I am former owner of Dawn's horse. I can't
recall ever noticing a looseness that was cause for
alarm, but now that I think of it, this mare, and
my mustang mare do have fairly big,loose piles.
I don't recall poops like a cow pie,
though.
They are good drinkers, though, and are what I
would consider well hydrated horses. Same sort of feeding program as Dawn,
i.e. grass hay mostly, some dried out pasture here. Very minimal grain or
supplements
Our Arab mare, on the other hand has been cause for
some alarm in the past. Her poops are
always small, well formed and very firm....I joke
they are like deer poops. She is not a good drinker.
I have asked vets about this and got the answer
that she probably has a smaller, tighter rectum,for
one reason.
The mustang mare does piles so big we refer to them
as "buffalo piles"
I do agree with the Panacur purge anyway....it's a
good, inexpensive worming that may catch
encysted strongles. I started doing it when
our Arab mare DID test for strongyles, and it did make
a difference with her.
If you buy it from American Livestock supply
(liquid fenbenzadole sold as cattle wormer), it costs about
$23 a dose (which is far cheaper then buying 10
doses of safeguard or the power pak). I used a big electrolyte syringe and found
it was even easier to get down than paste wormer. Any excess can be
refrigerated.
I have heard that sometimes loose stools can be an
indication of sand in the gut....have you tested for that at all? I live
on very non-sandy soil, and have never had any problems with
sand colics....I do believe that Dr.Garlinghouse poo-pooed the idea of using
small amounts of psyllium to pick up sand in the gut as being very
effective..and the best thing to move material through the gut was plain,
old exercise, something my horses get on a very regular basis...however, it
might be something to look into..
I would be also interested in any other ideas folks
have....
My new 7 year old mare has always had sort of loose manure piles and I've
been trying to figure out why and firm her up... I feed grass hay and
LMF Super Supplement G (1 lb a day as instructed) and Grand Hoof. She
has a clean water source and grazes on pasture for turnout. She's
not been in any stressfull conditioning yet, just lightly ridden once or twice
a week. I've done fecal floats on her (I test my horses rather than worm
them) and they were negative twice (spring and fall). However, just to
be sure, I went ahead and wormed her with Zimectrin Plus because of the
loose stool two months ago and no change. Here are other things I've
tried:
Reduced the LMF supplement to 1/2 lb daily, and then most recently
removed it entirely two weeks ago.
Added 2 lbs of shredded beet pulp mash daily.
All supplements other than hay are fed in two separate feedings a day,
rather than all at once.
Have also tried other hays (orchard grass and alfalfa) for 3
months.
Reduced grazing when the pasture was rich.
Removed entirely from pasture while she was at the trainer for 3
months.
None of these things effected her manure. It varies anywhere from a
pile of soft semi-formed apples, to a cow pie. But never a nice
segmented pile of apples like my gelding... Is this a mare thing and
hormones? I'm new to mares...
