He cannot do 24/7 turnout for various reasons. He gets about 8 hrs out right now.
I supplement with 8,000 IU vitamin E due to all of his issues including neck, plus whatever is in his feed ration. He is not on fresh grass at the moment except for what we can find when I have time to hand graze.
He also gets acupuncture, massage, other bodywork. I could really use some myself right now but he’s taking up all the pampering funds 
To those of you who know: if you eliminate soy, how long until you would expect to see positive results?
Have you tried ranitidine? Another product that was recently brought to my attention and recommended is OceanFeed Equine as a supplement for gut health. It is available in the US.
I agree with elimination method. At least that way you have control factors. I’d take one thing out every 2 weeks, which should be plenty of time for his system to clear and reset.
He has not been prescribed ranitidine yet.
Ranitidine is OTC 
Best price is Wal-Mart. Second best is Costco. Since it acts on gastric AND hind gut ulcers, it may be great for you. And it’s way cheaper than gastrogard!
[QUOTE=jawa;8878862]
To those of you who know: if you eliminate soy, how long until you would expect to see positive results?[/QUOTE]
My mini felt and looked better after about 2 and a half weeks. He seemed to generally feel better and the watery gas/loose poop was much improved. Not completely gone, he still has an occasional episode once in awhile, but maybe 80% improved.
[QUOTE=Simkie;8878965]
Ranitidine is OTC Best price is Wal-Mart. Second best is Costco. Since it acts on gastric AND hind gut ulcers, it may be great for you. And it’s way cheaper than gastrogard![/QUOTE]
I was thinking of going to Walmart tomorrow to get some aloe Vera juice. What is the dosage? Not sure i can quite space it out to 3x a day…might have to do 2x.
He started out horribly tonight because he was wild since he didn’t work hard enough the last 2 days. Still gassy and pissed off about that too, but eventually was able to fart and trot at the same time, and once I got over the rearing from freshness, we really got somewhere with supplying exercises. He was very stiff in the left shoulder again…not sure what that’s about because I thought the neck injections fixed it. But once he decided he could actually do some lateral work, that disappeared. And thankfully his attitude took a 180 from where we started.
He’s got a massage scheduled for tomorrow afternoon so I can assess his soreness level compared to his last eval a couple weeks ago.
IIRC, it’s 6.6 mg/kg. I’ve always had good luck with BID dosing
300mg tablets are prescription, right? So it’s like 26 of the 150s BID? I have a friend whose horse is on it permanently and she gets a powder compounded by her vet. I guess it’s worth a shot. Seems safer than UG for longer term use.
1300 lbs? Yep, 26, twice a day.
One vet says 1250 one says 1350 now. He’s huge! And not at all chubby. He was maybe 1100 when I got him.
That might explain why 1/4 tube UG may not have had the preventative effect that it used to for him.
I dewormed today and am trying to schedule teeth for later in the month so will tick all those boxes too.
Sigh… I think you may find, that he doesn’t NEED the UG and similar. What you describe is generally not stomach… its hind gut. The UG and all the other ulcer meds won’t touch it. And in fact can make it worse. Start over… get rid of the “stuff” and then slowly add in unprocessed foods. No crap. No man made idea of “better” and then see where he takes you.
[QUOTE=digihorse;8880060]
Sigh… I think you may find, that he doesn’t NEED the UG and similar. What you describe is generally not stomach… its hind gut. The UG and all the other ulcer meds won’t touch it. And in fact can make it worse. Start over… get rid of the “stuff” and then slowly add in unprocessed foods. No crap. No man made idea of “better” and then see where he takes you.[/QUOTE]
Ranitidine does actually work on the hind gut.
Consulted different vet who I am more aligned with on nutrition things…
She said it is probably worth trying ranitidine 2x a day before going to one of the other things she has suggested (e.g., RelyneGI). She and regular vet also said use my Nibble Net. I just have been so pleased that he has now been able to eat off the ground the past 8 months without wasting everything! I don’t really like nets for his neck issues. The Nibble Net also makes it harder for him to dunk his hay, but he did figure out how to use the 2" hole one (short trial, he struggled with the smaller holes). And the barn will feed in it, so it’s an option, just not my first choice option given that he doesn’t bolt his hay. He eats his hay slower than his neighbor who eats out of a NN!
