Share this with your friends on Facebook!
On average, the equine gastrointestinal tract, from esophagus to anus, measures 100 feet. That’s 10 feet more than the span between home plate and first base in professional baseball and, as many a sports fan will attest, that’s ample space and time to make or break a game.
For your horse, that’s also ample opportunity for problems like colic, the leading cause of equine distress and premature death, to arise. Overall, digestive problems rank second only to incidences of lameness.
“A healthy gastrointestinal (G.I.) tract is essential,” says Dr. Jay Altman, Veterinary Management Consultant to Arenus, and the creator of the daily digestive supplement, ASSURE®, designed to promote hindgut health. “It used to be estimated that sixty percent of colics were parasite-induced. But in the last twenty years, modern de-wormers have reduced that percentage, yet epidemiological studies show colic rates have not gone down.”
“Something has replaced parasites as the number one cause of colic,” says Ken Kopp, DVM, and Arenus Technical Service Veterinarian. “I posit that it is the increase in stress/ physical demands and excess grain collectively contributes to colic risk.”
Until domestication, a horse’s natural feeding habits were to eat small amounts of roughages continuously. Today, horses eat large amounts of concentrate only once or twice a day. This can undermine those natural digestive capabilities.
“Horses’ stomachs,” Dr. Kopp continues, “constantly produce acid, but today’s meals don’t sync with acid production. Foraging was – and is – a natural ‘buffer’ to acid production in the gut. For example, when Thoroughbred racehorses are taken off the track and turned out on grass, incidences of ulcers go way down. Horses need a continual buffering of their G.I. tract, not big meals compressed into small time frames and combined with high intensity exercise.”
“We can scope the stomach as our ‘sentinel’ to indicate when the entire digestive tract may be disturbed,” says Dr. Altman, “but that’s a big responsibility for one organ, especially when the stomach is small in relation to the size of the horse and comprises only 10 percent of its digestive system.”
At 70 feet long, a horse’s major organ of digestion is its small intestine, where 50 to 70 percent of carbohydrate digestion and absorption, and almost all amino acid absorption, occurs. Pancreatic enzymes help break down sugars and starches, proteases turn proteins into amino acids, and bile from the liver emulsifies (breaks into smaller units) fats and suspends that fat in water. Bile constantly flows into the small intestine from the liver because the horse does not have a gall bladder in which to store it.
Horses are not like cattle that have a rumen, where bacteria can detoxify materials before reaching the small intestine. Instead, after food has been digested, it is absorbed through the walls of the small intestine and carried by the blood stream to cells needing nutrients. This is also how toxic material, like mold or spoiled feed, consumed by the horse can enter its intestine and blood stream.
Horses also consume more than just grass. Horses with outdoor turnout are at risk of ingesting sand, silt and debris while grazing especially in overgrazed pastures or paddocks. Some reports, according to Arenus researchers, implicate sand as the cause in a growing percentage of colic cases. In addition to life-threatening colic, these unwelcome additions to the diet can trigger diarrhea, anorexia (weight loss), and disruption of G.I. health by irritating intestinal mucosa and inflammation.
The key to success lies in maintaining a healthy microflora balance in the equine G.I. tract for optimal feed utilization, reduced risk of colic, and overall better health.
How can that balance be achieved? By supplementing the equine diet with symbiotics (pre- and probiotics offered together) and enzymes. The adage, ‘The sum is greater than the parts,’ is a good way to look at the combined benefit of live microorganisms (probiotics) and their byproducts (prebiotics), which serve as food for ‘good’ bacteria in the intestinal tract.
ASSURE features exclusive GST® (Gastro Stabilizing Technology) that delivers beneficial microbials to the hindgut while maintaining gut motility and proper hindgut pH; prebiotics that stimulate the growth of beneficial bacteria; and digestive enzymes that help support proper nutrient digestion in the small intestine.
“Enzymes help improve foregut digestion,” explains Dr. Altman. “They do the work ‘upstream’ so as not to overload the bacteria working ‘downstream’ in the hindgut.” While enzymes do their job supporting digestion in the small intestine, blonde Psyllium husks help ensure proper overall gut health and motility. He continues, “Psyllium plays an important role helping the fore- and hindgut, and stomach. It acts as a prebiotic, and soothing digestive fiber for the G.I. tract. Research has also demonstrated that Psyllium can help the lining cells of the intestines.” Historically, Psyllium has also been used as a mucoid gel to evacuate sand that has been digested. However, research has shown that Psyllium alone is not consistently efficacious at clearing sand.
“What you want in a daily feed supplement that supports digestion is improved hindgut health and intestinal motility,” says Dr. Altman. “When the hindgut isn’t happy, we have reduced motility. That’s what clears the G.I. tract and helps our horses avoid suffering from accumulated sand and debris, chronic colic, or colonic ulcers.”
“The secret to symbiotic success,” Dr. Kopp adds, “is through the combination of probiotics, prebiotics, digestive enzymes and Psyllium fed consistently on a daily basis to support all 100 feet of equine digestion. Probiotics have been used for years with questionable benefit. We are diligent about keeping as high a ‘live count’ of probiotics as possible in all the ASSURE equine products. Delivering those prebiotics to the hindgut is key to our ASSURE formulas. Using a granular, dry product is part of that advantage, and Psyllium also plays a part not only in nutrition, but in helping deliver viable microbes to the hindgut.
“The bottom line,” Dr. Kopp says, “is that our horses are too domesticated, too stressed, and fed too much grain to produce enough of their own ‘happy’ intestinal microbes. ASSURE helps provide that environment.”
Dr. Altman concludes, “The biggest problem our horses face is having enough healthy bacteria. Grain meals lead to acid build-up, which alters the intestinal bacteria populations, and can also lead to behavioral and physical problems like colitis; so many horses have low-grade G.I. stress. What we do with them exacerbates that situation. We must reestablish healthier, more normal digestion, which equates to overall better horses. Digestive health is a maintenance issue, and a solid G.I. health regimen is your best path to improved trainability and performance.”
When it comes to daily equine feed supplements that support optimum health and function along a G.I. tract nearly as long as the span between baseball diamonds, ASSURE delivers a home run.
