Horses that suffer from gastric ulcers should be fed a grain-free—and therefore starch-reduced—diet. In addition, the feed should be rich in fiber and fat. The feed should also not have an excessively high sugar or acid content or contain sharp, prickly particles, as this can further irritate the horse’s stomach.
Forage (roughage) is the foundation of good horse nutrition. For a horse to be able to buffer stomach acid on its own, it needs a sufficient amount of high-quality forage. In addition to forage—or rather the basic ration and concentrates your horse needs in the right proportion—nutrition is also about vitamins and minerals, which are responsible for important functions in the body.
Our blog post offers a wealth of information on feeding—specifically for horses with gastric ulcers. If you’re only interested in certain topics, you can use the table of contents to jump straight to the relevant sections.
1. How does the horse’s digestive tract work?
2. Feeding management for horses with gastric ulcers
3. Ration formulation for horses with gastric ulcers
4. General feeding of stomach-sensitive horses
5. Feeding for horses with acute gastric ulcers
6. Proteins for horses with gastric issues
7. Gastric issues and minerals
8. Vitamins for stomach-sensitive horses
9. Stomach-friendly horse feeds – the best options
10. Medicinal herbs and plants for stomach-sensitive horses
11. Feeding FAQ
Horses are steppe animals and have a digestive tract that is designed for the continuous intake of high-fiber feed. Therefore, horses should always have access to forage and regularly receive smaller amounts of concentrates instead of feeding large portions all at once.
Digestion already begins in the mouth, when saliva releases bicarbonate and preparation for chewing takes place. The mouthful of feed is then transported through the esophagus into the stomach, where the breakdown of the food begins.
On to the stomach: compared to the size of a horse, the stomach is quite small; it holds only 15 l. Stomach acid has the important task of killing undesirable bacteria and splitting food components into their individual parts.
In the 20 m long small intestine (capacity 64 l), enzymatic digestion begins. Sugars, proteins, and fats are split and digested with the help of enzymes. The hard-to-digest feed components, such as crude fiber, are utilized in the following large intestine. Although it is only 8 m long, it can hold 120 l. Thanks to tiny bacteria, even lignified plant components can be digested. All’ these processes remain hidden from you as a rider, until you ultimately find the horse apple in your stall.
Optimal health and the well-being of your horse are at the center of feeding management. Here are nine points you as a horse owner should keep in mind to ensure that your horse receives the right amount of high-quality feed and stays healthy.
Unlimited access to high-quality forage (hay) is ideal for horses. Alternatively, they should receive at least 1.5 kg of hay per 100 kg of body weight daily, before the concentrates, to ensure optimal nutrient absorption.
Clean and fresh water: Horses need access to clean and fresh water at all times. Regular cleaning of drinking troughs prevents algae formation and freezing in winter.
Check the lignin content in the feed, as it affects digestibility and increases with the age of the plant, which makes nutrient absorption in the horse’s intestine more difficult.
Avoid poisonous plants in the pasture: Keep the pasture and its edges free of potentially poisonous plants such as oaks and yews, as these can cause gastric ulcers and can even be fatal in small amounts.
To prevent gastric ulcers, keep concentrates low and offer them several times throughout the day to avoid feeding breaks longer than four hours.
To prevent gastric ulcers, intensive training should be avoided immediately after concentrates.
Understand your horse’s nutritional needs and avoid overfeeding through balanced ration formulation based on the horse’s weight, age, and activity level.
Distribute the concentrate rations as small as possible throughout the day to avoid excessive feeding.
Make sure that you know your horse’s requirements and do not oversupply it with feed.
A good diet for your horse is important so that it stays healthy and lively. “Good” means balanced, so the daily rations should be adapted to your horse’s needs.
This concerns not only the composition of the feed, but also your horse’s situation. An old horse that enjoys its twilight years on the pasture must be provided for differently than a young horse that is growing or those that have to work hard physically.