I also wonder a bit about the nutrition side of things. I’m in your area and have a horse who gas colics at the drop of a hat, despite being on every stomach/hindgut med possible (not to mention a perfect stomach scope, 24/7 turnout, alfalfa supplementation, negative fecal, normal bloodwork, etc). After her third stay at the horsepital I talked to every vet I could about wtf could be going on because I was tired of going through a half dozen+ minor to major colics every year.
Their suggestion was to take it all away, including the grain. Their thought was that maybe all the stomach stuff was interfering with my horse’s ability to digest and break down the food he was eating, leading to gas from fermenting food in the hindgut. If it wasn’t that, the next thing to try was even more of an elimination diet to see if there was an ingredient causing the problems.
Maybe all the things he’s on to try and help him are invariably causing issues? Obviously you and your vets are working closely together and know what’s right for your horse’s situation, and my situation is not yours, but maybe adding more on top of what he’s already got isn’t really helping.
[QUOTE=IPEsq;8875342]
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. [/QUOTE]
My horse was on rehab at a different barn and I was there only at night. I put a sign on his stall saying “PLEASE don’t feed him any treats.”
The day I left a horde of little girls and their parents came to say goodbye and told me how much they had enjoyed feeding him treats every day.
:mad:
This won’t help you since you said he can’t do 24/7 turnout but I thought I would throw it out as food for thought. We have gotten a surprising number of retirees who come to us due to GI issues. Their owners do the dance, as you have been doing, for years, and finally when the horse reaches late teens to maybe 20 they decide they’ve done it long enough and throw in the towel and retire. After a transition period these horses live out on good grass for much of the year 24/7, and mixed grass hay the rest of the year (along with grain and any needed meds/supps). A handful of our residents also get alfalfa pellets mixed in with their feed as well.
Once they hit 24/7 turnout the loose stools and symptoms of minor gas colics usually disappear within a couple of weeks. I will say that this specific type of horse tends to lose weight during the first 60-90 days almost like clockwork. I don’t know why. Then they gain it all back during the next 60-90 days. The GI stuff is gone forever. The maintenance doses of GG and/or ranitidine, periodic dosing with metronidazole, the bazillion GI and ulcer type supplements - they all become a thing of the past. The key appears to be two things. The first is being out with a group. The second is being out in a large area where the horses get a lot of low impact exercise through walking - our retirees get on average 7 miles per day (we’ve put pedometers on them).
We have seen 100% of GI issues, ulcer issues, irritable bowel type symptoms, etc. go away. Interestingly, when one of the two things listed above is removed (the group turnout or the 7 miles per day from regular walking around a large pasture), the symptoms return fast. The takeaway that my large animal nutritionist hubby draws from this is that some horses HAVE to have that continual movement for their GI system to work properly. The vast majority of horses can do fine with the modern lifestyle of more limited movement that comes during smaller windows of time, but some horses simply have to have the movement.
It’s tough owning one of the “special” ones, sometimes you feel like a hamster on a wheel trying to manage the various issues. Then of course there’s your bank account that has to be managed as well.
I have fixed some GI issues by having people kill weeds in the pasture that contain short chain fructan: dandelion, plantain, thistles etc. I believe chemophobia and the ‘organic’ thing is allowing people to feel good about weeds. I think weeds are higher risk than grass in pastures for many health problems in horses.
He loves dandelions but nothing is growing right now. Dry summer burned it all up!
I think exercise could help him, and maybe under saddle exercise gets things going a bit too fast in comparison to how he is standing around? He doesn’t walk that much in turnout that he does get. And he is not compatible with most horses, but we are working towards putting him back out with a buddy…buddy also had a layup and between the two issues they have been separated a year now…we are giving buddy some more healing time before putting the two knuckleheads back out together in case things are exciting at first.
He used to walk a lot in turnout because he was a fence walking nutcase. That didn’t help his gut either! (I know…not exactly the exercise you are talking about).
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