I found this today in the pasture. It is one of two horses - but I'm 75% sure it's our retired gelding's poop. The other option is a new horse we just brought home last night. We did some musical pasture swapping to make everyone situated and happy while the new guy settled in. Everyone is running separate.
Anyway, what is this? We are calling our vet to come out to do the new guy's teeth and give him a once over, so it's good timing that we found this questionable material. So yes, the vet is coming.
I just want to know if anyone has ever seen this before or may know what it is.
It does look like some kind of rope to me, though it's hard to tell from a picture. I'm pretty paranoid about getting all the baling twine out of the hay though, so I don't know what it looks like if it passes through a horse.
Could be your new guy passing some rope he ate at his old home? I don't know either - I've never seen it either - equally paranoid! But you never know what happens before you get them. It could have even been an accident. Either way it's worth showing your vet when they come by and if he hasn't been wormed by his previous owner it's worth doing an FEC.
Our bale rope is bright orange so I don't think it's that. Plus the consistency is stretchy. It's kind of squishy. Like freshly chewed bubble gum - the bubblelicious type. That's why I thought stomach lining. No one looks sick. Eating, pooping, hanging out as usual.
Well. I've saved it for the vet along with the poop it came with. So hopefully she'll figure it out. Ahhh!
I was going to suggest that the color leached out somewhere in the horse, but that consistency would be strange for twine. My next guess would be something from a mare's reproductive system, but you don't have pregnant mare do you? Maybe it's dried mucus from somewhere in the digestive tract, or just something that blew onto the poop?
No pregnant mares. My (only) mare is spayed (bought her that way, not my decision) and we don't ever run anyone together. I have a spirited mare and 3 geldings - oiy. Just too much to worry about with running them together. I can't afford someone getting hurt.
Anyway, my first thought was a byproduct of a de-worming agent. The new gelding just had de-worming done (per owner) in early December. We don't typically worm our ponies so I don't know what happens afterward.
If thats a worm and the horse wasnt wormed frequently, but was just wormed for the first time - yes they die and get pooped out. Our colt we dewormed with D-earth and we saw small dead worms coming out for days. We get FECs done, but have a closed herd and havent needed chemical wormer. But I could see that being a pooped out wormif he were recently dewormed.
That would be a pretty large worm, though I guess it's possible. Our horses are wormed regularly, so I imagine their parasites don't get to grow that large.
Subbing since I'm curios, I can't say I've ever seen something like that. I have seen eaten twine and it still looked the same after it passed through, so I don't think it's that.
I would be getting a sample of that and pictures to your local vet asap. To me it looks like dehydrated tapeworm. If thats the case, you should be very concerned. Was this a single poop like that? or are they coming out like that still? I would contact your vet.
Maybe some long grass stalk that couldn't be digested?
Tapeworms can be really long and roundworms can be a foot or more - it might be more than one worm tangled up in each other which is how they are in the horses system if there's a lot of them
Tapeworm on left, roundworm on right
I'm guessing a large roundworm! But totally wanting to know what the vet says!
When we were in our animal science lab a pig started pooping out roundworms cause she had recently been wormed. Looked somewhat similar but we only got to see them for a minute before they had been completely eaten up by the other pigs in the pen with her... They were killed by the dewormer so the instructor wasn't at all concerned but it definitely showed how easily they get around!
The vet took the sample on Friday to be checked out. I'll let you know. It's not very worm like at all. Since then all poops have been totally normal. It's bizarre. The vet thinks he ate something weird but isn't quite sure.
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