Monitor Your Horse’s Health Easier than Ever with the Photo Upload Feature
Watch this quick video on how to use FeedXL’s Photo Upload feature! Track your horse’s health and progress with this quick and easy tool.
Watch this quick video on how to use FeedXL’s Photo Upload feature! Track your horse’s health and progress with this quick and easy tool.
Gut health is a critical component of overall health and well-being in horses. However, it can be notoriously difficult to monitor, as there’s no easy way to measure it directly. Fortunately, one of the best indicators of your horse’s digestive health is something that’s always available – their manure. By keeping an eye on your horse’s manure, you can gain valuable insights into how well their hindgut is functioning.
Manure contains several tell-tale signs that reflect the health of your horse’s gut. Characteristics such as consistency, colour, odour, and overall appearance all provide clues about what’s happening inside. In this article, we’ll explore how to assess these features and understand what they mean for your horse’s health.
The consistency of your horse’s manure is one of the most important aspects to monitor. Healthy manure should appear as well-formed faecal balls that are moist and easily breakable. If the manure is hard and dry or overly loose and water, it could signal an issue with digestion, gut function, or an issue with the overall health of your horse. However, it’s worth noting that occasional loose manure might simply reflect a dietary change. This can happen during spring, when fresh green grass becomes available, or if a horse is moved to a new pasture with different grasses or varied plant growth. Keep track of these changes – while they might not always be a cause for concern, they will help establish what your horse’s “normal” is.
The colour of your horse’s manure can tell you a lot about their diet and digestion. Here are some common colours and what they might indicate:
Brown manure is considered normal and suggests that your horse’s digestive system is likely to be functioning properly. It means they are absorbing nutrients as expected and eating a well-balanced diet.
Green manure often points to undigested plant material. This can happen when a horse is eating lush, green pasture or high-chlorphyll hay like lucerne. Green manure is typically not a problem unless it’s accompanied by diarrhoea.
If you see black manure in a newborn foal, that’s perfectly normal (it’s called meconium). But if an older horse passes black or dark manure, it could indicate gastrointestinal bleeding, possibly from gastric ulcers or other conditions. If this happens, contact your veterinarian immediately.
Red manure or signs of blood are concerning, as they could indicate substantial bleeding in the right dorsal color on small colon. Conditions such as colitis, parasites, or rectal tears could cause this. Any sign of blood requires immediate veterinary attention.
Yellow manure can signal liver disease, restricted bile flow, or difficulty digesting fats. Horses on high-fat or grain-heavy diets may also produce yellow manure. If your horse is lethargic or shows other symptoms, seek veterinary care right away.
While smell is subjective, a healthy horse’s manure shouldn’t have a strong or offensive smell. It might have a slightly earthy scent or the aroma of hay or grass, depending on what the horse has been eating. If the manure has an unusually strong, foul, or acidic odour, this could indicate a digestive problem or infection that requires attention. Rely on your own sense of smell (not your non-horsey friend’s) and pay attention to big differences in odour.
Healthy manure should be moist, well-shaped, and consist of distinct faecal balls, showing that your horse’s digestive system is working as it should. Keep in mind that the size of the faecal balls may vary depending on your horse’s size, with smaller breeds producing smaller balls compared to larger horses.
If you notice that your horse’s faecal balls are smaller than usual, it could indicate prolonged transit time through the descending colon. This may be accompanied by mucus, giving the manure a slimy appearance. Horses with dental issues might also pass manure with undigested feed particles, such as whole grains or pieces of hay. This is more common in older horses with worn teeth, leading to improper chewing.
Diarrhoea is characterized by extremely loose, watery manure. It can stem from a range of issues, including bacterial infections, parasites, or reactions to antibiotic treatment. Diarrhoea can also result from intestinal blood flow problems or electrolyte imbalances, so if your horse has diarrhoea, it’s important to consult your veterinarian.
