Transcript:

[1:10]

Elisa: Welcome everybody to another episode of Mad Barn Live. My name is Elisa Blow, joined as always by our founder and CEO of Mad Barn, Mr. Scott Cieslar. Good evening, sir.

[1:16]

Scott: Yes, good evening. It’s week number two — we’re back. I guess the plane is still flying.

[1:22]

Elisa: It is. And actually, tonight’s discussion is jam-packed. We have a lot of things we’re going to talk about, but the meat and potatoes of this evening is gut health. This is one of the big things that we do here at Mad Barn — help horses with gut health. It’s actually the reason why I found Mad Barn, because I had a horse with ulcers. I’d done everything I could to try to treat them, and it was suggested to try a product called Visceral. I tried it — two weeks later, I had the horse of my dreams. I’m not saying that’s going to happen necessarily with everybody, but I’m just saying it was a real game-changer, in particular for an off-track Thoroughbred. I’m sure there’s lots of you out there watching today that have off-track Thoroughbreds.

[2:04]

Elisa: So what we’d like you to do is stick some of your comments in right now. Tell us what you have — do you have a horse off the racetrack? Do you have a Quarter Horse that’s doing barrels, that’s maybe giving you some issues as far as ulcers are concerned? Tell us what you have. Tell us where you’re watching us from today too, because we like to know where you are.

[2:22]

Scott: Yeah — and you know, feel free to ask questions as the evening goes on. The other thing — just a little bit of housekeeping before—

[2:29]

Elisa: Yeah — we are going to ask you today too, that you can find Mad Barn Live on your favorite podcasting app, and please feel free to rate it and like it.

[2:36]

Scott: Well, let’s back up on the rating part just yet — I’m not sure how I feel about that. Just find it and like it — that’s—

[2:43]

Elisa: Don’t worry, just say it.

[2:50]

Scott: Yeah, exactly — exactly.

[2:52]

Elisa: Okay, we’re going to get into it because it’s a big night tonight. This is a huge topic and, again, some of the major questions that come through Mad Barn here. So Scott — first of all, we want to have a brief overview of a horse’s digestive system. And I know it can’t be brief necessarily, but if you can — a brief overview.

[3:08]

Scott: Well, I can do brief. Okay — brief’s not an issue. You have the stomach, you have the small intestine, you have the cecum, the large colon, and then we’re out at the back end. Next question.

[3:13]

Elisa: Really? So how do things go wrong? Like how could this possibly go wrong?

[3:18]

Scott: Well, there’s a lot of reasons why things go wrong. But in all seriousness, we have this stomach — it’s a small compartment for a horse. I think most people have heard, “Okay, the horse needs to be constantly grazing, needs to be constantly eating.” But why is that? Because about 30 minutes after the horse eats something and it hits the stomach, it’s going to start passing into the small intestine. And this is what really differentiates the horse from, say, ruminants, for instance.

[3:36]

Scott: They’re more like a combination of a ruminant — for those of you, I guess, who need me to explain what a ruminant is — it’s a four-stomached animal. The cow, for instance, is a popular one. Deer, goats, sheep — all kinds of ruminants. They’re great recyclers out there, we’ll call them.

[4:00]

Scott: Anyways — back to the point. The horse basically took that fermentation vat that’s on the front end of a ruminant and put it on the back end. So it’s able to use fibrous feeds like forage and low-quality browse — feedstuffs — and still get energy out of it.

[4:17]

Scott: Jumping all over the place here already — it’s early, we’ll get it back on track. The great thing about the ruminant is that they can really extract a lot from plant material that humans or monogastrics really can’t get anything out of. Cellulose is a big one — they digest that and produce VFAs in the rumen, and use that for energy. Well, the horse has kind of taken that and flipped it backwards. It’s taken advantage of the monogastric system, where it can absorb high-quality proteins and starches and sugars in the small intestine, and then still utilize the hindgut as a source of energy.

[4:52]

Scott: Now, we have to really consider — when we’re looking at the horse — how it evolved this entire system. And it didn’t evolve eating grain or high-starch, high-sugar feeds. It’s really not used to those things. It’s used to eating really, really low-quality browse — and by browse, I mean it could be pasture, it could be any kind of vegetative material that the horse might eat. Then that would reach the hindgut, ferment by the bacteria in there, and that’s how the horse drives most of its energy.

[5:16]

Scott: So the bacteria ferment it, produce VFAs — volatile fatty acids, or short-chain fatty acids. We can go through the whole list — I’m not sure why scientists pick the colors for all these different things, but they do for some reason. So, short-chain fatty acids — volatile fatty acids — propionate, butyrate, acetate would be the three major ones. That provides energy for the horse, and that is actually where the majority of the energy should come from for a horse.

