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Soggy Bottom Ranch

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I had a friend of mine call, who also has miniatures, and 3 minis in 2 weeks had been down with colic. They had the vet out on 2 emergancy calls, vet looked through some random bales, very well, and didn't see anything wrong, it's dry and soft. They did just get this load of grass hay in not long ago, and when I asked, was told it was 1st crop from this year.

I have been trying to help with a few thoughts off the top of my head as what to suggest, and would like to see if I can get help with some other suggestions. The vet left them some bags to check for sand in the manure, so they are exploring the fact that this could be sand related, however, they feel very strongly that this is something to do with the hay. Several of the horses have runny stool to the point where it is coating the tails, others have just soft stool, and some are fine.

I asked what they had been given for grain, and they the first two that went down were on the bottom part of a bag, and she had just opened a new bag when this last one went down. But they hardly get any, just enough to get them in to the barn. They do go out on grass in the evening, however it is very short.

They said when they walk in the barn, the hay smells VERY rich, almost too rich. One of the things I had thought of, because we had such a wet spring/summer here in our area, and hardly anyone got hay off the field dry, was to see if possibly the hay had been sprayed with some type of preservative before baling. What effect would this preservative have on minis, if any, if it was on there? And is there a way to tell if it had been sprayed with a preservative?
 
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They might want to de-worm all their horses with one of the wormers that gets Tape worms -- they are nasty little beggers and can cause a lot of the symptoms you are describing and the standard Ivermectin doesn't get them. They would need to go to Equimax or Ivermectin Gold. I had a similar situation a few years ago, and after going crazy trying to figure it out, pretty much eliminated the problem with a good round of Equimax - now it is part of the rotation and they get it every 3 mos whether they need it or not.

Good luck to your friend, I know how frustrating it is!

Stacy
 
Oh man, I feel so sorry for your friend. Both of my minis coliced at the same time last year (on the same day). It ended up being because of the hay. Apparently, they ate too much without drinking enough water. They also had some sand, but not enough to block anything.

I wish I could help with your questions, hopefully someone else will be on here to answer them for you. Did they start them out slowly on the new hay?
 
I have never heard of a preservative for hay but I have heard of farmers salting the hay when storing in order to avoid spontaneous combustion.

When the grass is quite short it is sometimes also very rich in sugar I have been told. I had a mare get very sore feet when the grass was quite short at end of summer.

I had a weanling colic last week but it was due to overeating. I had weaned three at once so they would be company and put a pellet feed of Mare and Foal in the manger with their hay. It appears that one weanling did not share, so she had a sore tummy.

No more feeding them in one stall because you obviously can't control who is getting what.
 
I just asked about the worming for tapeworms, and they have all been wormed with ivermectin gold. They rotate wormers, and do also do the 5 day purge on them.
 
We have salted our hay before when we stored it and have never had a horse colic from it, they did drink more water though!! The salt is safe for animals so I would be surprised if that would cause it. It would cause the need to drink more. Good Luck!!
 
I don't know the name of it, but there is something that can be sprayed on hay to preserve it. I got a couple bales last year, my horses refused to eat it, I had to put it in the woods for the deer. One horse went rumaging(lg horse) and ened up developing gastro enteritis (sp) (inflamation of the intestinal tract ) Has the hay sat long enough to cure? Otherwise I would suspect worms.

Carolyn
 
The odds of THREE colics so close together means something is going on.......... They need to assess ANY and ALL possible "changes" that have happened recently on their farm.

They also need to check when they last wormed, as Stacy suggested........Some horses are more sensitive than others.

Each possibility needs to be addressed separately, otherwise they won't know for sure which is the actual culprit. Start with what they feel is the most likely...........the hay.........pull it and get another source. And go from there........ This could take more than a week or two to sort out, unfortunately.........especially if it's not the hay.
 
I think the first place I would start with is not the hay but the water source. I would check to make sure there is not a reason they are not drinking as much as they should be.
 
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Ok, the owner just sent me some photos of the hay that I'm going to post in a bit. I'm just getting in from a long day.
 
Ok, here are the pics of the hay. To me, this is typical of what I'd expect around here for first crop. We just had so much rain, the farmers couldn't get in their fields until late to even get it baled. I've picked up samples to look at around here, and saw the very same thing. Very overgrown with lots of large seed heads, and stemmy.