In ration formulation, the energy required for maintenance needs—i.e., the maintenance of vital processes such as breathing and digestion—as well as the performance needs of the horse is calculated. The energy is given in the unit megajoules (MJ ME per kg).
The maintenance requirement of a 500 kg horse (model horse) in good health is 60 MJ per day. In ration formulation, feeds are assigned energy values. One kg of hay has on average (depending on the time of cutting) an energy value of 6 MJ. Thus, a horse can cover its maintenance requirement with 10 kg of hay without having eaten even a single grain of concentrate feed. It is therefore noticeable that most horses are oversupplied.
If you want to calculate the ration for your horse, then find out here which values you need exactly for a ration calculation.
Horses have, relative to their size, a very small stomach with a capacity of about 15 l. Because horses are originally continuous feeders, they produce saliva only when they chew. Gastric acid, on the other hand, is produced around the clock.
The amount of saliva produced depends on how much structure, i.e., crude fiber, the feed contains. If the horse does not consume enough crude fiber and instead meets most of its nutritional needs with low-structure feed, it has to chew less and thus produces less saliva. As a result, the constantly produced gastric acid in the stomach, which has an acidic pH value, cannot be sufficiently buffered by the saliva, which has an alkaline pH value.
The consequences are irritations and lesions of the gastric mucosa, which can develop into gastric ulcers in the worst case if they are not noticed in time and prevented.
So, in order to keep the digestive tract healthy, the horse’s crude fiber requirement must be met. The most important source of crude fiber for our horses is hay. It should have a green color, smell good, and be free of dust and mold. The daily requirement for hay is at least 1.5–2 kg of hay per 100 kg of body weight. The hay should be divided into as many portions per day as possible. Ideally, horses have constant access to hay.
Proteins are used in your horse’s body to build tissues such as muscle fibers. From this fact you can already see that the protein requirement of young horses is greater than that of adult or even older horses. While young horses are still building muscle, older horses are merely occupied with maintenance and thus require less protein.
In addition, it is important to know that your horse does not get the necessary proteins only through concentrates. This can also be achieved through fiber-rich forage. Hay that consists to a good extent of legumes can contain 14–18 % crude protein, while hay made from grass contains 7–12 % crude protein.
Besides minerals, your horse also needs vitamins in order to be and remain healthy and lively. Do you know what consequences a vitamin C deficiency can have in a horse with gastric ulcers? We have researched it here for you!
Vitamin A
The decisive factor is beta carotene, which can be referred to as a precursor of vitamin A. Another term for beta carotene is provitamin A. This precursor is found in abundance in green feed for your horse.
Even hay that still has a slightly green color and contains some leaves still has sufficient beta carotene, which is then converted into vitamin A. Vitamin A is ultimately important for a good metabolism in the bones, but also plays an important role in the eyes.
Therefore the note at the beginning: in the case of a vitamin A deficiency you actually can no longer see well, and that also applies to your horse. An additional supplementation of vitamin A in the feed may be necessary because your horse’s body does not convert beta carotene into vitamin A very efficiently.
Vitamin D
This article has already covered the two minerals calcium and phosphorus, which are contained in large amounts in bones and teeth. They wouldn’t end up there at all if it weren’t for vitamin D, which makes the absorption and processing of these two minerals possible in the first place. Very important: for vitamin D to unfold its effect, it also needs sunlight. A natural source of vitamin D is dried hay.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is found in pretty much every feed that you can give your horse, so it is contained in forage just as it is in concentrates. Vitamin E plays, for example, a role in membrane stability.
Vitamin B
If your horse has a gastric ulcer, this can lead to a vicious cycle, because Vitamin B 12 is important for the regeneration of mucous membranes. Horses whose gastric mucous membranes are irritated or who suffer from gastric ulcers require, in addition to zinc and manganese, sufficient Vitamin B 12 so that the damaged gastric mucosa can regenerate again and thus be protected from further attacks by gastric acid.
