Diarrhea again.....Coccidiosis? Strongyles again?

[Benson]

Short History: Stall resting horse gets diarrhea, treated for sm. strongyles with Power Pack. All is well, diarrhea goes away.

Fast forward 50 days. Horse is lethargic, vitals normal, eating but not with same vigor. Diarrhea returns. It seems like a hindgut issue, as the manure sequence is water - fiber laden cow pile - water. The horse is still on stall rest (soft tissue injury), has 24/7 access to grass with very small amount of alfalfa mixed in and a handful of oats. He eats about 40# of hay daily. Despite the hay intake, he lacks "bloom". Water intake hasn't changed.

I called the vet today, but haven't heard back. In the meantime, I'm looking for others with similar experiences. How soon to safely Power Pack again? The symptoms for sm. strongyles and coccidiosis are similar and it seems difficult to test for either one, as the encysted stage can render the test inaccurate.

Any thoughts/experiences would be appreciated.

[SLW]

Before I ran another Power Pack (or any dewormer) through him I would run a fecal. That will ID coccidiosis also.

Good luck.

[Benson]

SLW,

I've never dealt with coccidiosis. Reading in the Merck manual, it says the oocytes are not uniform in excretion and are unreliable in testing. When testing for coccidiosis, what is the threshold for treatment? I'm not all that familiar with the testing for encysted strongyles. What is the method of testing? Is there threshold for treatment?

Our current environment seems conducive to infection - 35 degrees, rain and a horse on stall rest who insists turning his stall into a manure lagoon.

TIA.

[Cherry]

Why don't you call your vet and come up with a viable plan of action to resolve this issue? First you need to do some testing to rule out certain things.

I would sooner suspect the grass as the culprit but I would have the horse's thyroid level checked.

[SLW]

First, I'm not a vet but did work for an equine practice for many years. With the clinical condition of your horse as described and a fecal test the vet's could begin to rule in and rule out issues. As Cherry offered, it could be just as simple as too much grass or removing the alfalfa.

It is not as simple as one test confirming the exact problem but rather peeling back the layers.

And I hear ya on the messy winter conditions. That makes it so much harder to manage a horse in a restricted space. Good luck!