This message is from: "Teressa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> My 3 year old fjord mare had diarrhea continuously since she was a baby - we went through all kinds of effort to see what was wrong with her. Then we figured out that she will get the runs within 12 hours of being fed anything other than local grass hay. (Not meaning just local to us but what people call a lower nutrition grass hay.) She's good when she's on pasture as well. After being on pasture as a baby and after weaning, our hay was an orchard mix that we fed and the same as all my other fjords. We put her on the plain grass hay and her poops firmed right up. So now all my fjords just get the plain stuff. We checked her for parasite load, sand, temps, put her on electrolytes and pro biotics, I don't even remember what all. I've never had any of my fjords react negatively just to a change in hay or feed. But we've really never done anything like that abruptly either. Not necessarily planning it that way; it just works out that a new load of hay comes when there's still some of the old stuff around and it gets mixed. Same with feed. We try to use up the old stuff when we're planning a change so it just gets worked in. My trainer now keeps local grass hay all the time - she also has a school horse that gets the runs with orchard or orchard mix. A percheron mare - maybe its something to do with being easy keepers. Teressa in Ferndale, WA
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