[5:47]

Scott: I’ve moved from digestive physiology into already what these energy sources are, but it really creates the crux of how we feed this horse. What we’re going to feed — from a psychological perspective and a chemical composition perspective — is really related to digestive physiology.

[6:06]

Scott: And so, I guess to summarize — so much for being brief. Sorry — brief apparently is not my repertoire. We have a big fermentation vat in the back end. I don’t want to be too flippant about it, but we’ll call it — if you’re making beer, that’s the fermentation — that’s where the horse should be extracting the vast majority of its nutrients. Minerals and vitamins will all be absorbed in the small intestine.

[6:29]

Scott: One thing I just want to highlight now — kind of as a preview to some of the questions that are going to come up — is that the stomach’s always thought of as just a holding vat that doesn’t do much, maybe acidifies the feed and then passes it along. But there is actually an entire bacterial population within the stomach, even though the pH is as low as two — which isn’t normally favorable for bacteria. But as we know — you go to the depths of the ocean, and there are thermophile bacteria that can live at extremely high temperatures and adverse conditions.

[7:00]

Scott: There are lots of bacteria that can live in the horse’s stomach. So when we talk about the horse’s digestive system and the microbiome — which we will be talking a lot about — it’s all the way through: stomach, small intestine, large intestine, cecum, colon — everything.

[7:12]

Elisa: Okay — so when I’m at home, I’m watching TV, the commercials come on, and there’s all sorts of commercials for probiotics for people, right? And all of a sudden, all of us are using probiotics. Going back to yogurt — a lot of people eating yogurt because it’s great for probiotics. If you go to the grocery store, there are aisles now full of probiotics. And you know, I agree — some are better than others, and some work wonders. But we actually support the use of probiotics for horses as well. So why should my horse have probiotics? What’s so important about that?

[7:44]

[7:51]

Scott: Well, I mean — yeah, the probiotics — that’s a good point. We consume a lot of probiotics. I mean, we’ve used bacteria for multiple purposes through history. But why would you feed your horse a probiotic? A lot of times, it’s when we’re doing something that causes stress — like taking over a natural vitamin, feed changes, worming, any antibiotic treatment, even changing groups. Right? A horse can undergo a little stressor just from changing groups. That can be a good time to add in some additional probiotics to really help balance the microflora, because there will be disturbances during those times. Adding some bacteria that we know will have a positive influence on the microbiome can really help transition a horse through those periods of stress.

[8:32]

Elisa: And really — would you recommend a probiotic daily, or just a probiotic when you think stress is going to be coming up with the horse?

[8:40]

Scott: Well, that’s a great question. It kind of brings in a few things. There’s some trains of thought — some people believe that when you feed a probiotic it’s going to colonize the gut. That is not what happens at all. Once the microbiome is established, it’s very firmly established — which is… we’re not going to get into it now, but maybe in a future podcast we’ll dive into how microbiomes get established and what that really means.

[9:03]

Scott: What happens is you have this established microbiome. It may shift because of some of the stressors, and then we want to put bacterial cultures in there that’ll help the native populations revive and come back into balance. But those bacterial populations that we add to the feed won’t colonize the gut. As soon as you stop feeding it, basically those bacteria are eliminated.

[9:29]

Elisa: Okay — so is it something then — and we get this question quite a bit — do they need it for, say, 30 days before you notice the effect of probiotics? Because sometimes with people, it takes a couple of days for it to kick in. Or is it something that you notice the change in the horse right away, especially if they have, say, loose manure?

[9:47]

Scott: Again, this is a great question, and there’s more that we don’t know than what we actually do know. So when you talk about dosages and how long it takes, it really, really depends on what the issue is. You see some horses that respond almost instantly — you get these almost “miracle” things, and you’ll see those testimonials. Companies use them a lot: “Oh look, we have the most amazing thing ever.” Well, they cherry-picked those testimonials and forgot the ones where it didn’t actually work — because that happens too, where it absolutely doesn’t show any benefit. There could be multiple reasons for that — maybe whatever the issue is has nothing to do with the bacterial population.

[10:24]

Elisa: Right — but maybe it’s a good first start if you’re concerned.

[10:30]

Scott: Absolutely.

[10:35]

Elisa: She’s almost like a funny one — asks lots of questions. Whatever — have a little drink of your tea.

[10:42]

Elisa: Remember we said we were going to have wine last time? Guess who forgot the wine?

[10:47]

Scott: We do need to get the wine — make it more interesting.

