Prevention and Treatment
Good management and common sense can prevent many of the common causes of diarrhea. Work with your vet to develop a deworming and fecal check schedule that is appropriate for your situation. Avoid sudden changes in grain or hay and introduce pasture access slowly. If the horse is prone to intermittent diarrhea, be sure you are using a fixed formula feed that specifically identifies all ingredients by name rather than generic categories. This will enable you to experiment with different formulations to find one that is well-tolerated.
Our products chart lists common nonprescription diarrhea treatments in several categories. Ration Plus and Forco are prebiotics. For details of studies on Ration Plus, see http://www.rationplus.com/studies.html. Equine Generator is a bacterial probiotic; YeaSacc a Saccharomyces yeast. These products are best used to:
• Help prevent or treat antibiotic related diarrhea
• Support intestinal organisms during feed changes
•Help minimize stress and excitement-related diarrhea severity
• Restore/replace upset gut flora following other types of diarrhea and support populations in older horses.
YeaSacc is particularly helpful for horses on high levels of grain feeding or with grain overload, when the bacterial products should not be used. They won't help with diarrhea related to toxins, sand, parasites, inflammatory bowel disease or cancer. They may help re-establish good populations after a bacterial diarrhea.
The next category is adsorbent/absorbents. UAA gel is an old stand-by. It is a combination of activated charcoal and absorbent clays. It is active against both fungal/bacterial toxins and irritant chemicals. Bio-Sponge and DiaGel target fungal and bacterial toxins. They're usually used as part of the treatment for acute diarrheas, but some horses with longstanding soft manure will also respond. The reason for this is unclear but may be related to low-grade, smoldering bacterial infections which these products could neutralize long enough to allow the beneficial bacteria to re-establish control. Although this hasn't been studied in horses, DiaGel helped reduce the likelihood and severity of diarrhea in sled dogs during a race.
The last two products target diarrheas associated with damage or injury to the horse's intestinal lining. They are primarily indicated for inflammatory bowel disease, phenylbutazone-related colitis, suspected severe food sensitivity/allergy (after the cause has been removed, of course) and the recovery stages from bacterial infections.
Last but not least we have psyllium husk fiber. Most people think of psyllium, which is found in the human product Metamucil, as a laxative, but intestinal regulator would be more accurate. Even in humans it works for both constipation and diarrhea. Adding psyllium helps resolve many types of diarrhea.
