# Possible ulcers- Feeding fibre !!!



## Tishiemumble (16 April 2017)

My brain is well and truly boggled when it comes to feeding!

I have a 5 year old warmblood cross mare who is very stressy and is on a long period of box rest after fracturing her pedal bone.
She has been showing a few Ulcery behaviours and I would like to make sure she is being provided with the optimum diet to support her throught this difficult time- I am very aware that my circumstances are less than ideal Ulcer wise with regards to her temprement and the box rest etc however this is can not be changed currently. 

I would still like to provide her with a high fibre, low starch diet and I have been looking at adding a fibre 'Mash' of sorts to her feed. 

After doing lots of research I settled on Pink mash being the highest In fibre (I think??) out of the lot however when I went to my feed store , although being on the keyflow stocklist the didn't have any  

The lady went on to offer me some alternatives and me being me panicked - because if you guys are anything like me you need to research for at least a week and read every horse forum and review (5 times over) before even considering a new feed! 

She recommended these;
-Agrobs Mash 
-Thunderbrooks Ulsax
-Slobber mash 
-Rowen Barbray Fibre mash 
-Rowen Barbray solution mash 

During my research I also came across the Equilibrium 'No starch Fibregest' which really interested me aswell as the pink mash but there are very few reviews out there !
Basically, I would love to know if anyone has fed any of these and what the results/experiences were- wether they helped or otherwise 

Thank youuuuuu

I would just like to add that I do plan to get her scoped as I am aware this is the only way to be sure she has ulcers and treat with gastro gaurd if necessary.


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## Pearlsasinger (16 April 2017)

Really on box rest, unless you want to give her meds in a tiny feed, the best thing you can give her is hay. It takes !ongdr to eat than a y kind of mash. If necessary soak the hay, so that you can give her more. If you are worried about her putting on too much weight, a plain oat straw chaff will give her something to nibble on. An ulcer prone horse needs as much forage as possible.


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## be positive (16 April 2017)

No advice on the list of feeds other than to say they get most of their fibre requirements from hay/ haylage, no feed will "cure" or make much difference to preventing them while she is in the unavoidable situation she is in so I would just ensure she always has plenty of hay and just gets a token feed to keep her happy unless you want to get weight on her, along with a decent supplement to give her what she needs in the way of vits and mins which she will not get from any of those feeds without giving her more than is probably good for her. 

Chewing time is best with unsoaked feeds not mash which I feel may actually contribute to ulcers rather than help prevent them, some decent chop will extend chewing time and should be enough for a stressy horse on rest, one of mine showed obvious signs of ulcers while recovering from an op so he had a course of GG without scoping, worth considering if you are really concerned, mine settled fairly quickly once on the GG and has shown no signs since.


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## Goldenstar (17 April 2017)

If a horse on box rest is showing ulcer symptoms it's needs to be on medication .
I like to keep things simple the horses have addlib forage of different types and Arne if I needed to feed a mash type fed I would feed bran with a few oats in .
I really dislike pre mixed feeds I like to know I am giving my horses .


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## JillA (17 April 2017)

Pearlsasinger said:



			Really on box rest, unless you want to give her meds in a tiny feed, the best thing you can give her is hay. It takes !ongdr to eat than a y kind of mash. If necessary soak the hay, so that you can give her more. If you are worried about her putting on too much weight, a plain oat straw chaff will give her something to nibble on. An ulcer prone horse needs as much forage as possible.
		
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^^^^ This. I agree with Goldenstar about pre mixed feeds, to my mind they equate to convenience food for humans. Although not about high starch food such as cereals. There are a couple of on line courses on equine nutrition, CAFRE does one and Coursera also did one, not sure if they are still available but worth looking up.
And bear in mind that box rest is a risk factor for impaction colic so lots of soaked feeds to ensure she remains hydrated (remedy according to my vet when my horse succumbed to it). Unmollassed beet pulp such as Equibeet or Speedibeet is ideal, it absorbs plenty of water, but other than that, she will get all the fibre she needs from a plentiful supply of forage. If you are really convinced she is developing ulcers, slippery elm is great for lining the gut walls, as also is an oil such as coconut oil, with bicarb to reduce any acidity. But the impaction colic is the more immediate risk IMHO.


