Diarrhea...again...Now what?

[Jenk]

I am at a loss as to what I should do to decrease our girl's bouts of diarrhea, which seemto occur when she's going for cecals--either during or immediately after.

She can't handle most greens and currently gets only a small amount of Italian parsley each night. I've been feeding her 2 tsp. of pellets each morning, and she gets unlimited hay (mostly 1st-cut timothy and oat or orchard grass at times).

Our vet suggested that I cut out the pellets if our girl's diarrhea continued; but she's been on a hay-only diet for such long bouts at times--per my decision, not my vet's--that I hate the idea of removing them from her diet entirely. Still, what choice does one have if they're the cause of the diarrhea?

I'm wondering if I should decrease her pellet content to1 tsp./day to see what happens? Or maybe I could keep her on 2 tsp./day and see if giving her Probi (a prebiotic/probiotic) for a week increases the time between diarrhea bouts?

God, I hate feeling powerless to help the situation.

Thank you,

Jenk

 

[tonyshuman]

Usually the rule when diarrhea strikes is to feed only hay and water until it goes away.

I don't know what you mean when you say her diarrhea occurs when she's going for cecals. Do you think that the diarrhea is from her cecum, or her large intestine? If it's from the cecum, that would be cecal dysbiosis, a condition where the bacteria in the cecum are out of balance. Acidification of the GI tract, removing any sources of sugar, and lots of hay should help with cecal dysbiosis.

 

[Jenk]

tonyshuman wrote:

Usually the rule when diarrhea strikes is to feed only hay and water until it goes away.

Oh, boy...What would really stinkabout returning her to a hay-only diet--even if very briefly--is that I always slowly reintroduce things back into her diet; and it's taken me some time to work the current items into it. Still, I realize that I may have little choice.

I should note that her two recent bouts of diarrhea occurred within a few hours of eating her pellets. I suppose that strongly indicates that she's having trouble with the pellets this time around.

I don't know what you mean when you say her diarrhea occurs when she's going for cecals. Do you think that the diarrhea is from her cecum, or her large intestine? If it's from the cecum, that would be cecal dysbiosis, a condition where the bacteria in the cecum are out of balance. Acidification of the GI tract, removing any sources of sugar, and lots of hay should help with cecal dysbiosis.

A few times in the past, I've witnessed her have leakage when she's reached around to get cecals. But in all honesty, her body may not even produce them; and I've many times watched her reach back and eat fecals; so it's hard to say what she's passing--cecals or fecals--when she has diarrhea.

I really hate the idea of putting her back on hay and water only, but I don't know that I have much choice.

I suppose that I should hold off on giving her Priobi, just in case the hay-water diet would suffice.