This message is from: "Sharon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hi, My horse suffered from on-again off-again digestive troubles for over a year. Bloating. ploppy manure, then normal manure, girthyness, etc. Vet and I couldn't figure it out. Current on wormings, good hay, no sand in manure, and psyllium (I was using it wrong and for too few days at a time), etc. For 3 past episodes the vet oiled her, I rewormed, re-psyllium-ed incorrectly etc and she was fine for a couple of months or so.
Looking back we can now say it was sand colic and or impaction colic that would resolve itself (repeatedly). This last episode she went to the equine hospital to get her pain sorted out. After xrays showed a bit of sand, she was started on 1lb psyllium and oil, am and pm, for 7 days to clear her out. Well she began to have more pain after the first treatment and went into surgery to relieve the soccer ball sized hay impaction. He cleared the hay and rinsed out the bit of sand she had. No intestine was removed. Surgeon said if she could have told us she had a stomach ache when it started 2 days prior, the psyllium and oil would have moved things along and worked. She's fine now. What I've learned is if a horse has unresolved, recurring digestive problems best thing to do is start the 7 day, 2x/day psyllium powder routine. Surgeon says it'll take care of problems 95% of the time. (wish I'd talked to him a year ago). Specifically: pour 1 cup of powdered psyllium over 2-3 handfuls of senior feed or something similiar (no hard pellets), mix. Then drizzle on no more than 2-3 tablespoons of corn, canola etc, oil and mix well and feed immediately. Do not put water on the psyllium as it won't work if it gels up before eaten and do not use pelleted psyllium. Good luck, Sharon The FjordHorse List archives can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw