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## Goldenstar (17 April 2017)

Bran is very good for preventing impaction I often add speeibeet to it .
If and only if the horse is drinking well adding some Epsom salts is good for impaction prevention it draws moisture into the bowel and keeps everything moving .
My impaction prone horse can't have hay or any chopped fibre products like chopped dried grass he has to have haylage and grazing and bran with this we have got he number of incidents right down .


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## Tishiemumble (17 April 2017)

Thank you very much for all your opinions ! 
The general consensus seems to be keep it simple which is exactly what I am doing right now. 
She already has Adlib hay and only gets a small handful of grass chaff for breakfast and dinner with pink powder. 
I will consider popping her on the gastrogaurd without scoping to see if it helps with her symptoms. Do you know what the protocol with gastro guard and worming is ? 
We will be having a worm count at the yard in the coming weeks and I haven't been able to find any information on the two together.


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## Kat (17 April 2017)

I agree that brand is good for impaction colic. However I was advised not to use speedibeet for an ulcery horse. I use copra as an alternative.

I also agree that hay is the most important thing. My stressy mare ate crazy amounts of hay when on box rest, generally on box rest you should be cutting down the hard feed to a minimum just enough to feed any medication and supplements. 

Have you thought about a valerian based Calmer? Works a treat for a stressy one on my yard, and I would certainly try it for mine if she needed box rest. 

Might be worth adding an ulcer supplement such as EGUSIN or protextin too.


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## Goldenstar (17 April 2017)

My vet is happy for ulcery horses to have speedibeet it's a good calcium source .however we don't feed it large amounts .
Speedibeet is low sugar and high in fibre good for stomachs it's the lower part of the bowel that beet can be an issue for but unless your feeding a lot unless a horses bowel is very compromised you should be ok .
Alfalfa is the best buffer but it's very stalky and some ulcer horses are not happy 
with stalky food so you have to watch and see what they tell you .

Eugsin SLH is a good supplement but expensive as is succeed another good bowel health product .
I would give this lots of different types of fibre .grass chaff , alfalfa 
If the stable is big enough I would try grass nuts in one of those snack balls if the horse is allowed to do this .


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## JillA (17 April 2017)

I don't think you can "pop her on gastroguard" without your vets approval, it is a prescription drug. You could buy esomeprazole in the form of Nexium though, however you need to wonder why the actual high enough dose of omeprazole in GG is prescription only? Esomeprazole is just another form of the same salts, according to a pharmacist I was asking about that on Friday


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## Goldenstar (17 April 2017)

JillA said:



			I don't think you can "pop her on gastroguard" without your vets approval, it is a prescription drug. You could buy esomeprazole in the form of Nexium though, however you need to wonder why the actual high enough dose of omeprazole in GG is prescription only? Esomeprazole is just another form of the same salts, according to a pharmacist I was asking about that on Friday
		
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But the vets will give OP the GG in this situation without diagnosis .
Although I would use pepizole it's a bit cheaper .
The thing with getting your hand son the active ingredient omeprazole in a different form ( not interested in debating how you go about that ) is that ithe delivery is different  .
At least you know the delivery system works for horses but the cost is eyewatering .


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## Tishiemumble (17 April 2017)

What I mean is I would consult my vet about this . 
She knows my horse very well and I don't think I would have any trouble getting a prescription from her especially given our situation .


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## Goldenstar (17 April 2017)

I roultinly put  horses on box rest on ulcer medication .
The vet might advise that you give a short course at full dose and then give a half or quarter dose long term .
I would then consider giving a fortnight at full dose as a belt and braces job when the horse gets turned out .


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## hopscotch bandit (18 April 2017)

Tishiemumble said:



			Thank you very much for all your opinions ! 
The general consensus seems to be keep it simple which is exactly what I am doing right now. 
She already has Adlib hay and only gets a small handful of grass chaff for breakfast and dinner with pink powder. 
I will consider popping her on the gastrogaurd without scoping to see if it helps with her symptoms. Do you know what the protocol with gastro guard and worming is ? 
We will be having a worm count at the yard in the coming weeks and I haven't been able to find any information on the two together.
		
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I love the way people suggest 'popping her on Gastroguard without scoping'.I was quoted £300 a week for Gastroguard by my vet if my mare proved to be positive to scoping and this would be most likely to be for 4-6 weeks.the cheaper stuff is £160 a week.We have decided to manage her another way as she is not insured (being 22) and apart from a little girthiness is not showing any other symptoms.This girthiness could be attributed to a number of things.the vet said there's little point in scoping without treating and he agreed that it could be 101 other things making her like this.She's under the physio and has regular treatments and has had her teeth/back checked.Just to 'pop' a horse on Gastroguard is a rather money wasting way of doing thigns and I am surprised any vet worth their licence would agree to prescribe without checking the horse has this first.


