Stress Paste

A Saccharomyces cerevisiae Prebiotic and Postbiotic blend:

• Research has shown that stress during travel can change a horse’s gut bacterial population. Plus any extended time off feed is going to reduce the supply of fiber that is available to support your horse’s good bacteria. The yeast derived prebiotic is added to assist in supporting the good bacteria through times of stress.

Magnesium Hydroxide – this ingredient is a strong buffer and works within Stress Paste to raise the pH of the fluid in your horse’s stomach. Magnesium hydroxide also provides a source of magnesium to support the expected higher requirement of this mineral by the nervous system during times of stress.

Natural Betaine – betaine is a naturally occurring osmolyte. Osmolytes love water, meaning betaine is able to help your horse stay hydrated and better able to handle strenuous exercise (both training and competing) and heat stress. Research in other animal species has also shown that natural betaine is able to reduce the damage to the gut caused during heat stress.

B-Vitamins –  B-vitamins are crucial during stress to maintain appetite and support muscle energy generation during exercise. Vitamin B1 is also needed to support normal function of the nervous system.

Natural Vitamin E – Natural vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant and will help protect your horse’s muscles from the higher levels of free radicals generated during stress and exercise.

Vitamin C – Vitamin C is also a powerful antioxidant and works together with vitamin E to protect your horse from free radical damage. Under normal conditions horses produce their own vitamin C. But research in horses shows that your horse’s natural vitamin C production is reduced during stress. The vitamin C in Stress Paste may support your horse during periods of stress to keep vitamin C at optimal levels.

Pectin – pectin is a sticky substance that is added to coat the upper sections of your horse’s stomach to provide some protection from acid splash during periods of time off feed. Pectin will also feed your horse’s good bacteria.

Amino Acids – threonine, glutamine, proline and serine are four amino acids critical for gut health. These amino acids are used directly by the gut to continuously regenerate and grow new, healthy gut tissue. Plus, they are needed to support the production of the protective mucus in the gut. By adding them to Stress Paste, we give your horse a readily available supply of these amino acids to help the gut stay healthy during periods of stress or time off feed.

The action of Stress Paste is different to that of a traditional calming supplement that aims to have a sedative effect.

Instead, Stress Paste works by supporting the horse’s gut health and muscle physiology. It provides concentrated support for the horse’s body and overall gut health, which is closely linked to the control of the hormone system and particularly stress hormones like cortisol (the hormone responsible for anxious behavior), in a number of ways. 

• Pectin to help line the gut with a protective layer
• Betaine to support hydration
• Magnesium and B Vitamins for nervous system support
• Prebiotics and Postbiotics to help support the gut microbiome
• Vitamin C antioxidant (supports a number of processes)
• And Amino Acids for gut wall repair and muscle recovery.

Quite honestly, we think it’s a bit of a miracle product, and so do the customers who have left reviews about how it helped their horses through stress events like travel, shows, moving home, recovery from illness and more.

The effect of the stomach buffering with magnesium hydroxide and pectin should last around 2 hours. When given as two doses in 24 hours, the remaining ingredients will work for that time period.

For best results with the hindgut pre/postbiotic, horses should be on Digestive HP longer term.

Many people find that this helps their horse, especially if the horse is staying away from home for an event, or if the stress event will occur early in the morning. If you know your horse is going to have a long, high stress day, you can give 'preload' with a dose ofStressPastethe night before.

Not really; the dosage rate is meant for maximum effect. But if you wanted to try this you can do this, for example giving half before leaving home and half on arriving at the show an hour later. Try and find out what works best for your horse.

Whilst you may see similar benefits with these products, their intended usage is what makes Digestive HP and Stress Paste fundamentally different.

Digestive HP is the every day gut-health supplement that supports your high performance horse through their day-to-day stressors, to keep them performing at their best.

Available in both 10lb and 40lb sizing, the powdered form makes it ideal to include twice daily in standard feeding routines.

Stress Paste plays best in instances of acute stress, designed to deliver immediate gut and nervous system support in the face of high impact events including competition, travel and extreme weather.

Conveniently formulated in a concentrated paste, Stress Paste is easy to give within 2 hours of a known or predicted stressful event, rather than fed as daily maintenance where Digestive HP is the product of choice!

Stress Paste can be used as part of your pre- and post- scoping management to help minimise the impact that the fasting, stress and sedation may have on your horse’s gut health. We recommend using Stress Paste 3-4 hours prior to the scoping procedure and again immediately post scoping. 

Some of the beneficial ingredients in Stress Paste include: 

• Magnesium Hydroxide - a strong buffer to raise the pH of the stomach fluid that can become very acidic due to fasting
• Pectin - a sticky substance that coats the upper section of the stomach to provide some protection from acid splash in an empty stomach 
• Yeast-derived prebiotic and postbiotic - a food source for gut microbes to allow them to maintain numbers during the period that the supply of fibre is reduced due to fasting. As a result, they may become be more resilient to possible stress induced changes in the horse’s microbiome.  

A number of veterinarians now recommend the use of Stress Paste as part of their pre-scoping protocol - however, please consult with your veterinarian prior to giving Stress Paste to ensure they are okay for you to do so. 

Yes. It is safe to administer any time. It will not interfere with sedation in any way.

Yes! And in-fact Stress Paste will do a great job of helping foals and weanlings under stress (for example during travel or weaning).

For foals, reduce to ¼ the recommended serve for the foal’s dam.

For weanlings use a half serve.

2 tubes of Stress Paste per day should cover the majority of horses. However, in extreme circumstances like prolonged travel (e.g. interstate travel lasting more than 8 hours) or prolonged exercise (e.g. during endurance competitions) a third tube may be required. It isn’t recommended to feed 3 tubes of Stress Paste for any longer than two consecutive days.