OLDER HORSE WITH SCOURS

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Have older horse (27) that has extreme scours, nothing of consistancy at all. the vet says he's just old and its time for digestive tract to go. have tried beet pulp and blue bonnet senior food. any old wives remidies that any one knows of?

-- LORETTA IN IOWA PARK (JOHNRAY@WF.NET), December 03, 2001

Answers

No remidies, but just wanted to say we just put our 30 year old horse down the day before Thanksgiving. Same problem. We tried senior feed & many different things. He was just wasting away to nothing. Hope you can find something to help, we couldn't.

-- Wendy (weiskids@yahoo.com), December 03, 2001.

Here is a safe old wivestale remedy for scours in any animal (including humans, scours= diarhea):

Feed yogurt with active culture (no custard yogurt or fancy kids yogurts). Yogurt contains good bacteria that the digestive tract needs. May take a week or two. Once after antibiotics it took a month of yogurt to get back to normal.

Also, add apple cider vinegar to the drinking water. Don't know the amounts--guessing 1/4 cup to a gallon. Horse will need more liquids now.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), December 03, 2001.


Like Ann said, acidopholus culture is a good idea, it is also sold as a powder feed supplement known as Probios, your feed or farm supply can order it for you. Try the cider vinegar added to the feed ration also, one ounce per feeding is what I use in all my horses. I had a horse who had chronic worm damage to his intestines, he never did form a regular stool, always like cowpies, depiste what I added to his feed. He did do best on an excellent quality hay, the more hay he ate, the better the stool formation.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), December 03, 2001.

Tell us more about the apple cider. Now I use the phobios on my sheep with great and I mean great results. Neither of my horses have been sick but I have one that is getting up there in age and I do feed sweet feed to but he chews on the side of his mouth. I have had a vet float all their teeth but feel he didn't do a good job. May have to get another vet to do so. But, very curious as to this apple cider because I know a lot of sheep & goat people also use the apple cider and I am wondering why.

-- Debbie (bwolcott@cwis.net), December 03, 2001.

My guess is that the apple cider vinegar changes the alkalinaty (sp? chemistry?) of the gut making it more hospitable to the good bacteria. When you make vinegar you are basically growing growing good bacteria by fermenting (in this case apple cider or apple peelings, but any peelings would work, I guess).

You know this is not just a horse thing--many people do this for their dogs, cats, all their animals.

And many people take apple cider vinegar each day for their own health. I've not tried it myself, but have noticed many health benefits when I keep yogurt in my daily diet. I don't think I would relish a swig of vinegar each day--but I do cook with it alot and should make more vinegar and oil dressings.

It's very inexpensive but in this country (USA) we tend to accept the more complicated, expensive solutions. I loved my doctors who were raised in Africa--they always looked to the practical solution first and sought the complicated, expensive second! I wish I could have moved them across country with me.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), December 03, 2001.



I would feed your old horse probies cant hurt, might help.

-- kathy h (ckhart55@earthlink.net), December 03, 2001.

Have you done a fecal check on him yet? I had an older pony that developed this problem, not running any temperature, depressed appetite, but had liquid feces with very little fiber content, due to not eating anything. We eventually tracked the problem down to sand colic, with so much sand settling in her intestines that she couldn't eat. Check by putting some of the feces into a jar of water and shake it up, let it settle out for an hour or so, and check to see if there is sand being passed.

She had to be hospitalized with intravenous lactated Ringer's to make up for dehydration and passed a naso-gastric tube, pouring in a slurry mix of psyllium fiber to bind to the sand and help it pass out. They had to tube her a total of 4 times to remove enough to get her functional again, but she did live another six years thereafter, so it was well worth pursuing.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), December 04, 2001.


Sand colic is a good guess! I had an older mare who had the runs. We did a fecal and it turned out it was not worms, but sand. Our vet recommended feeding about 1/2 cup metamucil once every week to clear the sand out (assuming this is normal size horse). You can do this as a routine thing every monday or whatever day is convenient. Also had me feed 1 large coffee can of bran every other day the 1st week to further push stuff thru. But don't feed the bran as a regular part of their diet, it can cause problems it mineral balance (Big Head disease).

-- ellie (eagle-quest@juno.com), December 04, 2001.

The acidopholus would be the first thing I would use. I've known it to treat horses with this problem. It is usually cheaper to get it at a health food store, the cheapest being in the fridge section in a brown bottle. Its the same bacteria for ALL mammals. I'd turkey baster a large batch down (1/2 a cup or so) then mix the rest in feed.

-- Stacia n OK (OneClassyCowgirl@aol.com), December 05, 2001.

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