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Post by portiabuzz on Oct 31, 2014 21:40:46 GMT 1
Best of luck xx
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Post by ba on Nov 5, 2014 21:07:48 GMT 1
I've at last got a date for my boys endoscopy - hopefully I will have some answers soon. He doesn't really present with any 'strong' symptoms other than the colic, but I've got to look at all possibilities. It's all so confusing and worrying.
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Post by lizpurlo on Nov 5, 2014 22:26:32 GMT 1
Oh ba, I do hope that you get some answers from the endoscopy. I'm so sorry this is all going on with your boy, it must be so wearing for you. Fingers crossed for a diagnosis and a fixable problem. xx
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Post by clipclop on Nov 6, 2014 8:53:53 GMT 1
Was your pony that was put down on the same grazing as you use now? If so, consider toxins in the ground. There is another thread on here where taliksman had simular issues.
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Post by taklishim on Nov 6, 2014 13:13:48 GMT 1
This is my reply to another thread, Ba, Rupert sounds exactly like your horse. "I started getting problems with 2 horses a couple of years ago. Taklishim got colic. He already had a large melanoma so he was a cancer candidate. I got him through the colic and a week later Rupert also got colic.Rupert was a young healthy horse and there was no reason for it. In hindsight there was and now on my third session with Rupert I am pretty sure it is mycotoxins in the grazing. The same field has been responsible for everything. 2 years ago Rupert's problems started mid Oct one week after worming for no reason. His colic went on for several days and during that time I put him out on the grass in his better spells. Bad mistake. After about 4 days he was taken to horse hospital as an emergency as he was down and we didnt think he had much longer when he could travel. They looked after him, no real treatment as I refused steroids and they ultra sound scanned him daily. Inflamation of the bowel wall which didn't improve. Same blood tests as you, I remember the low protein problem. He came home, local vet bloodtested him until the levels returned to normal of their own accord. He no longer had colic as such but was very touchy behind and around his guts etc. Clinic decided not to scan for ulcers and their ownly conclusion was either worms or grass. I didn't think it was worms, tapeworm test was negative and I have worm counted every month since to make sure he doesn't have a worm problem. Then last Oct same thing happened, Rupert started with colic. I got him off grass that time and stopped it pretty quickly. Fast forward to this year, almost to the day and Rupert started with colic again!! Off the grass and again stopped it quickly. Had to put him back on the grass for a short period last week end and colic comes back, only mildly but I am getting good at recognising it. Looking back with Rupert with hindsight I am now pretty sure that originally it was the grass that caused the problem, most likely due to mycotoxins. The wormer made the situation worse, it wasn't the wormer destroying worms but the wormer agravating the gut wall which was already weakened by the "grass" problem. Since then I don't worm but count. I am one of the people Jan W refers to trying mycosorb. No idea if it will work and I would be too worried to turn him back out on that field anyway. Mycotoxins don't affect all horses equally. Will the field was deadly for him and probably Taklishim I have 5 hill ponies happily grazing it. Taklishim recently got colic. Same grass and I very much suspect that mycotoxins tipped him over the edge. He was losing weight badly and got very bad diarrhoea. I couldn't save him (this was a couple of weeks ago) and I had wondered for a while if his cancer had spread. I suspect it had spread to his gut and the mycotoxins were the final straw. I hope your horse doesn't have cancer and I would suggest you get him off the grass when he comes home and try and build him up with hay, gut supplements etc. I found that choosing the right feed has made a big difference to Rupert. When he came home I put him back on the grass as I didn't realise it was the problem. If I had kept him off I could have resolved it a lot more quickly." Read more: ihdg.proboards.com/thread/130338/weight-loss-diarrhoea-elderly-horse?page=1#ixzz3IHxv24WMAfter a lot of head scratching I worked out Rupert's problem was due to his gut. I guessed it was ulcers either hind gut or stomach or acidosis of the hind gut. The horse hospital decided not to scope him although I wanted him scoped. In hindsight I am glad that I didn't scope. If he was negative it wouldn't have helped and if it was positive the treatment would have been GG. I started working out he had a hind gut problem which of course couldn't be scoped for and GG may not have helped that. Anyway I continued dealing with his "ulcers" I used bicarb, equishure and charcoal. These got the situation under control and made the horse comfortable but they did not in any way get to the root of the problem. The only way I can stop the colic is to get him off grass. I suspect that, however difficult it is for you to accomodate your horse, until you get him 24/7 off grass (or at least off your grass) ATM you will have little success. I can make Rupert have colic on demand. Put him in the field!! Some horses don't seem to have problems with a potential toxin grass problem but I wonder if those who do then become more sensitive to the toxins year on year. Rupert (and Rowan) have been on mycosorb A for 3 days now. It is early days but there is a change in them. Rupert glided along this morning. He was a lot smoother, he had also lost the slight spooky "edge" he had which I was sure was due to gut discomfort. I am becoming convinced that the problem is in the grazing, not just mine but other people's as well, as there seems to much colic around in the autumn. There also seems to be a lot of colic full stop. Some have growths, internal problems, get in the feed bin, don't drink water etc etc but there are a lot of careful owners who are doing everything right and still having problems. The vet clinic told me grass or worms. They didn't tell me what about grass.
