colt with chronic diarrhea? any suggestions???

[Skyesrocket]

I would give him probios for a while. You can get a jar of powdered probios at Tractor Supply for around $8. Also like someone said hold grain too.

 

[danischi24]

How long has this been going on? Is the stool loose or actual diarrhea? You can find out if he has any worms by taking a fecal sample for analysis under microscope. Do that before pumping him with wormer for no reason. Here's a link with some ideas and if you scroll down, there's more info: http://vetmanual.org/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/22202.htm&word=diarrhea,in,horses

 

[turney31]

I have a friend whose filly did the same thing. After much detective work it was diagnosed as Giardia. Fresh water was always provided for her horses but they had acess in the pasture to a stock pond. Giardia was found in the pond water. Good luck in your endeavor.

 

[Peaches Lee]

Agree with Danischi. Get a fecal sample and have it tested to see what's going on and go from there. Good luck!

 

[welsummerchicks]

Sounds like he needs a different vet. I would be calling someone else if a colt-then-gelding had chronic diarrhea. Horses that have chronic diarrhea can get dehydrated or not absorb nutrients they need to grow and mature normally. And they may be getting infected (even repeatedly, if you have other horses) with an illness or parasite. Your other horses could be immune to something that makes him sick.

Almost anything could cause diarrhea in a young gelding.

It could be that a product you're feeding, that he has a food allergy to that product.

It could be that your pasture or hay has a plant in it that bothers him. He may be picking up a weed that tastes good but causes diarrhea.

You may have wormed him recently, but the wormer you used may not have been in a sufficient dose to kill the parasites he has.

Or the wormer you used may not have killed the type of parasite he has.

The wormer could have lost its effectiveness (check label expire date).

Or the youngster could have gotten reinfected with worms from the other horses or the ground, after he was wormed.

He could have a digestive disorder, such as a malapsorption type of disorder.

He could have ulcers. Some young horses get ulcers. A fairly large percentage of foals have ulcers, sometimes they don't clear up as the horse grows.

He could have a chronic infection, or a tumor or a congenital abnormality of the gut.

So vet.

A good place to start is to collect a fresh fecal sample, and have it analyzed by your veterinary clinic. Have a blood sample taken, and have the blood tested for infection, anemia, a regular panel.

If he were mine, I'd first take him off pasture and all supplements, treats and bagged feeds, an just feed hay for 3 weeks and see if that makes a difference.

I'd clean out my water troughs and buckets and feed tubs, and look for any possibility he could be nibbling on something or getting into something in the barn or around the yard - chemicals, household cleaners, car products, varnishes, etc. I'd lock up all feeds and be sure horses could not get into them and do 'self serve'.

I'd walk my pasture and see what plants were growing there - if I could not identify some I'd pick a sample and take them to my ag extension office of my county. I'd pull all weeds and anything that the ag office thought would be a problem. I'd get a list of undesirable trees from them. I'd look for cherry tree leaves, black walnut trees, etc, and remove those trees from near or in the pasture - even if they aren't dropping leaves on the pasture - some are poisonous through the ground. I'd look for any buckets or trash that might have been dumped in an unnoticed area of my pasture. I'd look to be sure neighbors were not dumping their trimmings or grass clippings into my pasture. I'd look to see if any of my neighbor's septic fields were leaking into my pasture after rains. I'd look at my fence and see if the horses were chewing ont he wood, and put no-chew on the wood or run a little lightweight hot electric string along the board.

Before I took the youngster out of the pasture, I'd try to just watch him for a day and see if he was getting into anything.

You can find odd things with horses. One of mine can't eat any fine grasses - gets diarrhea. Can't soak his hay - he gets diarrhea. Can't feed him clover, he gets diarrhea. So it can also be an individual thing.

 

[babyblue2]

I agree with welsummerchicks. Also a simple blood test for allergies is not super expensive. A friend did one on her one morgan. He was allergic mildly to alfalfa and then deathly allergic to concord grapes. Good thing to know on both counts, especially if you live or board on an older farm in pa where sometimes grapes have been planted decades ago and went wild in the hedge rows.

 

[al6517]

What type of hay and have you changed your hay supplier. Green fresh alfalfa can sometimes be too hot for a young colt, he may just be stressed a bunch from the snipping. Keep in stalled so he doesn't rip any stitches inside.

 

[welsummerchicks]

She said he had it before he got gelded.

 

[zzGypsy]

welsummerchicks has a great list.

we're seeing resistant worms in our area so consider that your wormer may no longer be working for the worms you have. definitely need a fecal to determine if you've still got worms.

you can have your vet check for sand, or you can do it yourself - take a sample of poop the size of 2-4 poop balls and put it in a heavy gallon baggie with about 2 cups of water. smoosh it up until it all breaks down and disolves as much as is possible. tip the bag so one corner is down and let the fluids settle out. if you see sand accumulating in the low corner, consider a couple rounds of psyllium. some horses eat dirt and sand will cause chronic digestive system irritation. if you've got a stethoscope you can listen in the lower quadrants of their belly for digestive gurgling - if you hear the sound of sand moving on a beach, that's exactly what's in them. you will not always hear it, but the poop test should show it if its there.

have you considered the possiblity of an ulcer? might be worth assessing.

I'd look at getting him off grain of any sort, or any sweet feed. might switch off any rich forage as well, such as alfalfa - go to all grass hay for a month and see if it helps. if you need extra calories, try rice bran, which is higher fat, but doesn't have the gut-flora activating sugar and carbos of grains or sweet feeds. I'd probably put him on probiotics as well to make sure you've got the right population in his gut.

if you use a modified feed from what he's getting now, and with the probiotics, I'd give it 4 weeks to get his gut flora reestablished and the fiber working for him, as well as allowing some time for gut healing. any time shorter than that and I'm not sure you'd see the effect of the change.

 

[bufforp89]

Super informative as always

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