[10:52]

Elisa: And look — we have lots of people watching us already from all across North America. And again, please tell us — and all sorts of people are watching from Louisiana. Hey, Louisiana — that’s a place we need to go.

[10:58]

Scott: We do — not right now, because there’s a hurricane rolling in. Maybe it’s a little easter there, I’m not sure. Well — our best wishes to everybody.

[11:04]

Elisa: Yeah, yeah. I see somebody here from Virginia too. And you know, we have a lot of friends that use our Mad Barn products in North and South Carolina, and we’re really thinking about them — and our friends in Florida as well.

[11:18]

Scott: And hey — how about our friends out east in Canada too?

[11:23]

Elisa: Yeah — actually my daughter’s out there, sending me pictures of uprooted trees. And yeah, no — that’s a little scary. We’ve got lots of people and friends in Quebec, people with Saddlebreds, people with Thoroughbreds — all sorts of people joining us tonight. And thank you so much, because Scott’s a wealth of knowledge, and if you can get something like this — all this information — for free, take it while you can.

[11:43]

Elisa: All right, so I kind of want to — I’m going to simplify some things a little bit here just based on some of the discussion and all these questions that are pouring in tonight. One thing that people say when horses maybe have an unhappy gut — and we’ve been talking about probiotics, yes — but something they say that does soothe the stomach is to feed a horse something like timothy-alfalfa cubes. What do you think about that? Or alfalfa pellets, or something along those lines?

[12:07]

Scott: Yeah, I mean, well — a lot of times you’ll see it recommended particularly with horses with ulcers, right? It’s a great buffer. It’s very nutrient-dense in terms of a forage. It provides lots of nutrients, protein, high mineral content. Again, you do have to be careful — this is why we use nutritionists, this is why we provide the nutritional advice — that it’s not just a blanket recommendation that, yes, alfalfa, right? To be used for every single horse. But it does buffer, and it is a great nutrient source. It has to be in balance with the total diet and how much we use and implement. So yes, it can definitely benefit gut health, absolutely — but like everything, it needs to be in balance with the total diet.

[12:54]

Scott: You never want to make a recommendation to just say, “Yeah, go feed some alfalfa, because this will be a perfect feed for gut health issues.” It really depends on what the issue is and where it’s stemming from, because it can cause some negative issues. I think we talked a little bit about alfalfa — or I have in a podcast — where it can have a very negative effect on metabolic horses with insulin resistance, and it does seem to be a trigger for them. So in a lot of cases, yeah, it’s definitely beneficial for gut health, but in some cases it can have other deleterious effects. You do need to take all this into consideration. That’s why we look at the entire diet — it’s never about one supplement, one probiotic, or one feed. It’s the entirety of the diet that becomes of paramount importance in determining what is going to provide the optimal health and gut health for your horse.

[13:44]

Elisa: And what Scott’s talking about is something that’s really available to all of you that are watching. On our website, we have a button in the top right-hand corner that says “Analyze Diet.” You fill out what your horse is eating — be as specific as possible. If you have hay analysis, attach it. I talked to a lady today who had recent blood work — attach that. Send us all that stuff. Send a conformation shot — not a picture of his head in the stall — a nice conformation shot so we can see what he looks like to help you out as well. That’s what Scott’s talking about when he says, give us that information and we can help you balance out the diet.

[14:21]

Elisa: All right, so getting back to the subject here — here’s a loaded question: What’s the most common gut issue that you see in horses and that you hear about?

[14:31]

Scott: Well, I mean, the most common gut issue you hear about is colic, right? The word “colic.” But what does colic actually mean? It’s such a generic term to basically describe anything related to the gut — any issue in there is “colic.” So it becomes more important to describe exactly what the issue was. In terms of colic, was it just bloating? Was it a gas colic? Was it an impaction? Was it just discomfort — like, you know, was the horse showing discomfort? And to really get to the reason why. We’re going to talk about some of the reasons why, particularly focusing on colic and some easy solutions to avoid it.

[15:09]

Scott: That would be the number one. And then gastric ulceration — when you look at the data, and there’s mounds of it now — it just shows that the way we keep horses today, they’re predisposed to gastric ulceration. That then leads down the line to a lot of other issues. And then the hindgut dysfunction — dysbiosis, if you will — where we do see things like free fecal water syndrome. There just seems to be an inordinate number of horses with this issue, and honestly, nobody actually has a really good answer for why it happens. There are a lot of different things that work for people, and this again comes back to: it’s a varied issue, and there’s no one blanket fix that’s going to work for everybody.

