Evolution of Peebs' Poop Problem

Back when I bought Peebs I was told that he had occasional soft poop and watery discharge down his butt and hind legs. I've had a couple different vets look at him, and tried various supplements, feed, probiotics, and what not. It would kinda get better, then kinda worse and was basically a constant thing.  I learned to deal with it and so did Peebs.  He wasn't colicky, kept weight on great, and was otherwise completely fine.

We're gonna need a bigger bucket

Over the summer I had the chiropractor, TS, out to work on him a couple of times.  She's a vet, and had also offered advise on our poop problem.  She has a client in the Bay Area whose horse had the same problem and they did a full work up at Davis.  They switched the horse to a completely pelleted diet, no hay, no grazing. And that worked.  The plan for that horse was to leave him on the hay pellets for a while (not sure how long) and slowly try adding hay back in to see if he could handle it.

The second time I had TS out this summer Peebs was having a bad poop week and had actually lost some hair on his butt and hind legs.  TS read me the riot act and told me to either try the pellets or take him in to the vet school for a work up. Since taking him in for a work up sounds expensive I started him on the hay pellets.  I slowly switched him off the beet pulp he was getting to the pellets, then started adding more pellets and less hay.

Approximately 6lbs of soaked timothy pellets in a standard water bucket

We got up to 6lbs of soaked pellets and one flake of grass hay twice a day, and our poop problem stopped. It was amazing.  His butt and hind legs looked normal for probably the first time in the year and half I've owned him.  It made me sad thinking of how long I let this go on before doing something about it.  Since he was doing ok on half pellets/half hay, I left it at that and never fully put him on straight pellets.

Thank god he's an easy keeper

So Peebs is currently on the 6lbs of pellets and a flake of hay twice a day.  Once a day he gets his Horse Guard vitamin/mineral mix and Omega Horseshine. No other grain, no grass, just some cookies or carrots. The theory is that for whatever reason, his GI tract can't handle too much long stem fiber, but is ok with short stem, aka pellets. We did have a relapse a couple of weeks ago and I was pretty upset until I found out a barn mate was trying to be nice and feeding him a flake (or two) of hay at lunch when she fed her mare.  I felt like a bitch when I had to tell her not to do that, that he can't have any extra food. Knock on wood this keeps working and we can officially end our poop problem!

As the Poop Turns

Unsurprisingly, all last week centered around Peebs' poop problem.  I didn't see any change from soaking his hay, and after the first day the Bio Sponge didn't seem to help.  I got a bale of low sugar hay from my vet, but again, didn't see much difference.  Peebs was still happy and otherwise normal, so I started to calm down a bit.  I talked with another vet, who has a horse with similar problems to Peebs, and she said that's just the way some horses are. So I put Peebs back on his normal hay, not soaking it, and we'll be switching back to his normal grain.  I did decide to do a round of psyllium, because why not (and it was on sale at the feed store) and I think that's helping a bit.  He still has some runny discharge, but not nearly as much as before.

Have I mentioned he's the best?

In other non-poop related news, we had an awesome lesson last week.  We were stuck inside because it was pouring down rain, but we set up a one stride.  Peebs was pretty point and shoot, at least tracking left, so trainer had me first drop one hand then both hands. Do you know how hard it is to A) have four reins in one hand and then try to pick up your reins again and B) tie knots in two sets of reins? Damn pelham! We went through a few times with no hands and other than trying to fall in going right, he was so good.  It really emphasized how happier he is when I don't touch his mouth and get in his way.

Peebs also got his winter hair cut. He was surprisingly good for it, except around his head but I knew that would be hard.  He was actually one of the easiest clips I've ever done.  Buddy loved being clipped, to the point that when you stopped to let the clippers cool down he would paw and wiggle till you started up again. Peebs just stood like a gentleman the whole time (I wasn't near his head) and was very polite about everything. I do have a couple touch up spots to do by his head, but we'll get to those this week.  If I ever have to clip his head, I'll be getting drugs for that.