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Post by janwilky on Nov 6, 2014 13:44:40 GMT 1
Was your pony that was put down on the same grazing as you use now? If so, consider toxins in the ground. There is another thread on here where taliksman had simular issues. Sent from my GT-I9195 using proboards Was just going to say have you looked at the other thread about mycotoxins in grass? There's also a discussion over on the Phoenixhorse forum at the moment about the same topic. I'm currently trying Mycosorb on my lot to see if it helps with various autumn-related issues I've had. Not colic, but lower level gut issues and very likely ulcers in Lucas - always worse in autumn. There's a link on the other thread to a website which describes a suite of symptoms of mycotoxin poisoning and they include colic. Worth considering as you've had another horse with a similar problem, and a course of Mycosorb is inexpensive. ETA sorry, hadn't seen Taklishim's post when I posted mine. Ba, Taklishim's experiences with her horses, particularly Rowan, are what finally convinced me this time last year that Lucas has a gut issue, so she is well worth listening to
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Post by ba on Nov 6, 2014 23:00:09 GMT 1
Clipclop - no it was different grazing and many years ago now. The pony that I lost to colic wasn't due to toxins.
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Post by ba on Nov 6, 2014 23:06:23 GMT 1
Just read the other replies too - thank you all for your time. I'll discuss this with my vet, however he is the only one with colic on a yard of 22 and he eats mainly soaked hay as there is little grass. Could it be the grass if he is the only one with a problem - it seems unlikely to me but I will investigate with my vet. I will know more after his endoscopy.
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Post by taklishim on Nov 7, 2014 9:41:10 GMT 1
Could it be the grass if he is the only one with a problem - I have 9 others happily grazing. No problems whatsoever yet it nearly killed Rupert (and cost me over £2k at the vet clinic)
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Post by ba on Nov 8, 2014 10:02:52 GMT 1
Gosh that much have been an awful time for you. Thank you for sharing your story with me. I will talk to my vet on Thursday once we have the endoscopy results
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Post by janwilky on Nov 8, 2014 12:36:05 GMT 1
I came across this article while researching for my own horses: www.naturallyanimals.co.uk/mycotoxinsinhorses.html. This sentence jumped out at me: "It is interesting that researchers studying the incidence of colic and mycotoxin contaminated feed found that some degree of mycotoxin contamination occurred in every case of colic."It's not a scientifically referenced article so I can't check the study mentioned, but the more I read the more I wonder why we don't all know about this, it appears to be very common. It's widely known that other livestock are affected by mycotoxins, and some studies suggest that 90% of all animal feed (including grass and hay) is naturally contaminated. Binders such as Mycosorb are routinely fed to cattle, but not to horses and yet there is evidence that horses are more susceptible to mycotoxins than ruminants are (because of the fermentation that happens in the rumen). Mycosorb isn't expensive - certainly less expensive than a vet call-out, and it will just pass through the gut harmlessly if no toxins are present, so after what I've been reading this week I'd be tempted to feed either this or one of the other available binders to ANY horse displaying even vaguely suspected symptoms or which was at risk of colic. Progressive Earth on e-bay were selling Mycosorb A+ (the most up-to-date version) but it seems to have disappeared off their web site in the last few days, not sure why. I bought mine from them last week.
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Post by clipclop on Nov 8, 2014 14:36:01 GMT 1
I agree with jan, people often dismiss farmers as having 'no horse knowledge' but they often have incredible knowledge of so much more.
For years, cattle have been routinely supplemented with magnesium when turned out in the spring ti prevent staggers yet it has taken ages for the implications of lack of magnesium in horses to be researched.
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Post by taklishim on Nov 8, 2014 18:51:49 GMT 1
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Post by janwilky on Nov 9, 2014 9:13:16 GMT 1
That's one of the articles I've been reading Taklishim, and seems to be one of the best ones . Quite a lot of the horse-related info I've seen is from NZ, they seem to be more aware of the problem over there - and they have a similar climate to us. I'm trying to figure out at the moment whether the species of moulds and endophytic fungi are different over here or whether (having microscopic airborn spores) they are ubiquitous.
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Post by taklishim on Nov 9, 2014 9:45:20 GMT 1
That's one of the articles I've been reading Taklishim, and seems to be one of the best ones . Quite a lot of the horse-related info I've seen is from NZ, they seem to be more aware of the problem over there - and they have a similar climate to us. I'm trying to figure out at the moment whether the species of moulds and endophytic fungi are different over here or whether (having microscopic airborn spores) they are ubiquitous. questions as a biologist JanW, if vets were to mention myco as a potential problem they would have to test and come up with results for it. Is is possible to test an actual horse? would they show up in blood, urine or dung, presumably you cannot go round and take samples of all the vegetation it may have eaten which could be endless in a 10 acre field so how would you establish it and how would you establish which myco or indeed a negative test? about 10 years ago barefoot people were saying to those with footy horses take it off grass for a week and it will problably improve considerably. (not for the same reason as colic) That met with a lot of disbelief and incredulity until people found it worked. So saying to someone with a continually colicy horse take it off the grass but I don't really know why will cause the same reaction especially as I have heard Dr Green suggested by many vets in these cases.
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