overall, acting ulcery, almost gas colicky. I can’t leave him on a treatment dose of omeprazole forever. At the end, he is feeling better, I do some transitions with very light aids and call it a night.

He is tight in his shoulders and neck and tight in the triceps and girth area. I do some massage after the ride. He is happy. Goes back to his stall and starts gobbling up his hay.

I just don’t know what else to do for this horse??? Any ideas? If I try cutting out soy, how long should I do that for?

Changing forage just isn’t going to be possible unless someone finds me a new job elsewhere in the country or buys me a farm. I could replace his RB with alfalfa pellets, but that’s about the max quantity he would eat of that at a time (very little by weight).

I just got a new tub of EquiShure. I could up that and still be in the acceptable dose range.

What else am I not thinking of? I just want him to feel ok. When he feels good, he is a blast. I didn’t get frustrated with him tonight but sometimes it makes me feel like giving up. I’m going to get a trainer out to put some rides on him because I am just so tired. I don’t want to “scare” him into behaving, though…I just want him to feel good!

[RedHorses]

Get a list of ingredients from his feed manufacturer. Gas colic is painful, even if it’s a short term “need to pass this bubble” thing.

Flax can make some horses gassy, and it is a popular feed ingredient these days. I have one horse that can’t have flax.

Have you ever tried a hay only diet? Yes, he might need a vitamin and mineral supplement long term, but as a test to see if it makes any difference to his gut issues it won’t harm him.

[jawa]

My pony had gut issues for a long time. I tried SOOO many different things to fix it. It was very frustrating.

In the end, the simplest fix was to take away alfalfa and add Timothy pellets. 3 dry lbs a day. Gut, fart, poop issues no longer.

I talked with a vet who told me a couple of things: 1. When horses have abdominal surgery, they are put on an alfalfa diet because it ends to loosen stools and allows for more frequent softer stools, which is easier on the recovering horse. 2. The long stem fiber in regular hay can irritate the intestines of some horses. The short stem fiber of the pellets lessens this irritation and is better at absorbing excess fluid in the intestine. 3. The pellets tend to have less fluctuation in sugars than hay bales at different times from different fields.

In my area, 50lb bags of pellets are under $20. It was by far the cheapest experiment to see if it would help his gut. And it worked!!

I don’t know if it would help your guy, but it might and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg to try.

ETA: For a 3 lb serving of dry pellets, I add about 1 cup of water and stir well. My guy does best if the pellets are just fluffed. If they are sopping wet, the mush gets pressed into the bottom of his bucket, he gets frustrated and quits.

[IPEsq]

I put him on a flax based supplement a couple months ago but had experimented with flax some before that. Adding flax hasn’t made things worse. I don’t think he is sensitive. He seems to do well on alfalfa but I have trouble feeding cubes. I can’t soak them…he won’t eat them soaked. On a day like yesterday, he will really tear into some alfalfa. It must help somehow. Otherwise, he will eat his grass and alfalfa equally.

I think it could be soy. Could just be the grass hay here gives him hind gut problems. I have not done a hay only diet because he needs more calories. But right now he is liking beet pulp so I could take out the hard feed.

[digihorse]

Sigh… get rid of the beet pulp. I know its a favourite, but it can create huge issues for horses with hind gut problems. No Soy, no Beet Pulp! Cut back on the processed crap. Plain good alfalfa pellets, plain oats. Free choice grass hay all day and alfalfa. I also feed oat flour (beta glucan).

Also, yes… people DO feed other people’s horses… all the time. I’ve witnessed they scoop of senior being handed out to various as person walks down the barn isle, even though they have been expressly told NOT to do that.

[IPEsq]

I thought beet pulp was good for the hind gut? This barn is very good… we are all respectful adults. I really don’t think anyone is slipping my horse extra food.

CSU vet says to go with the regular Platinum Equine.

My regular vet wants me to give Platinum Balance one more chance (tried it for 2 months over the summer with no change). He also thinks I should reduce alfalfa to 1 flake/day instead of 2 and switch the horse to Purina Omelene 200 and feed it at 6lbs/day. He loves Purina…I do not. I said he’d been on TC Senior before…I could go back to that if he wants me to up the energy from what he gets with the RB. Said horse should be eating at least 26lbs forage a day… On a good day he probably does eat that, maybe as much as 30 including the alfalfa. He also does not agree with my supplementing Cu and Zn to balance out the high iron levels in our hay. Wants me to think more old school…hay and a scoop of complete feed and probiotics.

Ugh… my head is spinning. Too many opinions.

[Simkie]

Omelene 200??? Good lord, might as well just give him a bucket of sugar. What on earth is the reasoning behind that?

[IPEsq]

Yes thankfully I had vet on the phone so he couldn’t see my eye roll! He says that’s how he feeds his performance horses, and they need a good complete feed. I just said, well, horse had been on TC Senior before…I could go back to that… He said he’d need to look at the label. He is fine with beet pulp.

He thinks alfalfa is causing gas. I tend to believe the things Katy writes and the Equishure research and am leaning towards the grass… Which would make the recommendation for Platinum Balance make sense. It just didn’t help the first time I tried it.

[cayuse]

I have a mini who seems to be sensitive to soy. He developed loose manure, gas and what I call drizzle bum after I started a ration balancer. His issue improved quite a bit after removing the ration balancer that was full of soy. He is not perfect yet, but is a lot better. Probiotics helped too. And the bio-sponge as suggested by my vet when things were extra “messy” back there.
Maybe you could try removing the soy for a few weeks and see what happens.

[IPEsq]

He doesn’t really have loose manure. A little bit of water but in the normal range. But the piles pass very quickly sometimes. Like, one big dinosaur plop. And he appears to get uncomfortable shortly beforehand. He may or may not be excessively gassy on these days. The gassy days tend to go more like yesterday, although that was closer to colic symptoms than he’s had before that should not have been ulcer-related (ulcers make him act colicky)…unless one round of GG wasn’t enough this time. Vet thinks that is unlikely because it worked last time and he gets symptoms with very little to see on the scope. Would really like to avoid having to scope again. Anyway, with that kind of information, Platinum didn’t recommend the bio-sponge.

I think I’m going to start by cutting out the soy. Elimination is easier to experiment with than adding things. The PP samples should arrive Friday for his vit/min needs. Vet thinks soy is unlikely to be the problem unless he has an allergy, but we have not done any allergy testing.

I asked the vet if his SI potential issues could mimic/cause gut problems. He said he hadn’t experienced that. Bodywork vet thinks horse’s psoas muscles are contributing to his SI area sensitivity. Now, when my psoas are a mess, my gut is too…and vice versa?.. chicken or the egg? I have a psoas release move I’m supposed to be doing, but some days he doesn’t tolerate it. I am also to do some tail/sacrum ROM things, which he does like. Maybe I need to press the fart buttons while I’m doing that? And do it before I ride?

[bt1]

Have you checked his Vit E level? I think you are onto something with the SI psoas pains…could be uncomfortable to lift his tail or contract the abdominal muscles. I am all too familiar with the affects back pain can have on passing manure. Can you move him to 24/7 turnout?