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Ask the Nutritionist: Dr. Getty's Forum for Equine Nutrition

   Welcome to my forum. 

Here you will find more than 6 years of questions and my answers. It is searchable and offers a great deal of information. 

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All the best,

 Dr. Getty 

 



Ask the Nutritionist: Dr. Getty's Forum for Equine Nutrition
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Re: mucus in poop

Hello Susan,

Mucus can be a sign of an ulcer (which can occur anywhere along the gastrointestinal tract, not just in the stomach). So, my first recommendation is to give him grass hay, free choice. His stomach secretes acid all the time, even when empty, and this can cause and aggravate an existing ulceration.

It is well worth the extra money to give him all the hay he wants, day and night. If, for example, you give him hay at night and he runs out of it by midnight, he has 6 or 7 hours of waiting, in pain, until his next batch arrives. And then he will eat his hay very quickly to ease his discomfort.

Bermuda can be more stemmy than some other grasses, but the only time I have seen colic episodes is when the horse has been with an empty stomach for hours before, and eats so quickly that the stems are not adequately chewed. I kept my horses on Bermuda hay for years without consequence because they were so calm about it -- they walked away, took a nap, ran around, allowed to be horses. But, down the street, a client's horses were in a totally different feeding situation and colicked. I have seen this happen all too often.

So, that is the best advice I can give you. If your horse is boarded and you cannot do this, either offer to pay for it to be done (providing enough hay to last all night so there is some left over in the morning), or frankly, I would find a better place for my horse.

I don't mean to sound harsh -- I know how much your horse means to you. And no one wants him to be healthier than you do. So, as one horse owner to another, this is the best that can be done for him.

Regarding supplementation -- yes, I would give him a product called AmiQuell to help soothe his digestive lining and promote healing. But it isn't magic -- it needs to be done along with feeding in sync with the way his system is designed.

All the best,

Dr. Getty
Author of Feed Your Horse Like A Horse

Susan
Dr.Getty,

I've posted a couple of times...have a horse who had colic surgery about 6 years ago and frequent colic episodes since.

I have noticed some stringy mucus in some of his poop...not his normal poop but the ones after one of his episodes, so obviously something is irritating his tummy.

He is on pasture but it's pretty barren right now, and is getting coastal hay and alfalfa (not free choice, unfortunately). I have increased the amount of coastal recently and am wondering if it is causing the irritation...isn't coastal difficult for them to digest?

Is there anything I can give him to soothe his tummy and/or do I need to be overly concerned about the mucus?

Thanks.
Susan

Where are you from? Waverly, Ohio