Horse with weight and digestive problems - an update

[a hurley <juno501@yahoo.com>]

Hi, 

I wrote in a couple of times asking for advice on a
horse that had chronic runs and was also, not
suprisingly, too thin. The vet I was using ran a lot
of tests that came up negative. There were many on the
list that wrote me with suggestions. I wanted to let
everyone know that the horse is doing much better now 
- no runs and a body condition score of about a 4 or
so. Here are the findings of my one rat experience (I
can't call it an experiment as it has way too many
variables) 

The things that worked for THIS horse were: 

1) Aloe vera juice to settle the stomach down. I don't
know if this horse has/had ulcers or some other
problem but for whatever reason this helped and now
dare I say it, has cured the runs. 11/2 cups a day (I
think this was a ti suggestion)This was
counter-intuitive to me as I thought that aloe vera
was a laxative. 

2)Complete Advantage: Ok, it is not cheap but it seems
to work better at putting on the lbs than my own
equine senior/beet pulp mixture. I don't have to soak
it the same way that I felt I had to with the plain
beet pulp as the Complete Advantage has smaller bits.
The plain beet pulp I buy looks like it has pulp the
size and texture of twigs in it sometimes. 

3)Plain Loose Salt in the manger: I am not positive on
this one but this horse really went for the loose salt
even after no more runs. I bought a 25 lbs bag of
plain white salt in Costco for about $3. I have the
brick salt out there as well but this horse probably
really needed it loose for easier access.(I think this
was from Susan G who was responding to someone else's
question)

 Things I did that I am not sure whether they helped
or not:

I also did the 2x 5 day panacur purge when it looked
like the horse was healthy enough. I don't know how
much this helped as the horse was getting better when
I tried it. I will say that it did not make him worse,
although he was not too keen on syringes by the end of
it.

I also bought ration plus. I am not sure that it is
helping. I will see if I have to buy it again by
seeing what happens when he is off it again. It is too
pricey to just feed for the hell of it. 

Dental work - I had this done in May and did not
notice a difference weight wise   

The things that did  NOT help THIS horse. 

Oat hay - Seemed to make the runs worse. I mention
this as it was the opposite of what I (and my vet)
expected. He is now on grass hay and alfalfa.

Separating the horse from his buddies - even though he
could see and touch them, I think that this increased
his stress level so that he got worse. I did this so
that he would be able to eat all his hay in peace. I
discovered by watching everybody eat that this horse
was #2 in the herd of 4 so he ate just fine. I moved
him back in with everyone. 

Fastrack, ABC probiotic: I tried these for months with
no result. I don't think that the bug population was
this horse's problem. I may try them again if I go off
the ration plus. 

Adding oil to the feed: I wanted to do this for weight
gaining purposes but found that the horse could not
handle even 1/8 a cup in his feed. I might try it
again now that the runs have gone. 

My vet had said that the runs were chronic but not
life threatening after the tests came up negative and
that I would find it hard to find a reason or a cure.
The nice thing was that thanks to the list I was able
to find out some other options and keep trying. 

Thanks again

stasia 





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