Final 2pointober time. Pretty sure my legs were going to fall off

The Peebs Poop Problem #2

Peebs has had either a little bit of runny poop or watery discharge down his leg off and on since I bought him.  His old owners told me it happened when they switched hay, but its more than that.  I had my vet look at him in April and we tried a few different pro biotics to see if any helped.  Not much did.

A couple months ago we started using a new vet, JD, who I really, really like. She had a few thoughts on what it could be and recommended a different pro biotic and GI health supplement.  I started him on it and while it did help, Peebs would still have occasional discharge.  She also ran a fecal on him, and he came back with a zero egg count.

On Wednesday I noticed a little more discharge than normal, along with a little stocking up in both his right legs.  He had had a light lunge on Tuesday and had Wednesday off, so I figured I just needed to get him out more.  Thursday there was a lot more discharge down the back of his leg, and while I had him in the cross ties he farted and brown water came out.  Seriously gross.  And again, both right legs were swollen, as well as the right side of his sheath.  I called JD, not super freaked out because he was sound, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and the swelling went down after I rode. He was also eating and drinking like normal and showed no signs of colic.  JD called me back and agreed to look at him on Friday.

Could be nerves from the sheep returning

 Friday his butt and leg were once again covered in watery poop and JD got to see him fart out brown water again.  All his vitals were normal, we lunged him and he bucked and played, and generally he's fine.  She did take and run blood (all normal) thinking it could be in infection (including salmonella or Potomac horse fever), it could be there's too much sugar in the hay, or he could be an irritable bowel syndrome horse.  Awesome. She wasn't too concerned about the swelling, said that since he prefers to lay down on his right side that's why he's stocking up those legs. 

The only butt I'll be putting diaper rash cream on

She did want to change his feed around.  So we are currently soaking his hay to remove some of the sugar, we added some alfalfa to up his protein, changed his grain to Purina Senior to remove any variables from buying a local made alfalfa/timothy based grain, and added BioSponge over the weekend to help. She also wanted me to put diaper rash cream on his butt so he doesn't loose hair and get sores.  Poor Peebs.

Major pain in my ass, but not Peebs!

So far the BioSponge seemed to help and we're going to keep him on that for a week to help him adjust to the new feed.  After I soak his hay, the water smells and looks like sweet tea, so obviously there's plenty of sugar coming out.  I do have a lead on some low sugar hay that a friend knows of so I might buy a couple bales to see how Peebs reacts.  The plan right now is to keep soaking and see if he stabilizes after a week and if not, then we might be hauling into the vet school for a rectal biopsy.  But on the plus side, since he's sound and full of energy we've got the ok to keep riding and working as normal.

The Peebs Poop Problem

Say that three times fast!!

When I bought Peebs they told me his "thing" was getting loose manure whenever they switched hay.  They had him on a probiotic that he got about a week before and a week after the switch and it worked pretty well.  I talked with my vet and he told me just to keep Peebs on the probiotic all the time.

Since I'm at a self care barn and clean my stall everyday, I've gotten to know how Peebs goes, as it were. He has had a couple days of loose poop and watery discharge but a double dose of probiotic has seemed to do the trick.  Add in some extra tail, butt, and hind leg washing and we were good to go.

With the arrival of warm sunny days and lots of green grass I've been slowly letting Peebs graze more and more after our rides.  I didn't want to upset his tummy too much so we've only been grazing for 10-15 minutes at time.  And there's been some more loose manure but starting last weekend I noticed that there was a lot of watery discharge down his butt and hock.  So much so that when I scrubbed his legs, he lost some hair along the back of his hock.  I figured it was the grass, and haven't grazed him since but our poop problem continues. His manure returned to normal, maybe a touch on the soft side if I'm being super poop picky, but the watery discharge is still there.

I've got a call into the vet, who is coming out Monday to do shots, and have ordered some BioSponge
 just to be safe.  He's fine otherwise, eating and drinking normally. He's gained wait and muscle since I got him so I'm not worried about ulcers but maybe I should. I just feel bad that his butt and hind legs are constantly gross and that I have wash him almost daily.