Re: RC: Re: feeding dry beet pulp?

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

Hi guys, sorry to be behind on email.  I hope everyone had a nice Christmas.

.  Anyway, it seems to me that the
>      movement of food for a human is top to bottom and for a horse it goes
from
>       front to back.  From this I assume that heavier particles will
settle > at the bottom
>       of the horses hindgut and not move past the curves up creating a
pile > of sand>        or ? at these locations.   Having not looked at the
intestines of a
> horse my
>       assumption is based on mere voodoo.

Voodoo or not, your assumption is pretty much right on the money.  Sand does
settle to the bottom of the colon, and is more likely to be in the ventral
colon (parts down towards the belly) than the dorsal colon (up higher).
When it does accumulate in the 'higher up' parts, it can weigh it down
enough that those parts sink down lower (they aren't tacked in place as
other things are) and can potentially cause kinks and torsions and bad
things like that (like my anatomy technotalk?)<g>

>             A discussion I had with the owner of a horse that went to
Davis
> after Tevis
>       was interesting.   The horse was treated by Vet. Robin and after a
> heated
>       "debate" with the owner was taken there for emergency treatment.
The
>        decision was to operate and therein they found beet pulp which they
now
>        blame for the problem.  More information is needed I know.  But my
> assumption
>         is that  they fed it dry and the horse didn't hydrate enough to
keep
> it wet then
>         under exercising  the gut shut down.

The beet pulp may have been there when they operated, but your assumption is
probably a more accurate one---it was dehydration that was at the root of
the problem and everything else was secondary to that.  I think
differentiating those sort of things is really important, because taken at
face value, people can get scared off of doing good things for their horses
if they don't look at the big picture.  Another good example is hearing
about a horse that got stomach cramps bafter e'yting, so other people think
e'lying is bad during a ride---when in reality, of course, e'lyting is
terrific as long as it's done correctly (ie, small, frequent doses given
long before the horse ever has a chance to get dehydrated).  Back to beet
pulp, I agree with you that the beet pulp may not have been well soaked when
it was fed at the ride and that contributed to the problem.  I don't think
beet pulp (or almost any feed) should be fed dry during a ride, the more
fluid that goes into the horse, the better.

 With so many horses having
> problems
>        this year  I would suppose hydration in the gut being the biggest
> cause.

I couldn't agree with you more.  I've been really amazed at the numbers of
horses that start 100 mile rides less than fully hydrated.  IMO, if every
rider doubled their efforts to get fluids into the the horse before and
during rides, incidence of metabolic problems would really decrease.  (This
is aside from those horses that are just plain overridden, of course).

Best regards,
Susan G


>
>                Steve-0 in California
>