The best probiotics for horses is fiber. Sounds crazy right? Read on and we’ll explain.
Probiotics have recently become the buzzword in gut health in humans, dogs, and now horses. Numerous products on the market claim to contain the “best” probiotic strain as the answer to a myriad of gut health problems. So why has gut health continued to get worse despite the availability of so many probiotics?
Probiotics, in theory, are beneficial in that they provide a population of “good” bacteria to help aid in digestion and improve the balance of the microbiome. However, there's an important piece of the puzzle nobody is talking about.
To get the full benefits of probiotics, they have to travel through the extremely hostile acidic environment in the horse’s stomach. The acid in the stomach is designed to kill bacteria as that prevents the horse from getting sick from the huge variety of “bad” microorganisms it continuously ingests.
If the good bacteria do survive the hostile stomach, they tend to take up residence in the small intestine, which is not where they are supposed to be. The small intestine is where the horse processes starch and sugar. These “good” bacteria need to make it to the hindgut, where the fermentation of long stemmed fiber occurs.
The wrong kind of bacteria in the small intestine (these can be “good guys” just in the wrong place) can actually cause issues like bloating, gas, diarrhea, and colic. This is the reason that many clients report feeding probiotics to their horse did nothing at all or even made their horse worse.
Even if a particular strain of probiotics is processed and encapsulated in such a way that it makes it alive and functioning to the hindgut, you would need an exceptionally high number of CFU’s (colony forming units) to influence a positive change on digestion and gut health. This is because there are trillions of microbiota already living in your horse’s hindgut. For a probiotic strain to make an influence on this population a minimum of 50 billion (10^9) CFU’s would need to be fed daily. And these 50 billion CFUs only exert they positive effects while they are being fed. Once you stop feeding them, you stop having an effect.
It’s also really hard to know which strains of probiotics (of the limited strains we are able to guarantee live delivery of to the hindgut) will be beneficial to which horses and for which digestive issue. Every horse’s microbiome is different and despite a recent resurgence in research we still don’t know which strains do what in which horses and why.
This is why we say Poseidon Animal Health has taken a different approach. We include ingredients in our products which support the existing good bacteria in your individual horse’s microbiome.
Magnesium Hydroxide is a powerful pH buffer which helps prevent against hindgut acidosis thus making the environment in the hindgut more comfortable for the “good” bacteria and inhospitable for the “bad” bacteria.
Postbiotics also improve the environment for the good bacteria. They are the metabolites produced by the fermentation of the “good guys” and make the environment of the hindgut more conducive to the good guys thriving and multiplying while the bad guys reduce in population and die off.
Five different Amino Acids which support and protect the gut lining and tight junctions through the entirety of the GI tract. A strong, functional gut lining with tight junctions allows the horse to process and expel harmful pathogens and regulate the reabsorption of water which improves manure quality.
Prebiotics which feed the “good” bacteria particular to your individual horse and their diet. Because that’s another point people aren't talking about: microbiota are good at digesting different food stuffs. We don’t know the exact strains for each food yet but we do know that different bugs like to eat different things. The greater the variety of bugs you have, the healthier and more robust your horse’s microbiome will be at resisting infection and dealing with stress.
This is why we have said that the best probiotic you can feed your horse is fiber. The greater the amount and variety of fiber in the diet, the greater the amount and variety of “probiotics” in the microbiome.
Our strategy at Poseidon Animal Health is to educate owners on how to feed the greatest variety of fiber possible, improve management to reduce stress as much as is feasible, and provide evidence based supplements which support the development of a healthy microbiome individual to each horse, their circumstances, and their diet. In this way, we can supply billions if not trillions of probiotics rather than just one or two.
Digestive HP is a total digestive tract equine gut supplement, designed to meet the needs of high performance horses. It contains high-level post-biotics, prebiotics, dual buffers, and enzymes for digestion as well as amino acids for muscle recovery and gut support.