Manure that is unformed, has an acidic smell, and is bright green to yellow in colour is a sign of hindgut acidosis. The most common cause of this is large amounts of starch from undigested grain entering the hindgut. Or your horse may have large amounts of fructan entering the hindgut from ryegrass or cereal forages like oat or wheat barley.
The fermenting starch and/or fructan upsets the microbial balance and large amounts of acid accumulate. The acid damages the gut wall, “good” fibre fermenting bacteria die, and overall health is compromised. If severe, it can result in laminitis.
Manure that is overly dry or hard could indicate dehydration or insufficient water intake. This can sometimes signal that the digestive process is slower than normal, which could be a sign of impending colic. Colic is a painful condition that requires immediate attention and can arise from factors like sudden diet changes, excessive grain intake, or inadequate forage.
Gritty manure, often containing sand, can be a sign of sand accumulation in the colon, a serious condition that requires veterinary intervention. Horses can ingest small amounts of sand or soil while grazing or eating from the ground, and if significant sand accumulates, it can lead to life-threatening impactions.
Although rare, it is possible to spot visible parasites, such as worms, in manure. If you notice any parasites in your horse’s manure, collect a sample and consult your veterinarian. They may recommend deworming treatment to help control the parasite load.
Regularly monitoring your horse’s manure is one of the best ways to keep track of their gut health. The colour, consistency, and appearance of their faeces can reveal important information about their digestion and overall health. By keeping a close eye on these factors, you’ll be able to detect any potential issues early and seek veterinary care when necessary.
Healthy manure should be brown, moist, and consist of well-formed faecal balls. Manure colour can change with diet and other factors, but consistency is key. Any signs of diarrhoea, overly dry stools, gritty manure, or visible parasites should be addressed by your veterinarian.
By staying informed about your horse’s manure, you’ll be better equipped to keep them healthy and happy.
As a horse exercises its muscles generate heat. To prevent its body from dangerously overheating, the horse sweats to allow evaporative cooling to dissipate the heat being produced. As a horse sweats, water and electrolytes, including sodium, chloride, potassium, magnesium and calcium are lost from the body.
For effective sweating to occur, the horse must be well hydrated and have an ample supply of electrolytes in its body. The electrolytes and water lost through sweating must be replaced following exercise to prevent electrolyte depletion and dehydration.
In this blog post we will look at what electrolytes are and why they are important, how much ‘electrolyte’ a horse needs, where horses get electrolytes from in the diet and when to use an electrolyte supplement.
Very simply, electrolytes are minerals, which, when present in a watery solution like body fluids, become positively or negatively charged particles that have the ability to conduct electricity. Electrolytes maintain fluid balance and circulatory function, facilitate muscle contractions, trigger nerve functions and maintain the body’s acid-base balance. The most important electrolyte minerals are sodium, chloride, potassium, magnesium and calcium.
Electrolyte deficiencies are associated with fatigue, muscle weakness, lethargy and reduced feed and water intakes, resulting in weight loss and dehydration. In addition, electrolyte deficient horses may experience reduced sweating, which can result in hyperthermia (over-heating) and compromised performance. Studies in England have also linked electrolyte deficiencies to the incidence of recurring bouts of tying-up (Harris et al. 1992).
Please Note: severe electrolyte deficiency can result in complete exhaustion, colic, synchronous diaphragmatic flutter (commonly known as the ‘thumps’), collapse and death if not treated. Severe electrolyte deficiencies are a veterinary emergency requiring IV fluids, electrolytes and specialist care so please call your vet immediately if you suspect your horse is acutely dehydrated and electrolyte deficient.
All horses have a small daily requirement for electrolytes to replace the obligatory losses from the body in the urine and faeces. This requirement is termed a horse’s ‘maintenance requirement’ and is reflected in FeedXL’s recommended daily intakes for horses not in work.
