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  Discussion on The link between Diarrhea and Alfalfa.
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New Member:
January

Posted on Tuesday, Apr 11, 2006 - 5:41 am:

Hi, I am based in the U.K. About 2 years ago I purchased a five year old Highland gelding, Mac. He is a big chap for a Highland - about 15 hands with a lot of bone. Prior to my buying him he had been wintered out on poor grazing with more dominant horses and was in a bit of a poor state. However within a matter of weeks on half decent grazing his condition dramatically improved and he has looked like the picture of health ever since. He has a great coat, great disposition and we have to battle to keep him from going too overweight. The only problem is that he has had low-grade diarrhea ever since I got him. His stools are partially well-formed but accompanied by lots of fluid. For a grey pony with a white tail this is a disaster!
Blood tests, faecal tests, internal examination, allergy tests, and repeated worm tests have all come back clear. I have therefore tried to tackle this problem from a nutritional angle.
I was advised to keep his diet as simple and natural as possible. On changing from haylage to hay there was a significant improvement initially. In addition to hay I was feeding him an alfalfa/oat straw mix. When I was told that this contained a lot of chemical preservative and a sugar coating I switched to uncoated natural alfalfa chop. Again, there was a slight improvement but the fluid problem remains. I have fed him a probiotic for the last year but can not say that I have noticed any difference as a result of this. Adding psyllium to his diet seems to improve things very slightly. I read with interest in the overview article that Alfalfa hay can prevent water absorption in the large bowel. How common is this? Could the same apply when a horse is fed alfalfa chop three times a day? I thought that I had got Mac's diet as simple as I could but wonder if it is possible that the alfalfa has been contributing to the problem all along. I just dream about the day when this problem might go away so that I can have a white pony with a white tail - not a brown one. Yours hopefully. January
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, Apr 11, 2006 - 8:08 am:

Many horses stay loose on alfalfa January, no matter what the type. The mechanism is most likely one of osmosis where large numbers of osmotically active particles are left in the bowel. All you can do is experiment with a slow move over to a non-legume hay to see if this causes improvement. Give it about a month before you judge the results.
DrO
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