The importance of gut health

Gut health in horses is often not really talked about beyond ulcers or no ulcers and maybe a worm count. There is so much more to gut health than this and I suspect a huge percentage of the horses I see to have issues.

Anyone who deals with their own gut issues will know how much it can affect your mood and quality of life, but, as with most things with horses, horses are often expected to just get on with it and perform.

One of the biggest red flags for me that a horse is definitely dealing with gut issues is unhealthy droppings. Wet, sloppy, luminous green, fecal water or smelling putrid. These are signs of an upset gut yet they are normalised as just something that happens when you keep your horse out on grass. If your horse's droppings change or are constantly like this then we need to make some changes to support their gut health.

Of course a horse can have droppings that look healthy and still be dealing with gut issues. Due to the way many horses are managed on yards it is no wonder so many horses struggle with this. Sudden changes in grazing/forage/diet, yard moves, chemicals sprayed on fields, chemicals sprayed on feeds, inappropriate ingredients in feeds, inappropriate forage, extremely restrictive weight loss diets, high stress environments, lack of movement, pain/discomfort in the body, mares with unhealthy microbiomes having foals, the list could go on.

I do use certain gut supplements with my own horses generally of a herbal variety and have found them to anecdotally improve symptoms/behaviour. I am a big fan of feeding appropriate herbs throughout the year to increase diversity in the diet and hopefully improve the microbiome. But you are trying to stop the boat from sinking with a bucket if you aren’t addressing your horse’s management alongside this. The most important part of your horse’s diet is his forage. You can feed all the gut supplements in the world and they are not going to outrun inappropriate management, inappropriate forage and chronic high-stress.

Again anecdotally, through taking steps to improve gut health I have seen not only behavioural changes but reduced symptoms of sweet itch, mud fever, seasonal allergies, general itchiness, recurrent unexplained colics, poor hoof quality, grass sensitivity and I’m sure more I can’t think of off the top of my head.

Dealing with my own gut issues has had me deep diving into research about human gut health and the microbiome and realising how little we still know even in humans, so the idea we know all there is to know about horses is ludicrous. I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface.

I don’t have a huge amount of skin in the game here but I am intrigued by what I have seen of Dr Christina Fritz’s work and much of it fits with what I know about the microbiome.

I think there are many, many horses dealing with gut health issues that could be improved with some simple changes. Reducing our horse’s chronic stress-load, supplying appropriate forage 24/7, making sure they have friends, the freedom to move and make choices and an environment to live in that they feel safe in is a great place to start. 🐴