Help!! Death by diarrhea

Your vet couldn't have done a good culture in 1 day's time. You need to have a sample sent out to the lab to determine if there is a bacterial infection like salmonella.

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=5686

My horses often have more "liquid" type poop for day or two after I give the dewormer. Ryle and Vida gave you great advices. If everything got worse with grass, move it off the grass at least for couple weeks to see any improvement. Make sure he drinks a lot too as diarrhea dehydrates the body a lot! Can you try to google some vet sites where they can give you real advise (sounds like your vet is not the best in world). I have vet coming to my horse tonight so I'll ask him what he thinks.

There are some anti diahhreal medicines out there, but if I were you I would switch him (slowly) to an easier digestable food like Triple Crown Complete that comes in pellet form.

How are his teeth? My horse had severe diahhrea from having no teeth. The food was irritating her intestines and giving her the poops. If he isnt digesting his food properly you might want to soak it so its easier to break down once he eats it.

I think the vet needs to do some more fecal exams and blood work to find out what is going on though. It sucks that you don't have a vet you can trust. That definitely puts you in a tough spot.

Keep us informed on how he does.

Some horses are extremely sensitive to feed changes. Take him off the grass, and switch him to a complete feed as already mentioned but do it VERY gradually, it should take you almost a month to complete the transfer if you do it properly, however you should see the effects a lot sooner.

See if you can find a different vet, it sounds like he's not really trying to help. My vet would be calling me back saying "Is he feeling any better? Do you need me out?"

I told my vet yesterday about what's going on. He said it happens sometime if the horse is really full of worms. Not sure it's the case for you, but that's all I could find out.

We wormed the horse not long after we got him. Did it again 3 months later with a different wormer. Then he was on pennicillian for 3 days. I can't remember right now what for. I would have to ask my wife. After all this he got diarrhea, understandable. We had the vet come out, he reached his arm in his rectum to get a sample, and gave him a shot he said just in case of samolnela. And also took blood. The next day he called back and said he found nothing in his gut, no worms, no beneficial bacteria. He said to give him oats and probios for three weeks. About 2 weeks later the horse started to get cow patty looking poop. Then he started eating grass, then he went back to liquid poop. We now have him off the grass and are giving him grass hay and probios. The only vet around here seems like to me that it is a hassle for him to come out and do his job. I'm going to try what I;m doing right now to see if he does not get better. Any help would be great. Thank you all. I will keep you posted.

I have a 25 year old QH that is prone to sand colic, he went through a stage where he had severe water-like diarreah and still to this day he will get severely runny poop. We never found out the exact cause (we tested for kidney failure, worms, bacteria, etc.) I switched him to equine senior (he was around 16 at the time). It helped some, and I also put him on monthly sandclear, which is a selenium product, if you don't have sand you can pretty much scratch that off. We also tried pennicilian and plain yogurt. I'm not a vet so my explanation might not be 100% accyrate, The yogurt has a live bacteria in it that helps with the runny poop and possible ulcers. I'm not sure what exactly cleared it up but I would try the yogurt and as someone else said, the beat pulp. Hope that helps.

I would give what the vet told you a chance and get the horse off grass. You've only been giving oats for 3 weeks and say it was helping, so keep doing it.

At the same time the suggestion for some good grass hay, pro-biotic and a beet pulp mash once a day is a good plan. You can start with one cup of beet pulp soaked in four cups of water.

If you are in a sandy area, you can test for sand by putting some manure in a baggie and add a little water, the sand will separate from the manure.

Ryle is partial right, we've had stool and urine samples analyzed in a day, but I'm in a big city and I can drop them off directly at the lab. If your in a rural area then I would be questioning how he got results in a day.