Bad pony bum

[CheshireDing]

I wondered if anyone had thoughts/suggestions on this please ?

DC pony keeps getting a messy bum and messy back legs and tail due to water. Her poo is fine but it's as if she is constantly in season

vet just said 'it's the grass' but this has been going on since October. I have to clean her legs, tail and bum every other day. It can't just be the grass surely ?

She has been on the same yard for 2.5 years and is aged 18 years. I do have the nutritionist coming in a few weeks to see if we need to tweak he diet again but open to other thoughts too

vet suggested Gut Sponge, I'm not convinced it's making any difference though

No ulcers or anything either

Look up fecal water syndrome.
You need to look at the amount of fibre being fed and it is good to get a nutritionist as long as they are independent and not linked to a feed company plus are properly qualified. There are only a handful of correctly qualified equine nutritionists in the country.
Digestive aids can help eg gut sponge but it is often a case of trial and error by eliminating trigger feeds etc.
Also make sure pony is up to date with teeth and worming.

Thanks Twisty yes this is exactly what I think it is Fecal Water Syndrome ! Good to know re the fibre. The nutritionist is independent so I will see what she says about the fibre intake too. Thank you

Pony is up to date re teeth and worming as the yard has a strict worming schedule and she saw the dentist in December and about 3 weeks ago.

My retired boy had this last summer when the diet he was on (on vet advice) turned out to be a bit too stringent. He wasn’t having enough fibre going through his gut - once I started giving him some soaked hay overnight it cleared up and he’s been fine since.

My horse has had this problem. I tried a couple of gut balancer type products aimed to recolonize the gut bacteria but they didn’t help. What did help was changing supplier of the haylage. I think there was possibly a small amount of a plant in there that he reacted to. Also happens now if I give him high protein haylage but we fix this by mixing in some oat straw.

Hmm thank you both. I wonder if I should swap to haylage. She has soaked hay due to a dust allergy but I have never thought to try haylage as it's more expensive. Maybe that's an option and/or some oat straw too

Thanks I might try that whilst awaiting nutritionist

I personally wouldn't change from soaked hay to haylage unless you have it tested. What is the reason for feeding soaoed hay? If it is to reduce sugar then definitely don't swop because you can't soak haylage.

It's soaked because she has hay fever and dust allergies.

She a welshie so I don't really want her to have any extra sugar, she definitely doesn't need that

(should have got a hamster) 🤣

Can you get a second opinion from a different vet?

Yes good thought Posta I will look into that

You could try timothy haylage, it's very low in sugar. I feed it to my Cushings pony who is on a low sugar diet and he is fine with it.