Best way to treat an anemic horse?

[minimule]

My little black mare is still giving me fits. She will eat but only rolled barley and sweet feed. I've tried sneaking "good" food in but she will either eat around it or leave it all alone. She developed a snotty nose and raspy breathing so back to the vets for another blood test. This one showed she has an infection of some type (treating that now) but she is also anemic.

What's the best way to treat that?

 

[Boinky]

my guess is something is causing the anemia (obvioulsy you said she was a little sick anyhow). might be ulcers ect. I would give her some red cell which is high in iron and maybe get her on some ucler guard or something similar (prilosec).

 

[ChrystalPaths]

Some red cell and some carafate for ulcer is my guess.

 

[Becky]

I would do as the others suggested by treating her for ulcers and adding Red Cell. I've had excellent results here treating anemic horses with Red Cell.

 

[Boinky]

Oh i also want to add, i'm sure you probably already know this, but barley is VERY hard on the stomach if horses have ulcers as well as sweet feed because of the high starch and carbohydrate contents. If she has ulcers and you could get her off those you might see an improvement. How old is she? could she survive without grain? You can always syringe the red cell into her since she's obviously very picky and get her off all the starches and carbohydrates. The red Cell is high in vitimins and minerals so if that's the only reason you feed her grain she could live with only the red cell for a bit.

 

[minih]

I agree I would try treating ulcers also, but the red cell is really hard on the stomach while it is hurting. This is my opinion only......take it for that..... but I would put my horse on free choice hay with some alfalfa thrown in (since most horses will eat some hay while suffuring from ulcers), start the treatment for ulcer (I have always had very good luck with ulcerguard,usually eating well within 2 days), then start giving red cell once the horse is eating it's regular grain again.

 

[minimule]

I was wondering about Red Cell. I'll give that a shot. The only reason she is on barley and sweet feed is that is all she will eat. She will eat alfalfa but picks at grass hay. I treated her for ulcers when she first got here and she did improve and actually started blending with the herd. Now this infection has set her back. At least she isn't too bad giving her the shots............

I've tried putting her on low starch feeds but she won't touch it. That's what I tried putting in her barley to get her to eat but then she won't touch it at all.

 

[minih]

I treated her for ulcers when she first got here

How long did you treat her? If she had a bad case, they need to be treated for 30 days.

 

[LeosPocoDan]

My first horse was anemic, she was a QH but I gave her Red Cell and she was back to normal in about a month.

 

[minimule]

We did a full 30 day regiment for the ulcers before. That was back in Sept. She never would eat the Safe Choice so she went on barley. She was fine up until early this week when she started having the raspy breathing and went off feed again.

 

[minih]

sorry with the questions, just thinking...

 

[minimule]

no problem. That's why I asked here. I know folks have dealt with these things that I haven't had to yet. I appreciate the brainstorming and suggestions.

 

[minih]

What about some B12? I have a friend that uses it quite successfully on horses not eating well?

 

[hhpminis]

Poor little thing.

I got a colt a few years back that was in really bad shape. You name it he had it. Snotty nose, cough, lice, thrush so bad his frogs were rotted out, worms, poor little thing was in bad shape. After having my vet look him over we came up with a plan. He also would not eat grain, wouldn't even look at it.

We gave him alfalfa hay only and offered a non sweet feed in a feeder in case he wanted it.

We also put him on Gastrogard, (or Ulcergard is available without a prescription) for 30 days.

After 5 days on the Gastrogard, we started Red Cell. We had to syringe it at first because we did not want to taint his grain. Turned out he liked the Red Cell and it made him start eating his grain once we started top dressing it.

We also put him on daily wormer.

He did not grow a good winter coat so we also had to blanket him the first year so he would not burn excess calories trying to stay warm.

It took him about 9 months to be what I would consider healthy. he grew 6 inches that first winter I had him. When I got him I thought he would be an under but he was just so malnourished that he had not been able to grow. Momma did not have good milk and he just did not thrive. He is now 36 inches.

I am sorry your little mare is having such a hard time. I certainly hope she is not in as bad shape as our colt was. I thought maybe you could use some of what we tried.