[16:00]

Scott: Not to beat on this too much, but having a very fundamental understanding of what your horse is eating and consuming — is the diet balanced? — is the first step in anything. Honestly, with gut health issues, if you look at some of the research on mineral and vitamin deficiencies, it’s not just the horse — it’s the bacteria. They require nutrients as well. If you starve them for long enough, you start to see dysbiosis from not having a correct nutrient balance for the bacteria. It may be minor, it may be subtle, but if it goes on long enough, it eventually becomes a serious issue.

[16:29]

Elisa: Well, and that’s the calls we get sometimes from people who have recently rescued horses — and so, you know, those horses have been starved and their guts are in trouble, right?

[16:40]

Elisa: So, you know, we get a lot of phone calls from people who are trying to help out. Scott, the questions are coming in like crazy — I’m gonna jump to just some of these before we move on to the next topic, because they’re probiotic-related. We’ll stay with probiotics for a few questions and then move forward, okay?

[16:58]

Scott: Yeah, and I think the only reason we’re doing this is for the people that are watching — it’s important that we actually answer your questions. Well, Sonya’s watching, and she’s been holding on for a while, and I want to answer her question.

[17:05]

Elisa: Sonya is asking: “Is a probiotic needed daily for it to be beneficial?” We just talked about that, Sonya, and daily — some people do give it daily, correct?

[17:16]

Scott: Yeah, you have to. It has to be fed daily, because it’s not like you’re putting this bacterial population in there and it’s going to colonize the gut. I’m going to veer off here completely — they’ve done studies in cattle and water buffalo, both very distinct ruminant environments. I won’t go into too much detail, but essentially they evacuated the rumen contents, sterilized as best they could, and then swapped contents. The hope was that they could take the buffalo’s bacterial population and make it inhabit the cow. The reason for that is buffalo are better at digesting really fibrous material than cows are, so the idea was to make the cow more efficient.

[17:47]

Scott: It took less than a week for the microbiome to revert right back to what the original microbiome was in that cow. So when you think about that — and people probably don’t have a concept of how big the rumen is — you’re looking at 50 to 100 liters of material in there. Whether you’re swapping it around, that’s a huge amount of volume, and in less than a week it swapped back. So thinking we can put a tiny amount of bacteria in there and it’s going to colonize is wrong.

[18:12]

Scott: What it is going to do, though, is live in different phases of the gut depending on the bacteria. Some bacteria do well in the stomach because they like the low pH; some do well in the small intestine because they like a neutral pH; some thrive in the hindgut. That’s why we use blends of probiotics — we blend bacteria, we don’t just use one strain — because we want to target all these different sections. So yes, it does need to be fed daily. Long answer, but the short version: yes, you do need to feed it daily.

[18:51]

Elisa: All right, so that’s for you, Sonya. Next: are probiotics necessary after antibiotics?

[18:57]

Scott: Yes — well, “necessary” is a hard word. Is the horse going to live without them? Yes. Is it a nice thing to give after antibiotics, deworming, or things like that? Yes. It’s going to help. That’s really what we’re looking to do — optimize and speed up recovery from any deleterious effects that happen from deworming, antibiotics, or NSAIDs that may have been given to the horse, and get it back to optimal as quickly as possible.

[19:27]

Elisa: Scott, is this why — and this is totally wacky Elisa talk here — when I’m at the doctor and he gives me a prescription for antibiotics, he says, “And I want you to eat lots of yogurt with this”? Is this why?

[19:38]

Scott: Same idea, right? It’s this battle between good and evil, if you want to make it a black-and-white, very binary conversation — the pathogenic bacteria and the beneficial ones you want in there. They’re always both present. It’s about making sure that your symbiotic ones are winning. When you give antibiotics, that’s broad-spectrum napalm — you’re killing everything, good and bad. So what you’re trying to do with the yogurt or probiotic is repopulate the beneficial ones as quickly as possible so you’re not allowing the pathogenic ones to take hold.

[20:15]

Elisa: Gotcha — okay, thank you. Now I know why I have to take yogurt. Sounds delicious.

[20:22]

Scott: And it is quite lovely.

[20:24]

Elisa: Look at all these people — my goodness, they’re from all over the place. We even have Amish horse owners watching. We might live to week three! This is really cool, because Scott and I both come from the Standardbred racing world originally. There are people here with Amish buggy horses, which is amazing — that’s really the original second career for many Standardbred racehorses. They move on to a life in the Amish community, and because they were racehorses, it’s the same thing: their life was a little more stressful than the average horse in a backyard. Likely, they have ulcers or some other issues.

[21:09]

Elisa: Okay, I had one other here that I wanted to do — oh, the other one on the screen, you’re missing there.