If the total requirement for nutrients, which results from the horse’s maintenance and performance requirements, is not covered by the hay ration, the horse should be specifically supplemented with concentrates, mineral feed, and supplements. Since the performance requirement of many horses is hardly higher than their maintenance requirement, it is often (assuming good hay quality) not necessary at all to feed concentrates to the horse.
If the horse receives too much energy due to concentrates, this leads to an energy oversupply. The consequences can be behavioral disorders, overweight, and metabolic problems. There is also frequently an excess of gastric acid, which cannot be sufficiently buffered due to too low saliva production.
In order to specifically supplement the hay ration of stomach-sensitive horses and thus cover the nutrient requirement, there are various feeds that are specially suitable for gastric patients.
1. Brandon XL from St. Hippolyt
Has a low content of easily digestible carbohydrates. Grain is replaced by sprouts. Since it has a high crude fiber and crude fat content as well as little starch and sugar, it is particularly suitable for metabolically sensitive horses and is also suitable as a complete feed for older horses and horses with existing illnesses.
2. Havens Gastro +
Is a complete concentrate feed in pellet form that contains a special acid-buffer cocktail which buffers excess stomach acid and thus soothes the stomach. It has a high content of essential amino acids and vitamins and is low in carbohydrates and high in fiber. The high content of crude fat (oil) with an optimal ratio of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids promotes the healing of gastric ulcers.
3. Mühldorfer Mucovital Prebiotic
Is a grain-free structured muesli that is free of cereal starch, is completely vitaminized and mineralized, and has a very high content of crude fiber and crude fat. Additionally, it contains high-quality prebiotics. The high crude fiber content has a positive effect on the chewing activity as well as the saliva production of the horse.
4. Pavo Care4Life
Is a structure-rich muesli and it contains many vitamins and herbs. It is grain- and molasses-free and contains collagen for the joints as well as pre- and probiotics. Additionally, it contains omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. It is particularly suitable for horses that do not receive concentrates as well as easy keepers and horses with metabolic disorders.
5. Epona Reishochzeit
A grain-free muesli based on alfalfa, linseed, rice, soy, flaked peas, and carob. It is rich in crude fat, crude protein as well as crude fiber. The rice is very well suited for sensitive horses insofar as it is low in starch and gluten-free, but more energy-dense than oats or barley. In addition, it contains high-quality fats and thus does not burden the metabolism. The palatable carob can help to prevent gastrointestinal problems, as it has the ability to decimate bacteria that are dangerous to the gastrointestinal tract.
Especially in gastric patients, it is important to ensure that the crude fiber content in the hay is high enough to guarantee sufficient chewing activity, because only in this way is enough saliva produced to buffer the acid in the stomach. Since the recommendation for gastric patients is hay feeding ad libitum, particular attention should be paid, especially with hardy breeds that quickly develop problems with an excess of energy or protein, to ensuring that the energy and protein content in the hay are not too high. For these horses, late-cut first-cut hay is best suited.
The mineral requirements of a horse depend on its age, its health situation, its performance, and the temperatures or seasons. Older, as well as very young horses, need different support than horses of middle age.
When choosing your mineral feed, you should ask yourself the following questions:
What kind of forage and concentrates do I feed, and which minerals are already included (A basic forage analysis is advisable here in order to know exact values)
What performance is my horse expected to deliver?
Does my horse have a known deficiency that I should compensate for?
Does my horse have an increased requirement because it is growing, pregnant, or already a little older?
On every feed you will find a declaration with the ingredients. In an individual feed consultation, have the appropriate mineral feed recommended to you, or inform yourself directly with manufacturers about what suits your horse.
Besides various feed supplements, there are also various medicinal plants that can support your horse’s gastrointestinal tract in healing and maintaining health.
Similar to us humans, horses can also benefit from an herbal blend of fennel, anise, and caraway for stomach and intestinal complaints. These three herbs are not only particularly easy to digest, but also have positive properties for the digestive tract.