I went back and read your posts again and had another thought. Have you considered Power Pac for her. A 5 day double dose of Safegard wormer? Before you do any of this though I would make sure her tummy is protected by a few days of gastrogard or ulcergard.

 

[Boinky]

It sounds to me like her ulcers are probably back and the infection is a secondary thing, probably because her immunity is low due to anemia. Ulcers can go away and come back so even if you got rid of them the first time around something may have stressed her out or whatnot to make them come back. I know many horses have had great sucess with the Ridatidine or cimitidine and carafate (ridatidine stops the acide production) but the prilosec (ulcerguard ect) actually heals the ulcers.

Alfalfa is a good thing for ulcers as well because it's high in calcium which helps to neutralize it although needs to be avoided if your working the horse because it has some charachteristics when breaking down that cause problems when combined with work. Another natural remedy that you can use in conjunction with any of these is papya pills (get them at your local health food store). Papaya has a natural acid neutralizing effect. Fresh or in other forms. This was recommended to me by a friend that was on the US olympic team for eventing. I guess the Team vet highly recommended this for many of the high stress eventers who were showing signs of ulcers. it REALLY does work. i bought them for my thoroughbred and never actually used them on him. LOL i started taking them myself for heartburn and acid problems just to see if they worked...and they work wonders! I use them a lot now. maybe not quite as good as some of the presciption stuff but they work SURPRISINGLY well.. much better than many of the OTC things and can be used with all the other things with no harmful side effects!

Another thought too.. if you are treating with antibitics for the infection..which ones are you treating with? MANY anitbiotics are extremely hard on the stomach and digestive track. I've been on MANY different types for the past 9 years for my lyme disease (rochphin, zithromax, biaxin, Erythromicyn, Ceftin, Cefalexin, Tetracycline, ect ect ect the list is just way too long to name) and MOST of them cause some pretty nasty upsets! you may want to try to buffer your girls stomach before giving the antibiotics to help even if she DOESN'T have ulcers.

 

[minimule]

She does have a good winter coat. She isn't a bag of bones (at this point but thinner than I like) and she does eat what I feed her. She is on Penicillin IM 2x a day and Genamiacin IM 1x a day. I'll get some ulcer meds today and get her on that. The vet wants to be aggressive with this infection so it doesn't develop into something worse so she needs to be on her meds.

Thanks for the suggestions. At least now I have a clue what to do for her.

 

[DrivinTime]

I can sympathize; I have an older mare who is also Very Picky about what she eats. Sweet feed is what she grew up on, and that's pretty much all she'll eat for grain... BUT I just tried this new Poulin feed called Pro-Max 12% and she likes it! It's pellets, but has a sweet smell and she's cleaning it up (yay!).

I worry that this mare is prone to ulcers, too, because sometimes she'll eat fine, then all of a sudden she won't finish her grain or beet pulp... So I had her on cimetidine per the vet, and then used a liquid antacid, but I just started using TractGard, which is pellets, so I was sceptical - and she is also eating this!

So, if you're thinking of trying something different, I'd recommend both these items as "picky horse approved" - and I hope your little one feels better soon.

 

[mini-horses]

I feel for you and your little one. I had a little mare that was anemic with ulcers my vet put her on Lixtonic.

Is Lixtonic like Red cell, or is red cell better than Lixtonic?

And then the vet had us put her on senior feed because it was easier to digest till she got better.

I hope she gets better soon,

Judy

 

[Anne ABC]

I just arrived on the scene of this topic and scanned briefly so I might have missed something.

However, the first thing I would try is a Probiotic Paste

that you can simply squirt into her mouth per the directions on the plunger tube. There are several brands available. I think the last I got from Jeffers was Probios, I am sure your Vet has one. Anytime you treat with antibiotics you should always, always come back with a probiotic treatment and 99% of the time it will perk them up and improve appetite in just a day or two. It improves the immune system in a natural way.

 

[minimule]

Well our second day of our penicillin she is anxious to eat again. She's still eating slow but at least her eyes are shiney and she wants to eat.

Again, thanks for all the suggestions. I'll get with the vet again tomorrow and see what he has and suggests.