[21:16]

Scott: Oh, sorry — “Do you need prebiotics or probiotics?” Yes, and there’s a difference between the two. A prebiotic is basically a feedstuff for your bacteria — preferably your beneficial bacteria, but sometimes it’s feedstuff for all bacteria. A probiotic is the actual living organism. Now, even among probiotics, there’s some confusion — we have bacteria and we have yeast, which are two very different classes, but they often get lumped together. I’ve always classified bacteria as probiotics and yeast as its own category, but it does get included in that term.

[21:52]

Scott: Prebiotics get misused too, because some people call indigestible things — even to the bacteria — “prebiotics.” For me, prebiotics are things that beneficially feed the bacterial population. Your horse should be getting prebiotics naturally from forage — it’s the greatest prebiotic there is. So do you need to go and buy an extra prebiotic? Not necessarily. There are specific things, like mannan-oligosaccharide — MOS for short — which comes from yeast cell walls and has very specific properties. It interacts with the immune system at the gut level. Most people may not realize that about 60–65% of the immune system is run from the gut level up, so that interaction is very important.

[22:59]

Scott: Specific prebiotic compounds like MOS can stimulate or modulate the immune system, and there’s a big difference between those two things. MOS can be highly beneficial, particularly if you have significant hindgut issues where a pathogen has taken hold and a probiotic alone isn’t resolving it. Other prebiotics, like inulin from chicory, are rapidly fermentable. I’m not sure the value is quite there for horses if they’re fed properly, but with an improperly fed high-grain diet, there’s probably more benefit. The way we approach things is: fix the feeding program first, before looking at probiotics or supplements. Get the base diet right, and then, if there are other extenuating circumstances — like competition horses under constant stress — yes, they may need that additional support on top of the diet.

[24:11]

Elisa: I just want to touch on Chelsea’s question — I know we’ve got Nadine’s up, but it’s that time of year when people have their mares in foal. The foaling season is going to be in the next few months for a lot of people, especially with racehorses — you’re looking to foal January through March. Is it safe for a broodmare that’s in foal to have a probiotic, or is it recommended?

[24:36]

Scott: Yeah, absolutely — and not necessarily just the probiotic, but also these MOS products I was talking about that work with the immune system. One of the big issues with mares in foal is foal diarrhea — it’s a very real health concern. Anything we can do to increase the immunity at the colostrum level is important, because that foal needs to get those immunoglobulins within the first 24 hours. These specific carbohydrates have been shown to modulate the immune system in the broodmare, and if you start a month or two before foaling, it’s been shown to increase IgG concentration in the colostrum. That automatically means more will transfer to the foal. It’s a straight linear relationship — the more quantity the foal consumes, the more it’s going to absorb, and the better its immune system will be.

[25:21]

Scott: The nice thing is we keep foals on mares, so you get this transition for a couple of weeks where there’s still colostrum and immunoglobulins that protect the gut lining. So, yes — it’s safe. But to go off-track for a moment, there’s great work from the University of Guelph vet school where they isolated specific bacteria in foals. Again, foal diarrhea is a big issue. This gets into the discussion about which strains of bacteria are most important. One train of thought is to take the native population that already inhabits the gut and feed it back to them. Another is to use a population that includes some native and some non-native bacteria with specific beneficial properties — such as inhibiting pathogenic bacteria or modulating the immune system.

[26:25]

Scott: Some work by Dr. Wiese at Guelph isolated a specific bacteria naturally inhabiting foals. They grew it up, ran a trial, and fed it back to foals — and it actually performed worse than the control group. That was interesting, because from there the conclusion was to be careful feeding probiotics to very young animals. There’s limited research on foals, and while we haven’t seen negative incidents ourselves, in these cases the probiotic extended the foal diarrhea and didn’t have a beneficial impact. To me, that supports the idea that we need to feed bacteria with demonstrated beneficial properties — not just native bacteria — because if the native bacteria were doing so great, why did they get knocked out in the first place?

[27:28]

Scott: So, short answer — yes, it’s safe.

[27:30]

Elisa: Okay, here’s somebody who feeds Optimum Digestive Health — for those of you who don’t know, it’s a pre- and probiotic that we make here at Mad Barn. She feeds it regularly and asked a question last time, so I remember her — Nadine, thanks for joining us again. We have regulars now — we’ll have to send her a sweater! She wants to know: if she feeds Optimum Digestive Health on a regular basis, would she still need to feed an extra probiotic in stressful situations, after deworming, or if a horse is on antibiotics?

