Whats wrong my horse? Bit of a disgusting question btw lol?

Question

A horse at my riding school has really bad Diarreha and it matts up in his fur and his tail ): He's had it for a long time now. he's been to the vets and had a few treatments but they have'nt worked. Does anyone know what might causing it and how we could stop it ): It causing quite a bit of greif and i'm worried about him ):

I know its disgusting lol.

p.s I know it says "my horse" in the title but I dint know what else to put. :)

Answer 1

too much fresh grass or too much sugar beet

Answer 2

Poor worming program, even in the past,  gut damage caused by worm burden can cause colitis and give horses diarrhoea.

Get blood test for tape worm and a stool sample to vet for egg count. Get bloods also checked for liver screening/poisoning.

Answer 3

a horse at my barn had that once b4 but i really dont know what the problem could be ill look it up and post another comment in a minute...

Answer 4

Adding to the great comments from 4thehorses, all of the things that person said are good things, add to this some questions.  In addition to this I would wonder as well what is the horse's age?

Diarrhea in horses in no small problem.  The horse's system is designed to move food continually through his digestive system - this happens mostly in the large intestine and the cecum.  If the food is moving too fast through the cecum, it doesn't have time to get digested properly and therefore the nutrients from the food do not get into the horse's body.  Just like humans, if the problem isn't fixed, the horse will suffer from dehydration or worse.

I am skeptical of either the mentioned vet's ability or the stable owner's handling of the situation.  The vet SHOULD have been able to diagnose what the problem is or at least tried and kept trying different things to correct this.

I have a similar problem with one of my horses - he's a 27 year old Morgan gelding who's always been hog-fat.  This past spring, he developed a mild case of diarrhea and the result is quite a loss of body weight.  I am actually beginning to see his ribs now.  

The cause of this is the fact that the only hay I could locate this spring was very high in alfalfa, very rich hay which he is unaccustomed to.  My vet told me to give him a certain amount (can't remember if it was 20 or 200 CCs) of Kaopectate 5X a day for 5 days.  If no improvement he'd come out to see the horse.

I know that some people have had success (I have with foals and their baby diarrhea they always get) giving horses Kaopectate but only under the direction of the vet.

For my own horse, I switched his hay so he only get the stuff with the least alfalfa and he began to get better - he goes quite a while with good solid manure, then it goes back to runny manure, but not watery.  If it gets worse again more than a day or two, I'll call the vet again.

However, the horse is 27 - and anything over 20 in horses is a gift.  He is probably experiencing the first stages of the digestive system failures that many older horses get.  If he were in the wild, he'd probably be too weak to keep up with the others and would have become prey by now, so I keep him going as well as I can and I know he's feeling OK by his attitude and actions.

That's really an important thing - become VERY accustomed to a horse's "personality", habits and standing in his herd- the very moment a horse is "off " just a little you can tell if you know him well enough.

I suggest this horse needs further veterinary care - if the current vet is not a horse vet (ie, just a large animal vet) perhaps this vet's experience is not as good as a strictly horse vet.  Around here we have two VERY GOOD vets who strictly treat horses.  Although I've certain had good vets that were large animal vets, the ones that were strictly horse vets that I've worked with have been the very best.

good luck to the horse - hopefully help will come soon

Answer 5

It's likely that something in his feed is causing it.  Nerves can also cause diarreha, but if he has it all the time that doesn't seem likely.  Poor guy....sounds like he needs another trip to the vet.

Answer 6

I would say it is one of these options:

   1.  He is getting to much fresh grass and cant digest it all correctly

    2.  He is missing something from his diet like iron, or fiber

    3.  He isnt getting enough hay or grass

    4.  He is dehydrated, so talk to your vet about these and see what he says, good luck

Answer 7

Many things can lead to diarea in horses, excess stress, poor diet, not enough fiber, too much salt, intestinal worms ect. the list is very long. Horses have extremley delicate digestive systems and he's needs to be got back on track. Long term diarea is extremly dangerous to any animal particulary horses.

If the vets can find nothing physically wrong ask them to do a fecal test for worms and a complete blood panel.

In the meantime, until those results are in, I'd put him on some type of pro-biotics like Fast Track and try to limit his grain intake, give as much hay and grass as possible.

Answer 8

How long has he had the diarrhea?  Potomac Horse Fever is what I lost a horse too, started for several days of diarrhea, vet got him through that but then he foundered in all four.  What about a stool sample?  Need more info.

Answer 9

Make sure he hasn't had any changes to his food recently.

Answer 10

It could be the grass - our pony is pretty gross at the moment too.

Also it could be a result of previous worm damage in which case I don't think there's much that can be done about it.

Answer 11

Unfortunately it is likely that his previous owners did not worm him properly and he could be suffering from worm damage.  This is why it is sooo important that horses and ponies should be wormed regularly!  I prefered the paste method myself as it was more likely that the stuff actually got where it was meant to go.  I had one pony who would daily drop his food, no throw it everywhere because he was so greedy he would take more than he could chew!

I am sure the owners are tearing their hair out with worry too.  It does take some caring.

Answer 12

THere are so many things it can be, but if the vet hasn't found any problems, I would tend to think it's his diet.

I have a mare with this problem and started giving her probiotics (2 scoops, not just the usual 1 scoop).  She needs grain to supplement her diet because she's a hard keeper, but the high fat and high carbohydrate grains (and alfalfa) really made her diarrhea worse.  So I started mixing in beet pulp with her grain.  It's very high fiber so it helps "stop her up" a bit more than those other grains.

Also try grass hay instead of alfalfa, if it's possible.  Sometimes alfalfa is too rich and will cause horses to have digestive difficulties.

Good luck!

Answer 13

It would help if we knew what the stable was feeding him currently.

I knew a horse like that at a stable I boarded at.  Are they feeding a lot of alfafa?  If so, pull him off the alfafa and start him on oat hay (do this slowly so he doesn't colic.).  Some horses just can't handle a lot of alfafa.  Timothy would be good for this too.