Help! Diarrhea!

Recently everything has started growing and we have a lot of new green grass. I noticed my mustang had some diarrhea so I put her in her stall for a while and she seemed to do fine. Everything went back to normal. Well I was going to keep her in at night, but I didn't last night and didn't get her in until tonight and she had diarrhea again!! So is this normal? Cause I don't want her to have anything serious, I am thinking it is cause her stomach isn't used to taking in all this green grass after winter? I was also feeding her 1-2 flakes of really good bermuda hay a couple days ago and I stopped that. I am hoping everything will be fine by tomorrow, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something serious! Thank you!

Hi,

Sounds like her digestion isn't handling the rich new grass. Does the poo smell sour? Excess sugars & starch can lead to 'hind gut acidosis' & laminitis. While I don't advise locking her up, especially at night when the grass has less sugars than during daylight, I would be restricting her grazing. Perhaps a muzzle, if you want her to graze, or keeping her in a dry paddock & feeding mid-low grade hay(don't know bermuda).

So I should lock her up during the day and let her out at night? And another question, do you know how many hours she should be out? Like 8 or something? And by the way I checked her poop a little bit ago and it is already looking better! :) what a relief! Thank you for replying so quickly!

Hi,
Like I said, I don't advise locking horses up. They really should be out 24/7 as free movement is so important to their health. That should be the absolute minimum exercise they get. I would consider a 'dry lot', grazing muzzle, or 'paddock paradise' set up(google it for info) to be good options. If there is no alternative to locking her up, then from the point of view of sugar content in the grass, yes, late evening to dawn is the safest time to allow grazing.

This is also a time to be careful that they don't colic on all the new, rich grass

Spring and fall are the worst times for colic. Allowing them to eat a few hours and building up to normal grazing time is best say over a week increasing hours daily

Give her hay BEFORE turning her out also in the evening adn overnight the grass is lower in sugars then during the day so nighttime turnout would probably be better if it is possible...

Turn out on to spring grass needs to be like everything else when it comes to feed ing horse's. S-L-O-W.

Normally we start at about 10-15 minute increments for about 7-14 days and then slowly start upping the time by 10-15 mins over the next couple of weeks.

Your not only causing tummy upset, you could be setting her up for a colic or founder.

If you don't have a dry lot or paddock for the horse go to into, a grazing muzzle will work.

It's not just a matter of introducing things slowly. Horse's systems are not designed for rich, sugary or starchy feeds and it causes more probs in some than others. Some - ie IR or cushings horses - can't stand any at all without negative effects. The 'tummy upset' which is hind gut acidosis is a no.1 cause of colic & laminitis(can become founder).

Oh, I don't want her to get colic! I will look into getting a grazing muzzle, but how many hours should I take it off? She is from the wild and I don't think she has ever had colic. So I don't know why she is having a problem now. :S
Thanks for all this information!!

My guess is that she hasn't had much green grass durning the winter and then a sudden axsess to it caused this. Right know im limiting my horses to about 1hr to 2 hrs a day and will slowly increase it so they don't gorge them selves on the fresh green grass. Its fresh its new and its young and the horses haven't had it all winter so they go crazy over it lol.