A healthy gut means a healthy, happy horse. Here are 6 helpful hints to assist in achieving optimum gut health in your horse.
Keep your horse hydrated
Horses should always have free access to clean, fresh water. restricted water access or inadequate intake can lead to dehydration; which increases the risk of impaction or colic in the hindgut.
Feed plenty of quality forage
Make sure to feed your horse plenty of high quality forage; it can take the form of grass, hay or hayledge. Forage helps your horse’s stomach continually produce saliva which is the main buffer for acid and assists in achieving a healthy digestive system.
Feed concentrates in small portions
If concentrates are fed in large portions, the food arrives undigested into the hindgut. It then gets rapidly fermented, producing lactic acid and lowering the pH of the hindgut. This negatively impacts the fibre-fermenting microbes in the hindgut and reduces the health of the overall digestive system.
Introduce dietary changes gradually
This is an obvious but necessary point that can get overlooked. Any changes to your horse’s diet need to be introduced gently to avoid upsetting the delicate balance of microorganisms in the hindgut.
Provide exercise options
Activity helps to stimulate gut mobility. The muscle contractions of the gut are aided by movement and exercise so make sure your horse gets plenty of exercise through riding or being in the field.
Protect the gut flora
A horse’s physiological and psychological health depend on the healthy gut microbiome. A pre & probiotic supplement should be fed to a horse who experiences a compromise to their gut microflora to help support a healthy Gastrointestinal (GI) tract and aid digestion.
Equine Gold is a pre & probiotic supplement that contains a live yeast Saccharomyces Cerevisiae formulation. Equine Gold includes a balanced combination of Mannooligosaccharide (MOS) and Beta-glucans to help achieve gut health. For more detailed product information, please click here.