Hay. Notice the large timothy seed heads in this first one.

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Here's some stuff they are finding in the hay. I asked, and they said these weeds do feel dry.

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Are they free feeding the hay?? or limited amount?? Have they had the hay analyzed for protien content?. Was it fertiized heavy?? Just my gut reaction to what you have described. I always limit the fresh hay until it has several months to cure.

And do check the water source and make sure they have salt available this time of year with this crazy weather .
 
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I don't see anything there that would raise any alarms for me. It actually looks a bit less stemmy than some of the hay we're now feeding--this has been a terrible year for getting the hay off in good shape, so our alfalfa/timothy has all had one rain on it before baling. It was baled dry and is keeping okay, but is a bit more dry and stemmy than I'd prefer. But, the horses like it & we've had no issues with colic.

One year a guy brought us some crested wheat hay--crested wheat is great when cut early, but this was cut real late & was so coarse & dry--definitely a colic waiting to happen--it just wasn't something we could feed. The horses were better off with straw.

In your friends' case, though, if the problem is in the hay at all I'd have to say I think it would be in possibility that the hay isn't keeping & is just starting to go off--spoilage that is there but not really visible yet. As I said in my PM, the key would be in the smell--the observation that the hay smells "too fresh"--though by now if that is the problem there should be some noticeable heating in the bales, and within a few more days the hay should be starting to get some obvious musty/dustiness to it.

Offhand I don't recognize the weed in the picture--so I can't say if the weed itself is likely to cause a problem to horses.

As someone that has no qualms about feeding fresh hay to horses, I would say that if this hay is cured properly prior to baling then it shouldn't be causing any problems. It doesn't look coarse or dry enough to cause impaction problems, and it doesn't look so green & rich that it would be causing gas colic problems--looks like good average hay that should be okay to feed.
 
One year I had a few horses colic close together, it was fall and my vet said it was the warm and cool weather pattern we had changes the grass and some horses are more sensetive then others. Once the weather stayed cooler everything was fine.
 
I don't know where your friend lives, but does she have oak trees in her pastures? It's about time for the acorns to start falling, and we have to be careful every year or we'll have colicky horses. Some horses just develop a taste for acorns, and will eat every one they can find!

Melba
 
I'd also find out what those weeds are..........
 
Not to make light of your friend's colic problems, but colic covers the spectrum from a stomach ache to a gas colic to a full blown blockage (fecolith/entrolith) requiring surgery.

I had two horses colicing about three weeks ago. They're different ages, different pastures, generally different feed. Common denominator - the weather (very hot days and very cool nights) or both randomly eating some of the horrid weeds we have growing in our semi-Sahara conditions we have right now!! Normally we have crappy pastures by August with the heat, but this year we've had crappy since about May and have an amazing assortment of weeds thriving in this weird weather.

Both were recovered within an hour or so afte being treated and there has been no relapse.

As for the weeds - they could be the culprit as it could have been enough just to make them sick. I try to pull any non-hay things out of our flakes and have thrown whole bales out - or called the feed store if its really bad! Either way it's still cheaper that a serious colic hospitalization!

When we first moved almost eight years ago - there was something (we still don't know what) that the mares were getting into in the main pasture (we're on 65 acres of hills), we had half dozen horses over a month period act almost drugged - disoriented, weaving then they would lay down like a pre-colic, fart alot, usually a bit of loose manure then be fine! It was very random very weird and has never happened again. We assumed it was something they ate or moving from a relatively cool climate (day/night) to a blistering hot days/really cool nights that was causing it.

Hope you're friends horses will be okay and stay healthy!
 
colic covers the spectrum from a stomach ache to a gas colic to a full blown blockage (fecolith/entrolith) requiring surgery.
From what I have been told, all 3 were down, rolling, and looking as if they were in great discomfort.

Thank you for the replys!
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Just wanted to update on this. Talked with my friend, and they got a new load of hay in this weekend. After feeding the new hay, all the diarreaha has stopped, and they are back to normal stools with all of them. There is just something in that hay!

Thank you to all of you who took the time to reply, and offer suggestions, much appreciated!
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