Why do horses get Ulcers?

Acid release in the stomach in the absence of feed is thought to be the primary factor in the disease.  The stress of training, together with high energy feeds, sometimes only twice a day, means for much of the time there is no eating.  With no eating, there is no chewing, so there is less saliva to neutralise the acid.  As the acid splashes across the upper side of the stomach, it eats away the lining to form, sometimes within days, deep bleeding ulcers.  The pain leads to adverse behaviour and performance.

Horses in nature rarely develop ulcers because they graze almost continuously and the small stomach is designed for small regular meals.  Horses are also designed to consume large volumes of roughage and to obtain the bulk of their energy from the breakdown of this roughage into available energy.

Therefore, many feeding practices for the performance horse, with infrequent feeding, with large amounts of grains, which exit the stomach much quicker than roughage, leave the stomach vulnerable to the excess stomach acid, during this extended amount of time the stomach is empty with no roughage to work on.

Conventional treatment of ulcers involves neutralising the stomach acid and blocking its production.  There are several problems with this approach.

First of all, the problem is not an excess production of acid, horses produce a small amount of acid continually because they are designed to eat continuously.  So blocking acid production is a band aid solution when what really needs to be done is to re-evaluate management.

Secondly, we are doing the horse a huge disservice by artificially lowering the PH in his digestive tract.  The lower PH is harmful to the natural bacterial floor and allows for the overgrowth of pathogenic organisms.  This sets the horse up for dysbiosis or leaky gut syndrome.

Digestion is impaired if acid is not present in adequate amounts to breakdown the food.  This allows undigested starches to be dumped into the large intestine which has a bacterial population designed for fibre digestion.

Ten to Fifteen percent of protein digestion depends on pepsin activity in the stomach and pepsin is only active in an acidic environment.  When stomach acid is present it acts as a defence against pathogenic bacteria colonising the stomach and small intestine.  While buffering agents can offer immediate relief for the horse, they ultimately interfere with digestion and set the horse up for long term problems.

Alkay Aloe Vera Gel, The Natural Solution!

Natural products that don’t contain calcium, magnesium or aluminium buffers are the best choice for long term prevention and treatment of ulcers.

Alkay Aloe Vera Gel is a mucilaginous herb.  It is beneficial to the skin, stomach and colon.  Aloe’s major properties are as a cell proliferant, healer, demulcent (soothing agent) and allergy reducer.

It is high in digestible fibre, which gives it the properties of lowering bowel transit time, absorbing toxins in the bowel, regulating colonic bacteria and soothing and protecting the digestive tract.

Aloe also contains a complex mixture of mucopolysaccharides (complex sugars) that nourish the cells and support them in replicating.  This property is especially important for the healing of pre-existing ulcers.  The polysaccharides also have an antibiotic action which can be helpful for horses who have been on buffering agents or other medications that destroy healthy bacterial populations in the gut and allow pathogenic bacteria to multiply.

Another significant benefit of using Alkay Aloe Vera Gel for ulcer treatment is there is no withholding time unlike other ulcer products, it can be used continually right up to performance day, not needing to be withheld at a critical time.

Suggested Dosage:  Acute cases 100 – 200ml daily,

Once symptoms are under control, taper down to 50ml based on your observations of horse’s response.

Suggested Maintenance Dose: 50ml daily