Blood, Fibrin, and/or Mucus in Feces (Dysentery)
Bradford P. Smith
Bloody diarrhea is termed dysentery. The presence of fresh blood or clots in the feces is termed hematochezia and is the result of bleeding into the distal intestinal tract.
Occasionally blood from the female reproductive tract may appear in or on the feces. Fibrin indicates severe inflammatory bowel disease. Fibrin appears as casts, chunks of yellow-gray material, or mucosa-like sheets. Mucus in feces increases with inflammatory bowel diseases such as salmonellosis. It is often seen when fecal volume is small in animals that are anorectic, in which case the feces are often coated with mucus. This mucous coating can become obvious in the horse and is not a sign of bowel disease in this case.Frank blood in feces without diarrhea and other evidence of gastrointestinal dysfunction or systemic illness may be a result of a bleeding disorder, a traumatic foreign body, rectal examination trauma, sadistic rectal trauma, or rectal trauma in a mare from a stallion penetrating the rectum (Boxes 7.11 and 7.12). Many of the diseases listed as causes of melena may also result in gastrointestinal hemorrhage and are therefore listed in both places. If the bleeding is in the distal gastrointestinal tract, fresh blood may be seen in the feces. With diseases midway down the tract, such as intussusception, fecal material is dark red and may appear black until a sample is examined closely and spread on a white surface.
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