Ways to get a horse to drink?? Need some Help

[lilmiraclesfarm]

My old man just coliced this Sunday. The vet came out yesterday at 9:30 and we pumped mineral oil and water into him and got him to pass some poop. He pooped twice more yesterday but so far only once this morning. I am feeding him hay soaked in water. Grain soaked in water and a slurpy bran mash in the middle of the day to help with his liquids. As well I've been adding salt to everything to try and get him to drink. But its not working. So for you experienced horse people, any ideas on ways to get him to intake more fluids or better yet start drinking on his own????

 

[garyo]

Our horses love Gatorade or Powerade. We also soak beet pulp and add some feed for flavor. We leave the "juice" in and pur it into a dish. The beet pulp comes with a molasses flavoring. They will slurp the juice right up while also eating the beet pulp that has expanded with fluid.

Hope this helps.

Ruth

 

[HGFarm]

Mine will slurp up the juice from the beet pulp... I would watch soaking hay as sometimes it 'ferments' and goes bad before they eat it all... (alfalfa does anyhow)

Someone here suggested a bit of apple juice in the water bucket. You dont want to force feed too much salt- too much can be bad. We allow free access to mineral salt and regular white salt.

 

[JourneysEnd]

EquiTea

Basically alfalfa tea. You can buy from KV Vet.

You can come close by making sun tea with a couple handfuls of alfalfa and add just a little molasses and salt.

 

[suz]

When my guy colicked and didn't want to drink, I gave him some apple juice mixed with a little water in his bucket. He slurped it right up!! Loves that apple juice!

Hope your guy is feeling better today!

 

[Jetiki]

Diluted Carrot juice, very little dilution at first then once they start drinking dilute it a good bit more. My mare went through spells of doing this very thing this a few months ago. Carrot Juice and gatorade brought her through it.

Karen

 

[Casnos Minis]

My old man just coliced this Sunday. The vet came out yesterday at 9:30 and we pumped mineral oil and water into him and got him to pass some poop. He pooped twice more yesterday but so far only once this morning. I am feeding him hay soaked in water. Grain soaked in water and a slurpy bran mash in the middle of the day to help with his liquids. As well I've been adding salt to everything to try and get him to drink. But its not working. So for you experienced horse people, any ideas on ways to get him to intake more fluids or better yet start drinking on his own????

My mare coliced a few weeks ago. First of all no grain. Get some Hay stretcher, soak it with warm water . I got a tube of electrolytes for her and syringes that into her. Only feed small handfuls of hay soaked at a time. I kept getting told no grain for a while. I just gave her a mash of the hay stretcher and bran. About a cup of each. I started off with small amounts though. I also got pwdered electrolytes to put in the mash. Hope that helps. He is getting water from the mash and stuff ant that'swhy he's not drinking as much. He really shouldn't be eating hay yet anyways. This is just my experience and my opinion I'm not a vet.

Christy

 

[lilmiraclesfarm]

My old man just coliced this Sunday. The vet came out yesterday at 9:30 and we pumped mineral oil and water into him and got him to pass some poop. He pooped twice more yesterday but so far only once this morning. I am feeding him hay soaked in water. Grain soaked in water and a slurpy bran mash in the middle of the day to help with his liquids. As well I've been adding salt to everything to try and get him to drink. But its not working. So for you experienced horse people, any ideas on ways to get him to intake more fluids or better yet start drinking on his own????

My mare coliced a few weeks ago. First of all no grain. Get some Hay stretcher, soak it with warm water . I got a tube of electrolytes for her and syringes that into her. Only feed small handfuls of hay soaked at a time. I kept getting told no grain for a while. I just gave her a mash of the hay stretcher and bran. About a cup of each. I started off with small amounts though. I also got pwdered electrolytes to put in the mash. Hope that helps. He is getting water from the mash and stuff ant that'swhy he's not drinking as much. He really shouldn't be eating hay yet anyways. This is just my experience and my opinion I'm not a vet.

Christy

Okay, a small update on my boy. He drank twice on his own in front of me. He hasn't been to interested in grain or the bran mash all that much these past 2 days. I tried the gatorade, but he didn't seem to like it. Vet insists on feeding him. She said he won't eat if he doesn't feel good. I don't know, to me if he's impacted why add to it? I'm not to fond of this vet anyways. She's impossible to get ahold of.

He eats his soaked hay and actually last night was the first night he ate it all and the water in the bucket. He's been eating the top layer and leaveing what sits in the water. He pooped early morning yesterday, and then nothing all day. He kept up with gut sounds, and pink gums, although slightly pale. Last night around 6 he went down again. Still couldn't get ahold of the vet, been trying since 3 that afternoon. Got to the point we called another vet, but they wanted 2000 to walk in the door. Eeek, its sad to say, but we paid 800 for him and he has no papers. So our vet FINALLY called us and came out at 11:30. We put a hose through his nose into his stomache and pumped more mineral oil and water. She pulled some poop from him.

Early this morning he pooped a nice wet mushy poop. Then again a few hours later. Then again. Yah. I took him for a second walk right before supper and he is exhausted. Drank some water and I gave him some more banamine as he seems uncomfortable. Well 10 minutes later he pooped again! So yes we've been going every 4 hours about. I hope he continues this tomorrow. I might be able to sleep and go to work for the morning shift.

I'm going to try and add a little apple juice I think to his water and see if he likes that. Thanks for you help, lets just hope he makes it through.