Re: antibotics and colic

[vanhove@unavco.ucar.edu (Teresa Van Hove)]

I've had a related question. Do you use probiotics when your horse is on
antibiotics?  Did your vet recommend them or did you just do it?  Our old
mare is battling pneumonia and has been on various antibiotics for over a
month (can you say expensive?)  I've been giving her powdered probiotics
which I have because I feed them to Grey when he is in training.  The mare
has done really well with continuing to eat and gaining back some weight 
she lost early on before getting IV antibiotics (1st cut antibiotics weren't
making any dent in the pneumonia.) I was somewhat surprised that neither of 
the 2 vets who treated her mentioned anything about probioitics. It seems 
that as a lay person I have heard a lot of general warnings about antibiotics 
hurting the beneficial gut flora, and it seemed like a good idea to try to 
give probiotics to help replace what the antibiotics might be killing.  The
powdered pro-biotics are dirt cheap compared to antibiotics (about $.30 a day
for the maximum dose I'm giving her) 

Teresa

> 
> What experiences have you had with colic while or after taking antibotics? 
> What did you do? 
> What do you recommend? 
> Do you think these can be related?
> I would be interested in any comments.
> Thanks,
> Lynda
> 
>