Chronic diarrhea in Horses - Anybody have a good remedy? Im at a loss!

[nop169]

Did your vet do a scraping of the intestinal lining? Some isues such as salmonella and other bacterial upsets can be diagnosed only with intestinal lining scraping. Since all of your horses are exhibiting the symptoms I would definately inspect your feed & request that your state lab sample it. I would also have the state lab sample your hay source. You may have already did all of this but if not at least this gives you a base line of areas to begin looking for the issue. I would also get a 2nd veterinarian's opinion - not to say your vet is not good - but perhaps something has been missed.
After consulting with your vet - I would also consider taking the horses off of all grain & concentrate feeds - or just feed plain oats & good quality hay. Basically you want to simplify their feeding program using a more bland diet until you can pinpoint the problem.
Of course I am assuming that you both deworm regularly & rotate your wormers. You must also look at your pasturage - this time of year there may be some plant in the pasture that they are grazing that they normally would not. Many evergreen plants contain alkoloids that cause chronic diarrhea when consumed. So taking the horses off pasture for a few weeks may be prudent. Walk your fields or have your local state agriculture rep come & walk it with you - or if not him/her try for a college professor specializing in native plants. Most states also have a website with pics showing their native plants that are toxic to herbavores. Usually it is linked to the state ag website.
Mainly though you are going to have to contain them & monitor their intake until you figure out what is causing the problem. If your barn & fields are clean & well maintained - it is most likely your feed or a native plant they are grazing while the grass is scarce.
I hope this helps you develop a plan of action & that you find the issue soon. Please keep us posted.

 

[snowhorse]

Quote:
They are the only 2 exibiting these symptoms out of the 6. They all have access to all the same water, hay, pasture and feed.

 

[patandchickens]

They are the only 2 exibiting these symptoms out of the 6. They all have access to all the same water, hay, pasture and feed.

Does not in any way mean that water, hay, pasture or feed are not the problem. Different individuals have different tolerances for things (also, on the topic of poisonous plants, different grazing habits -- although if this occurs year-round, with no seasonal changes, it is unlikely to be pasture plants)

Really truly I would try them on a diet of unlimited grass hay or mostly-grass hay, no supplements nor grain nor pellets nor anything else, for at least a few weeks maybe more, and see what happens. This will not harm a horse and may be informative.

For what specifically have you had your water tested? Offhand I would say you would want to make sure to have total bacterial count, coliform bacterial count, and salts (including at least sodium and magnesium), and giardia cysts. Any one of those things could cause chronic diarrhea in certain individual horses, and not all are included in a "plain vanilla" standard water test.

What if any salt block do these horses have?

It seems most unlikely (not impossible, just really highly unlikely) to be some sort of no-specific-cause inflammatory bowel problem, since you have TWO unrelated horses with the same problem. It has almost *got* to be something infectious that the vet has just not identified yet (have you discussed with your vet the possibility of trying a course of metronidazole or similar? although that would be a little pricey), or a hay/water/feed related issue. Again, the fact that the other horses are unaffected does not mean too much, as different horses have different susceptibilities to things.

Best of luck,

Pat​

 

[snowhorse]

I had only mentioned that because nop169 had mentioned that they all had the same issue, So I was just letting her know it was not all of them.

I will see specifically what we have had our water tested for.

They have a mineral salt lick and a regular white salt lick.

 

[upintheholler]

Back in the early 90s my family was milking cows for a living.Not one of the big time dairys like you see nowadays bout 150 head or so.Anyway we was trying to save money and started pricing different feed stores.Purina is a small feed store bout 30 miles from us.They had the cheapest price on the pellets we was wanting.We started feeding the feed and within 6 months we started having the same issues you are having.Diarrhea so bad within 3 weeks they would die.We lost a bunch of cows before the vets finally found it.It was salmonella.The tests kept coming back negative for salmonella when we had the cows tested.We finally had a vet test some of the pellets and sure enough there it was.Rat pee and feces on the pellets.We went to the feed store and went to there storage bins and there was dead rats everywhere.We got salmonella from there cheaper feed.I would treat them for salmonella.Back then I believe we used oxytet to treat them but Im not sure on that.Contact your vet and see what the treatment is.Good luck Rodney

 

[verthandi]

Quote:
Have you wormed for tapeworm? Just curious as tape can cause some horses to have diarrhea.

 

[TMNTCkins]

I have three horses and 1 of them had chronic diarrhea. Last summer I sent him to my parents house for a few months and no diarrhea there. Brought him home and the diarrhea came back. He was on grass hay in the morning and alphalfa at night and 1lb of pellets. I thought it was the alphalfa so I took him off of that and just feed grass hay and the pellets. Come to find out his system can't take all the different hays and the pellets. He can have any kind of hay grass or alphalfa but only one type at a time and no pellets. If I feed alphalfa that's all I feed. If I feed grass hay I only feed the grass hay. Try taking them off all the stuff and only feed hay. Worked for me and no diarrhea for months.

 

[WallTenters]

Have you had the protein level of your hay tested?

 

[snowhorse]

I havent had the protein level in my hay checked out...how do you do that?

If ivermectin and Strongid don't worm for tape worm, then I haven't.

And we have not had a intestinal scraping done, I'm going to call the Vet loaded with information and questions.

I am worried about only putting him on only hay- He has trouble keeping weight on. So he gets the most amount of grain out of all my horses just to keep his weight on. The mare doesn't need as much grain so I could probably take her off of it. And another thing is is really ravenous about his grain like he hasn't been fed all day!

I also have a chronicly lame horse, that I want to have his x-rays sent to another Vet to see if he can have Shockwave Therapy done....and I asked for those in December maybe and she won't send them to me only the guy that wants to look at them, I tell you I am getting a little frustrated. Its not like I don't think she isn't capable and she kind of acts like I am questioning her ability because shes like well I sent them to a surgeon, well surgery isn't the first option I want to hop to.... I paid for the x-rays, I should be able to get a copy!


Ugggh....


And I can't spend a fortune....thats my other problem, with 6 horses and load of other animals, my Dad is in the middle of a divorce, and the economy being bad...things just really stink right now!

 

[Cara]

The diarrhea may have a lot to do with him not being able to keep weight on. Stop the diarrhea and he may gain, even if his calorie intake is less on paper.