[28:03]

Scott: Good question — we get that a lot. The short answer is no, you shouldn’t need to feed extra, especially with Optimum Digestive Health, which already contains a very high level of yeast and probiotics. The base level you’re feeding is already quite fortified, along with the prebiotics and toxin binders. I wouldn’t say it’s completely necessary. That said, I do have a philosophy that there’s merit in “bouncing” things a little — increasing or decreasing the dose through time just to move the needle once in a while. I have no actual science behind this — purely a hypothesis — but I think small adjustments can sometimes shift the system.

[29:03]

Elisa: So, by “moving things around,” do you mean more like giving a scoop of ODH every day, then sometimes pulling back?

[29:15]

Scott: Smaller changes — like a quarter scoop for a short period. For example, if I knew I was going to deworm my horse, and I was feeding ODH all the time because I’d seen improvements in health and well-being, I might drop the dose down to a quarter scoop for a week and a half, then crank it up to one and a half times the normal dose right before deworming. Net overall through the feeding period, the total amount fed is the same — but you cause a little shift. Then, when you give the “insult” of deworming, you’ve already got this bigger probiotic dose going in, hopefully with a positive impact.

[30:15]

Elisa: Okay, that makes sense to me. This whole discussion tonight is pretty much going to be on probiotics, because once we get into ulcers, we’re into a whole other bag of tricks. We can touch on ulcers tonight — I know there are people who will want to talk about them — but we have so many questions about probiotics. Here’s one from Camille. She says, “I noticed when I removed probiotics, the manure was slightly more solid and there was less mild bloating and abdominal discomfort. I was surprised, I guess.”

[30:50]

Scott: Yeah — I mean, basically I can make an argument for almost any kind of outcome you could come up with when it comes to probiotics. Maybe it was too much. Maybe the diet you’re feeding was already extremely fermentable, so you already had strong bacterial proliferation, and adding more just tipped it further. Or, depending on what the strains were, they just weren’t agreeing with the horse for whatever reason.

[31:20]

Scott: I’ll be very open about this — the research in horses on specific strains we use still has a lot of unknowns. There is good research, particularly in the strains we work with, but horses are genetically diverse. It’s not like dairy cows, pigs, or chickens, which are very homogeneous and bred in a consistent way. In those species, solutions often work 95% of the time. With horses, because of the genetic variability, something might work for 80% but not for others. That leaves some trial and error in the process.

[32:00]

Elisa: Which isn’t awesome — but it’s neat that she asked this, because most people skip over a question like that.

[32:12]

Scott: Yeah, and I don’t even think of it as “bad.” If you feed something and the outcome isn’t what you expected, it’s still a result — we’re still learning. The key is to recognize it and assess it. What’s important to understand is that with horses, it’s always an “n” of one — one individual case. And here’s something off-topic: the number one thing we hear is, “Nothing changed and then this happened.” That “this happened” could be anything — colic, coat change, horse getting hot. Every time I hear “nothing changed,” I cringe, because everything changes all the time. We just don’t always recognize it or observe it.

[33:09]

Scott: There are definitely cases where people test it repeatedly: they feed something for a while, get an outcome, remove it, see another outcome, and it becomes clear the supplement was the factor. In Camille’s case, it could be the wrong strains, or the horse was already on a high level of fermentable forage, which increases fructans and soluble fibers that ferment quickly in the hindgut. Adding probiotics could have made that even more fermentable, causing discomfort. Over time, the horse might have adapted — but understandably, if there’s a negative side effect, you don’t want to keep feeding it.

[34:28]

Elisa: And most people are wise enough to stop. Okay — back to Nadine, she’s saying she’s going to give it a try and let us know. She ran out, the horse had diarrhea, so she says she won’t do that again. Gotcha. All right — Sandra wants to know…

[34:47]

Elisa: She came in late — probably out in the barn feeding horses and getting water, doing important things.

[34:58]

Scott: Exactly.

[35:02]

Elisa: But you know what, Sandra — before we get to your question, this whole thing is taped, so you can go back and watch it. And our number-one fans can watch it ten times and hit the “like” button over and over again. Okay — Sandra came in late, talking about probiotics. She asks: “Are probiotics recommended for the average horse on Omneity” — which is another Mad Barn product — “or should they be added in stressful situations? How is that different from Visceral+? Should you add your probiotic to that?”

[35:39]

Scott: It depends. Omneity does have some probiotics — yeast and enzymes — already added into it. For the vast majority of horses, that’s sufficient in terms of probiotic addition. The great thing about Omneity is that you’re balancing your minerals and vitamins, so you’re feeding both the microbiome and the horse sufficiently for optimal health. Now, if you’re in stressful situations — trailering horses, competition, those kinds of things — then yes, something like Visceral+ would definitely be recommended on top as a prophylactic, to help avoid gastric ulcers. Or, if you’ve already been competing or doing something where your horse is showing discomfort, you could use it to help alleviate that.