Sweating increases a horse’s requirement for electrolytes above their maintenance requirement, as large quantities of sodium, potassium and chloride and smaller quantities of magnesium and calcium are excreted in sweat (amounts are given in the table below):
Electrolyte | Sodium | Potassium | Chloride | Magnesium | Calcium |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Quantity in sweat* (grams/L) | 3.1 | 1.6 | 5.5 | 0.05 | 0.12 |
The amount a horse sweats, and therefore its electrolyte requirement, will be determined by the amount of work it is doing, the intensity of work it is performing and the climatic conditions in which the horse lives and works. Individual horses also vary considerably in their tendency to sweat. As an indication, in a moderate climate, a racing thoroughbred will lose between 5 and 10 litres of sweat during a daily workout and an endurance horse will excrete between 5 and 10 litres of sweat per hour when travelling between 12 and 18 km/hour. Sweat losses of up to 15 litres/hour can occur during high intensity exercise where horses are travelling at between 30 – 35 km/hour.
FeedXL calculates your horse’s electrolyte requirements for you based on a sweat loss of 1.6 L per day for horses in light work, 4.4 L per day for horses in moderate work, 6.7 L per day for horses in moderately heavy work and 8.9 L per day for horses in heavy work.
Hot and particularly hot and humid climates increase a horse’s need for electrolytes as horses will sweat more under these conditions. As a general guide, if the temperature is 30C (86F) supply 140% of your horse’s recommended daily intake (RDI) calculated by FeedXL for sodium, potassium and chloride . If the temperature is 35C (95F), supply 170% of your horse’s calculated requirement for these minerals and if the temperature is 40C (104F) or over you should supply 200% of their requirements. Also be sure to have a salt lick available at all times.
Pastures and forages are almost always a rich source of potassium and are commonly a good source of magnesium. However they tend to contain variable and often unknown concentrations of chloride and typically low concentrations of sodium. Common table salt contains 39% sodium and 61% chloride and is frequently used as a readily available, palatable and cheap source of these electrolytes in a horse’s diet. Potassium chloride (50% potassium, 47% chloride) can be used to supply additional potassium and chloride where required and magnesium oxide is a readily available and cost effective source of magnesium where additional magnesium is needed. Grains contain only very small amounts of all the electrolyte minerals and it is high grain diets that are most commonly ‘electrolyte deficient’.
In many situations horses can get enough electrolyte minerals from a forage based diet that has plain table salt added for additional sodium and chloride. Some horses on high grain/low forage diets may benefit from an electrolyte supplement that contains potassium or need potassium chloride added to their feeds. On a day to day basis though, most horses won’t need a commercial electrolyte supplement.
Commercial electrolyte supplements are however very handy in situations where your horse is away from home, not grazing or eating as much hay as he normally would and/or working a lot harder or longer and sweating more than usual. Well formulated supplements (ones that contain the same proportion of electrolytes as those found in equine sweat) can be used in these situations to quickly replace electrolytes lost in sweat. Where prolonged exercise occurs (for example endurance riding or long days of stockwork or trail riding) it may be necessary to provide some electrolytes during the period of exercise.
Well formulated electrolyte supplements will provide enough electrolyte minerals in a 60 gram dose to replace the salts lost in 5 litres of sweat. There is debate over how much electrolyte replacer you should give to working horses with no firm recommendations available given it does depend so much on the climate, intensity of work and the horse as an individual. If a horse is sweating consistently over a long period of time AND will have access to water frequently you can give 60 grams of electrolyte every hour to two hours. If water is not available on a frequent basis give 60 grams of electrolyte when you know the horse will have access to water and can have a good drink. Don’t give more than 60 grams per dose as you may overload the horses ability to absorb the salts you give.
Well formulated electrolyte supplements will contain 20 – 25% sodium, 43 – 48% chloride, 10 – 12% potassium and smaller amounts of magnesium and calcium (normally 1 to 2%). These higher quality products will also have less than 20% glucose or other base or filler.
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