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## nikkimariet (19 April 2017)

Not all ulcers respond to gastro guard.

Omeprazole is just the active ingredient, which is readily available online and always worth a trial to see if they respond. However, I would suggest scoping unless your vet is against this for any reason (with mine we decided he was likely to stop eating altogether as utterly hysterical about things like that).


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## be positive (20 April 2017)

Scoping is fine if you can do it without undue stress adding to the issues at the time, mine was on long term box rest recovering from a leg injury/ op, had been seriously injured while in the vets which affected his ability to eat and drink, one morning he started cribbing, a sure sign of something going on so he was "popped" on GG within a couple of hours.

I would not have wanted to wait until he could be scoped, he was not able to drink at the time due to the mouth injury so got all of his fluids via sloppy feeds ad lib, to have taken them away to starve for scoping would have been a welfare issue in my view so he was given GG for a month, he stopped cribbing immediately, he generally looked more comfortable so certainly not a waste of money as I suspect colic may have been the next symptom and rolling about while recovering from injury may have been too much for him to recover from, every case is different and some vets do routinely prescribe GG following surgery/ long term use of drugs that may affect the stomach in the same way doctors to to human patients on certain drugs.


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## hopscotch bandit (21 April 2017)

be positive said:



			Scoping is fine if you can do it without undue stress adding to the issues at the time, mine was on long term box rest recovering from a leg injury/ op, had been seriously injured while in the vets which affected his ability to eat and drink, one morning he started cribbing, a sure sign of something going on so he was "popped" on GG within a couple of hours.

I would not have wanted to wait until he could be scoped, he was not able to drink at the time due to the mouth injury so got all of his fluids via sloppy feeds ad lib, to have taken them away to starve for scoping would have been a welfare issue in my view so he was given GG for a month, he stopped cribbing immediately, he generally looked more comfortable so certainly not a waste of money as I suspect colic may have been the next symptom and rolling about while recovering from injury may have been too much for him to recover from, every case is different and some vets do routinely prescribe GG following surgery/ long term use of drugs that may affect the stomach in the same way doctors to to human patients on certain drugs.
		
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 Most people can't afford between £160-£300 per week unless they are insured on the 'off chance' a horse 'may' have ulcers.  Obvioulsy there are exceptions to the rule BP and I am not saying it was a waste of money in your horses case!but there are very few cases I should imagine where people would be willing to pay this much out of their own pocket without scoping first.


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## Goldenstar (21 April 2017)

hopscotch bandit said:



			Most people can't afford between £160-£300 per week unless they are insured on the 'off chance' a horse 'may' have ulcers.  Obvioulsy there are exceptions to the rule BP and I am not saying it was a waste of money in your horses case!but there are very few cases I should imagine where people would be willing to pay this much out of their own pocket without scoping first.
		
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It's roultine here for me to put horses under stress on pepizole or GG for instance before C went in for his KS OP I put him on ulcer medication from a week before .
My horses get want they need to be in the best health I can keep them in , if I could not afford to I would have fewer so I could look after them well.
I don't think there's anything odd in putting horses on box rest on ulcer medication 

Insurance costs a fortune and after a year is up you're on your own anyway


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## Sunny12345 (21 April 2017)

Hi Guys, 
My 8 year old has the same problems! I now have her on Alpha A, Baileys Ease and Excel, Veg oil and ekyguard. She seems to be a lot better now, but I do ensure she has some UlcerGold before travelling out. This was advised by my vet as this was the medication she was on when she was diagnosed. 

My horse has been on the medication for 9 months and has had 3 scopes. I told my vet that was enough when I found out that I can only manage the situation and prevent them getting worse. She is a lot happier now, but of course she will be back at the vets if needed. 

But definitely try out my combination as it seems to be working a dream for mine! She also has grass all day, a large hay net in the morning and two large haynets of a night. If shes in due to the weather in the day she has a large hay net for lunch and a small feed. 

REMEMBER: I was advised to give her a small handful of alpha a or hay before riding to settle the acid on her stomach. 

Hope this helps!
Lisa 
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