Diarrhea in Animals | Easiest ways to treat diarrhea in animals

What is Diarrhea?

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Diarrhea is derived from two Greek words, Dia which means through, and rhein which means to flow. In simple words, diarrhea is the increase in the frequency and fluidity of feces.

The frequency of bowel movements means the number of bowel movements in a day. So if someone doesn’t know the normal rate of bowel movements then it can be difficult to diagnose diarrhea. So for your easiness, the normal bowel movements in some animals are listed below.

Cattle defecate 11-16 times a day
Horses defecate 8-10 times a day
The number of bowel movements in dogs and cats is 1-2 times a day

Difference between Diarrhea & Dysentery

Diarrhea	Dysentery
Feces with no blood	Feces with blood
Voluminous fluid like feces	Scanty, sticky feces
No mucous or fibrin is present	Fibrin and mucous in fecal matter
Pus cells can be present but less	Pus cells often present
During defecation, abdominal straining (tenesmus) is absent	Tenesmus is present in the case of dysentery

Causes of Diarrhea in Animals

As stated earlier, diarrhea is not a disease, in fact, it’s a symptom of so many diseases, so there are various diseases and conditions, in which diarrhea can be a clinical finding. The causes can be infectious or non-infectious. Let’s have a look at some of the causes of diarrhea in animals.

Infectious causes of Diarrhea in Animals

Bacterial	Viral	Fungal	Parasitic
Johne’s Disease	Rinderpest	Aspergillosis	Giardiasis
Enterotoxemia	PPR	Histoplasmosis	Coccidiosis
Salmonellosis	Bluetongue	Candidiosis	Whipworm in dogs
Clostridial infections	BVD		Toxoplasmosis
Collibacillosis	Canine parvo & Distemper		Strongylosis

Non-infectious causes of Diarrhea

The non-infectious causes of diarrhea in animals can be plant or chemical poisoning, mineral deficiencies especially copper, disaccharide deficiency in fowls only, colitis X in horses, eosinophilic colitis in dogs, and some sort of tumor growth in GIT, etc.

Pathophysiology of Diarrhea

Diarrhea occurs whenever the absorptive function of the small intestine compromises. The pathophysiology of diarrhea can be divided into the following way:

1- Malabsorption

It might be possible that there is some sort of defect in the small intestinal villi portion. Due to this defect, the small intestine will not be able to absorb fluid and diarrhea occurs. Rota and coronavirus infections in animals are largely responsible factors for villi destruction.

2- Inflammation of Intestinal Mucous

Any sort of inflammation in the mucous part of the intestine can compromise normal physiological functions. Such inflammation can affect both motility and secretion. Such fluid secretion can be beyond the absorptive capacity, which outcome in diarrhea.

3- Osmotic Effects

An increase in osmotic pressure within the gut lumen will result in the withdrawal of body fluid from plasma into the intestinal lumen.

4- Other Miscellaneous

Increase in blood lumen hydraulic pressure, hypoproteinemia, and decrease lymphatic drainage, etc.

Clinical Findings of Diarrhea in Animals

The major clinical finding of diarrhea in animals is the loss of fluid-like feces from the rectum. Due to excessive loss of body fluids, weight loss and dehydration can also occur. Dehydration is only obvious if fluid loss is more than 10 percent of body weight. This can be assessed through skin tenting.

Fever can also occur in diarrheal patients but during the early stages of acute diarrhea. In later chronic stages, subnormal body temperature is normally reported.

Sometimes diarrhea is associated with a foul smell. This smell can be the reason for either the abnormal fermentation or due to decomposition of the intestinal epithelium, or due to blood, pus, fibrin, etc.

A fishy smell in diarrhea is an indication of protein decomposition
A pungent smell is diagnostic for salmonellosis or biliary colic
A sour or acidic smell is due to the fermentation of glucose or lactose as seen in lactic acidosis

Clinical Pathology of Diarrheal Patients

For proper evaluation of the cause of diarrhea in animals, clinical pathology can help a lot. Clinical evaluation revolves around the macroscopic and microscopic examination of feces. The macroscopic examination includes color, odor, consistency, etc. The microscopic examination may be necessary for the identification of ova for the parasitic cause.

Differential Diagnosis of Diarrhea in Animals

How you can differentiate whether diarrhea is due to Johne’s disease or due to salmonellosis? To answer such questions you need to differentiate the type of diarrhea in both cases. For ease of understanding, let’s see the bullet points below for differential diagnosis of diarrhea in animals.

In Johne’s disease, the diarrhea is chronic in nature and the patient undergoes progressive weight loss and shows no response to medical therapy
Diarrhea due to helminths is mild, with no signs of systemic illness
Feces are soft and voluminous without clinical dehydration and systemic illness in dietary-related diarrhea
Salmonellosis is characterized by dysentery, fibrinous cast, toxemia, and fever
The lesions in the small intestine cause perfuse and watery diarrhea whereas the lesions in the large intestine are associated with mild diarrhea with excessive mucous

How to Treat Diarrhea in Animals?

This is the most important thing during clinical practice how to stop diarrhea in animals. There are various treatment options available. The treatment can be specific or symptomatic.

If the reason for diarrhea is known then you can adopt specific treatment options like antibiotics for bacterial cause or anthelmintic if the parasites are responsible for causing diarrhea.

Symptomatic treatment of diarrhea in animals includes the following protocols:

Fluid Therapy

If the animal is severely dehydrated due to diarrhea then your first step should be to rehydrate the animal using proper fluids. Normally veterinarian uses isotonic fluids like ringer lactate etc. Now the question is how much fluid should be administered to the patient? The answer is very simple. The amount of fluid required depends on the percentage of dehydration. You can calculate by using the formula below

Amount of fluid required in a day (in liters) = Body weight in kg × Percentage dehydration

The fluid can be administered using IV, IM, or SC route depending on the situation of the animal.

ORS (Oral Rehydration Salt)

The ORS can be used in diarrheal animals. The composition of ORS is sodium chloride (3.5gm), sodium bicarbonate (2.5gm), potassium chloride (1.5gm), glucose (20gm) and distilled water (1Liter).

Some Antidiarrheal Drugs for Animals

Kaolin-pectin	1–2 mL/kg, PO, qid
Activated charcoal	2–8 g/kg, PO
Bismuth subsalicylate	1–3 mL/kg/day in divided doses, PO
Aminopentamide	0.1–0.4 mg, IM, SC, or PO, bid
Isopropamide	0.2–1 mg/kg, PO, bid
Propantheline	0.25–0.5 mg/kg, PO, bid-tid
Paregoric	0.06 mg/kg, PO, tid
Diphenoxylate	0.05–0.1 mg/kg, PO, qid
Loperamide	0.08 mg/kg, PO, tid-qid

References

Marks, S. L. (2013). Diarrhea. Canine and Feline Gastroenterology, 99-108. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-4160-3661-6.00011-0

Merck Veterinary Manual Available here