PrintCheck back every Wednesday through Aug. 18 for more articles in the Mobile Horses: Care On The Road series, sponsored by UlcerGard.You can find all the articles on our Mobile Horses page.
The negative effects of stress are a recurring theme when discussing how to care for horses that spend a great deal of time traveling from show to show, and one of the most common indications of stress is ulcers. Even though the physiological responses to stress are a natural reaction, we create a great deal of unnatural stress in our horses’ lives by making them adapt to our lifestyle.
One of the easiest ways to prevent stress-induced health problems, such as ulcers, is to keep horses in the most natural environment possible. But it’s not always feasible to keep performance horses turned out in a large grass field 24 hours a day, so horse owners need to take additional steps to maintain the health of the stabled horse that spends a lot of time on the road.
A Quick Lesson In Equine Digestion
Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome has become highly prevalent in horses—an estimated 93 percent of racehorses and 63 percent of non-racing performance horses develop ulcers during their careers. Unlike human ulcers, which are associated with the Helicobacter pylori bacterium, EGUS has no correlation with the bacterium, and it has never been found in horses. If ulcers in horses aren’t caused by bacteria, then how do they get there?
Horses are herbivores, therefore the anatomy and operation of their digestive system is very different from a human’s. They have a very small stomach (about four gallons at max capacity) which functions best with small, frequent meals, just as a horse would eat in the wild.
“It has been demonstrated that feeding frequency has an important impact on gastric ulceration,” said Richard Wheeler, DVM, of Palm Beach Equine Medical Centers. “A protocol of repeated 24-hour periods of fasting and feeding has been shown to induce erosion and ulceration of the stomach lining. These findings are attributed to exposure of the stomach lining to acid, which is secreted continuously in the horse and specifically secreted following meal feeding. I recommend a ‘little and often’ program for feeding horses with regard to both grain and roughage. Increasing the frequency of feeding has also been shown to assist with digestion and absorption.”