[36:19]

Elisa: I remember being with you once in Florida when there was a horse they couldn’t figure out — they thought it was a lameness issue — and you said, “Keep them on Visceral,” because that pain can come out in all different forms.

[36:37]

Scott: That’s a great point. We’ve seen the inverse too — someone will say, “My horse has ulcers and is showing these symptoms,” and we think the horse is sore. It may have ulcers, and you may treat them — whether with our product or pharmaceuticals — but the horse still shows symptoms because the root cause is lameness. We see this especially with off-feed situations — people assume it’s gut-related, but often it’s pain-related. Horses that are sore will reduce feed intake. And by the time we see visible lameness, it’s usually significant — they don’t want to show it, because in the wild that’s basically a death sentence.

[37:36]

Elisa: And it can go the other way too — sometimes it is gut issues, and once you correct those, the horse is great again.

[37:43]

Scott: Exactly. Stress can have a big impact. So, Cheryl’s question — “My horse seems better after a month on Visceral+. Should I keep feeding it, or wait until symptoms return?” — that’s a great question. It depends. As a horse owner myself, I know you have to be budget-conscious. If whatever caused the issue in the first place still exists, then yes, you should stay on it. Especially for competition horses, it’s best to stay on it rather than wait for symptoms to return. Prevention is much easier than cure. If you wait until you see symptoms, it’s going to be harder to fix.

[38:45]

Elisa: I always tell people, with Visceral+ in particular, start about a month before you think the stress will begin — especially if you know your training schedule. If the horse is laid up now and you’re a month from going back to work, get ahead of it.

[38:58]

Scott: Right. Some people ask, “Do I have to stay on this forever?” It’s definitely okay to leave them on it. Elisa has one who’s been on it forever — an OTTB who was a “fire-breathing dragon” before, and it completely changed his mentality, rideability, and temperament. In that case, you don’t want to risk going back.

[39:38]

Scott: That said, experimentation can be useful. If you try taking them off and symptoms return immediately, that’s telling. If you can go longer before symptoms show, you can catch it early and get back on it. There’s no one answer for every horse — just general guidelines. Stress levels, activity, and even breed differences play a role. Some breeds are more stoic than others — warmbloods and Quarter Horses may not show symptoms like a Thoroughbred will.

[41:16]

Scott: Even within breeds you’ll see differences. It’s like people — I get a cough and I’m out for a week, while Elisa says she’s fine.

[41:29]

Elisa: At least you’ve admitted it.

[41:36]

Elisa: Judy wants to know: “What probiotics are good to help with mud fever?” The fact that hers has hung on for over six months is frustrating.

[41:54]

Scott: Yeah, most likely once a horse gets it, they’re prone to getting it again. Honestly, feeding probiotics to help with mud fever is unlikely to help — it’s more of a superficial, external condition. You’d probably have better results rubbing probiotics on the actual area. Probiotics aren’t a cure for gastric ulcers either, but they can help by protecting open sores from pathogenic bacteria. In mud fever’s case, you’re dealing with bacteria that don’t like oxygen, so you need more direct treatment — zinc, keeping the area dry, and proper mineral/vitamin nutrition. Any chronic infection or fungal issue, you start by asking: are selenium, vitamin E, zinc, and copper adequate? That won’t necessarily fix it, but it supports immune health. Ultimately, with mud fever, it becomes a hygiene issue — keeping the area dry, which is hard this time of year.

[43:08]

Elisa: And if you haven’t done a diet evaluation, Judy, do it. We might be able to help you that way too. That’s always the first step. If you don’t know how your horse’s diet is balanced, start there — it’ll save you money in the long run. Make sure the basics are covered before adding supplements, probiotics, or anything else.

[43:34]

Elisa: Back to Sandra — she’s got a second question here. She has an off?track Standardbred, a little nervous. She put the horse on magnesium and is wondering if Visceral+ would be a better option.

[43:49]

Scott: Again, it really depends what the issue is. Magnesium often gets used as a calmer, and people do notice benefits. I have a very distinct theory on this — and it’s well?founded in good science. When you look at a horse’s diet, it’s extremely high in potassium if it’s on a high?forage diet. That isn’t necessarily negative — it’s just a fact — and they tend to be quite low in magnesium. When you come back to how we determine requirements for horses, NRC requirements are set to avoid deficiency, not to achieve optimal status. They’ll say, “No clinical symptoms of magnesium deficiency,” but when you look at the diet and how magnesium and potassium compete for absorption — and their interactions — when you boost magnesium levels well above the stated “requirement,” you see beneficial responses in multiple species, not just horses.

