Gastric ulcers are more prevalent in those horses who have a reduced fibre intake; these are often race or performance horses who are fed greater quantities of cereal-based hard feed and may either not have sufficient appetite to consume adequate forage or who may be fed less forage in a misguided attempt to “reduce the bulk in their guts”.
There is evidence that exercise itself can also increase the likelihood of horses suffering from ulcers. Jumping and galloping, in particular, put pressure on the stomach which can force the acidic contents up into to the vulnerable upper, squamous part of the stomach causing damage. So, whilst race and performance horses are most likely to be EGUS sufferers, leisure and other horses are also vulnerable, with foals also often suffering.
Research has indicated that 37% of leisure horses, 63% of competition horses, 93% of racehorses and 50% of foals can be suffering from gastric ulcers. As well as diet and exercise being highly influential, ulcers can also develop in response to illness, physical or psychological stress or medication.
Read more about ulcers in the following articles:
Gastric Ulcers
Gastric Ulcers and How Beet Pulp Can Help
The symptoms can vary and include poor appetite, loss of weight or struggling to gain weight, poor coat condition, recurrent bouts of colic, behavioural developments (general grumpiness, laying ears back and/or biting when the girth is tightened etc), as well as poor performance (general lack of desire to go forward, unwillingness to jump etc).
Horses can exhibit one or several of these symptoms and each is an individual, with some reacting dramatically to just slight ulceration and some showing few symptoms despite having extensive gastric damage. The only way to be sure whether a horse is suffering from gastric ulcers is for him to undergo a gastroscopic examination. This involves starving the horse for 12 hours, to ensure the stomach is empty, before passing a long fibre-optic endoscope down into the stomach, under sedation, via the horse’s nose.
Read more in our Nutrition Library and the following articles, in particular:
Gastric Ulcers
Gastric Ulcers and How Beet Pulp Can Help
Whilst making appropriate management and dietary changes may improve the situation and make your horse feel more comfortable, the only way to be really sure that any symptoms are the result of gastric ulcers, is for the horse to be examined with a gastroscope. If ulcers are found to be present, the best and most long lasting results are achieved by treating them, so that the stomach lining can heal, whilst making supportive changes to diet and management to help avoid their recurrence.
The following articles give advice on dietary and management changes:
Gastric Ulcers
Gastric Ulcers and How Beet Pulp Can Help
The main dietary aims are to ensure the horse has constant access to fibre and forage, of a variety that he will eat, and to keep starch intake to a minimum. If a horse is not keen on his hay or haylage, alternatives should be offered alongside it to encourage fibre consumption and these could include alfalfa chaffs and sugar beet pulp.
Reducing starch intake to a minimum will involve feeding a fully balanced feed, like Ease & Excel or Keep Calm, or a balancer, like Lo-Cal or Performance Balancer, combined with non-starch calorie sources, like digestible fibre and/or oil.
Read more about what to feed in these articles:
Gastric Ulcers
Gastric Ulcers and How Beet Pulp Can Help
Products you may be interested in include:
Ease & Excel
Ease & Excel Cubes
Alfalfa Blend
Alfalfa Plus Oil
Outshine high oil supplement
Speedi-Beet
Fibre-Beet
All-Round Endurance Mix
Slow Release Condition & Competition Mix
Performance Balancer
Lo-Cal balancer
BETA have developed a new Feed Approval Mark for feeds suitable for horses prone to Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome (EGUS). This means that its starch and sugar content are low enough so that,, when fed according to recommendations, the horse will receive less than 1g/1kg bodyweight of starch and sugar per meal and less than 2g/1kg bodyweight of starch and sugar per day. Ease & Excel was one of the first feeds to meet this new Approval Mark, while Performance Balancer was the first balancer to be recognised and Lo-Cal Balancer has now also joined the ranks of approved feeds.