From experienced horsemen to attendees at educational seminars, many equine enthusiasts don’t actually know how a horse’s gut works and why forage is so important for horse health. Did you know that the equine stomach never stops secreting gastric acid? So even when your horse is not eating, it is filling the lower part of […]
The pros and cons of proton pump inhibitors in horses Proton pump inhibitors (like omeprazole) are a common and effective way to manage gastric ulcers in horses. However, have you ever thought about the potential side effects of long-term use on your horse’s gut bacteria? Omeprazole in humans – is there a correlation? This is […]
There has been discussion about hindgut ulcers in recent years; do they exist, what impact are they likely to have on a horse, how should we treat them, how do we even know if they are there… lots of questions, not a lot of answers. At a workshop on the topic of sub-acute rumen acidosis […]
Here is some research on Teff compared to other species used in hay and a word of caution when feeding this type of forage to horses. There is a bit of research looking at the use of teff hay in diets where low sugar, low starch forages are required. We’ve outlined a number of studies […]
Faecal pH = gut health = horse health Gut health! It’s so important for horses but also really hard to ‘measure’. One way to get a bit of an indication of what your horse’s hindgut health is like is to check faecal pH. Interpreting faecal pH A healthy hindgut will stay at quite a neutral […]
A problem to sink your teeth into Older horses often have worn out teeth, necessitating some changes in feeding. Quite often we are contacted by owners regarding old horses with very poor or no effective grinding teeth (molars) that are losing weight. The first concern is finding feeds that require little chewing and/or can be […]
Why Doesn’t Your Horse Have Enough Vitamin E? We are frequently asked about how to add Vitamin E to a horse’s diet when all other nutrient requirements are being met. Vitamin E is abundant in fresh green forages and many horses will meet their daily requirement of Vitamin E with adequate intake of good quality […]
“You eat like a horse”. There is a very good reason this saying exists: Horses. Eat. A. Lot! And a vast majority of horse owners know this, but every now and again we come across a horse owner who is concerned about weight loss in their horse and it is simply because they don’t realise […]
When a horse eats, much of its feed is made up of LARGE carbohydrate, fat and protein molecules. The horse can only absorb tiny little molecules from its gut (because if big stuff was able to cross from the gut into your horse’s body all sorts of bacteria, toxins and general muck would pass into […]
What is a trypsin inhibitor and how does it affect your horse? Soybean naturally contains an anti-nutritional factor called trypsin inhibitor. Trypsin inhibitor is a compound that actually blocks the action of trypsin (which is an enzyme, or as I call them, a little pair of scissors, in the horses gut that cuts up protein […]
