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oat hay gone--chronic diarrhea cured!!(longish)





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From: Ann Perry 
Email: ann@cornerstonemgt.com

I have 2 horses who always had a tendency to be a little loose in the bowels, especially when nervous or starting on green grass. This year it got *much* worse so I consulted my vet, who diagnosed sand (we're in a sandy area), and started us on psillium: 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, for 6 months to a year, 1&1/2 cups per horse per day. More agressive than usual, but I've read what Susan G. has said about doubting the effectiveness of psillium and wondered myself. 7-8 months of that with no improvement. I began weighing their hay and feeding them 4 times a day; made feed boxes and bought stall mats to put under them to try to keep them from picking up more sand. This decreased my wasted hay from mountains to almost zero, but no change in the diarrhea. It would improve for a couple of days and then return, coating their inner buttocks and hind legs, getting in their tails, causing sores, etc. 

I looked for help in the archives and ordered a catalog for the purpose of getting probiotics (catalog hasn't come yet) when I finally tried my shoer's advice, and took them completely off oat hay. I had first tried 1/2 oat and 1/2 orchard grass with questionable results and finally switched to 3/4 orchard and 1/4 alfalfa and voila! No more diarrhea. None. Like a faucet being turned off. My shoer says, "Yeah, I've seen that alot." I've fed oat hay for years--that or alfalfa used to be the only choice here in Sonoma County (northern CA), and I had never heard of it affecting *some* horses that way.

Coincident or...what? Sure worth a try if your horse has a problem. I'm glad I switched and have no plans to buy oat hay in the future. It was excellent quality, by the way. Any comments? I'm puzzled and amazed.



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