omeprazole for an injured horse

Question
Judge is a 13 year TB and he injured himself in his stall. He banged his head on something perhaps his bucket after being startled but no one was there when he hurt himself. he has a laceration on his gum which bled profusely and he has alot of swelling along that gum line. He was seen by the vet and was put on gastroguard. the vet said that OTC omeprazole does not work on horses. I have used OTC omeprazole on horses that were sensitive to Bute and it seemed to work. This horse was placed on Banamine and as an NSAID it may bother his stomach. Also he won't eat hay because of the pain but he will eat Blue Seal feeds senior feed which is a complete extruded feed. I worry about colic changing his feed and his not eating hay. But he also needs to eat something. How quickly can we increase the complete feed?

Answer
Hi Nancy,

Thank you for your question.  Tough case he is, but I'm sure you'll pull him through.  Banamine and NSAIDs can indeed be hard on a horse's stomach although the gastroguard will help.  I've never used over the counter omeprazole so I can't account for how effective it is...in Canada we have very limited access to meds other than through the vet, they have the market cornered.  

The complete feeds are a useful alternative to hay especially in the short term like this where Judge simply can not eat hay because of his injury.  You may want to switch from the Senior to the ecube complete horse, which is designed to replace hay and other grain.  The senior formulation is designed more to complement your forage.  You could also consider feeding beet pulp in conjunction with the ecube, it may be more cost effective and a slightly better fiber source, depending on what Blue Seal is using as its fiber base.  Beet pulp can replace enormous quantities of hay if need be, and in this case need be :)  

There is going to be a risk of colic in switching any fiber source and ideally you should phase a new forage in over the course of 7-10 days.  But in this case, phasing the feed in slowly will mean that Judge isn't consuming enough food because he can't eat anything else.  An empty stomach is prone to developing ulcers...and combined with NSAID treatment is a bit of a problem waiting to happen.  In this case it is more important to make sure he eats enough so you will have to increase the complete feed (and or complete feed/bp mix if you chose to do so) quite quickly to the recommended amount based on his body weight.  You should expect him to eat 1.5-2.0% of his body weight in dry matter daily.  So, a 1000lb horse should eat 15-20lbs of dry matter daily (which is 17-22.5lbs of ecube or ecube/dry bp a day, since both are about 89-90% dry matter).  At this point, enough time has probably elapsed since he stopped eating hay that transition to the ecube/beet pulp can be instant.  

I would suggest that you leave hay available for Judge to eat despite feeding enough complete feed.  Long stem forages such as pasture and hay provide a form of 'effective fiber' that is unrivaled by fiber replacements.  For some reason, the long stem maintains a much healthier and effective digestive system.  It will be important for him to transition back to long stem forage as soon as possible so leaving hay available will encourage him to forage.  

I hope that helps, best of luck.

Thanks, Corlena