[44:39]

Scott: So a lot of times when people say, “Wow, I noticed a benefit when I gave magnesium to calm my horse,” I say: your horse was deficient in magnesium — you just brought it up to where it needed to be. Would Visceral+ be a better option? If the issue is gut?related, absolutely — Visceral+ is going to be a better option. You’ll also get magnesium with Visceral+, so you kind of cover two bases. If magnesium alone is working and getting you where you want to be, that’s a less expensive option — and it’s unlikely the problem was gut?related. Also, if you’re feeding Omneity, you should be able to balance magnesium there as well.

[45:18]

Scott: The whole basis of how we make feeding programs — Omneity, AminoTrace, whatever — is that we boost magnesium quite a bit over traditional feed programs. That’s how strongly I believe we’re underfeeding magnesium to many horses, which is why you see it as such a big ingredient in the “calming” market. But you don’t need to spend crazy dollars on a calming supplement — get magnesium into the horse and get the diet balanced with the right mineral and vitamin balancer for a very inexpensive amount of money. You’ll likely eliminate a lot of other things you’re putting in.

[45:48]

Elisa: And any time you see “off?track” in front of anything — if you’ve ever had a Standardbred — it’s pretty safe to say ulcers live there.

[45:59]

Scott: I mean, just the way we house horses… Earlier I said most horses don’t have gut issues, but when you look at the data — even in basically sedentary horses you’d think are living “paddock paradise” — you’re running at ~50% gastric ulceration rates. Then you get into racehorses or high?performance horses and you might as well assume it’s 100%. And there are a lot of people whose horses look amazing and perform at a high level — but they still have gastric ulceration. They’re just coping with it.

[46:35]

Elisa: I’ll tell you something funny about my guy on Visceral+. His coat changes every season — covered in dapples on Visceral+. He goes dark chocolate brown in the fall and a beautiful bay in the summer. That’s really all he receives, that and Omneity. He looks fantastic on the product and feels like a different animal.

[47:10]

Elisa: What I always say to people actually sitting on a horse is that you’ll feel the difference with rideability — they become much more rideable and willing to do the job. We tried this with some Standardbreds one year when I was down in Pennsylvania or Ohio, and it changed the drivability with some of those horses. It’s not that it speeds them up or slows them down — drivers said it changed the whole drivability of the horse. And I want to get to this question — I’m pretty sure that’s Dr. Langlois from Quebec — it’s a great comment and I want to make sure we address it.

[47:56]

Scott: Take your own experience — a gut disturbance is uncomfortable, you’re grouchy, it’s miserable. Compare that to when everything feels great. Now think of your horse if it’s chronically like that every day. That’s why — and it’s not just our product — if you treat with pharmaceuticals as well, the horses tell you. They go better.

[48:28]

Elisa: You’ve got to “squeeze” that horse, and when their guts are angry, you can’t. They get really angry at the squeezing. Then you can squeeze and ask, and things just happen more naturally — more kindly.

[48:34]

Scott: This is a great point to suggest wean off slowly. This is actually how Visceral+ got started in the first place — treating with GastroGard and then stopping. The recurrence rate is almost 100%. Why the rebound? Two reasons. One: whatever caused the issue in the first place often hasn’t been removed, so when you stop the pharmaceutical, the same issue is still there and it just comes back. Two: acid rebound. You get a similar effect with buffers — you raise stomach pH, which is what the pharmaceuticals are doing, so the low pH isn’t causing ulceration in the non?glandular region.

[49:31]

Scott: Think about any biological process. Most people can relate to when your arm falls asleep — the pins and needles. You’ve cut off the blood supply; when it returns, it hurts because the microvasculature opens wide after being starved, then normalizes. With pharmaceuticals, you lift stomach pH — you’ve inhibited acid secretion, allowed the stomach to heal (and yes, they have patents on this — it works). But if you remove the pharmaceutical and don’t taper, the stomach says, “We need to make acid again,” overshoots, and erodes the lining quickly.

[50:35]

Scott: That’s why recurrence is high — super frustrating, because pharmaceutical treatments that are patented for ulcers are not inexpensive. The original purpose of our product was: can we stop that rebound? It was highly effective at doing that. Over time, we found that in a lot of cases we can use it on its own; sometimes we need other interventions for really significant cases, like ulceration in the glandular region.

[51:16]

Scott: There’s good evidence that glandular ulcers are caused not necessarily by acid secretion, but by bile reflux coming from the small intestine that eats away at the glandular region. You wouldn’t expect the same approach that protects the non?glandular region to impact that region. We’re working with people to look at ways to deal with bile reflux. If anyone’s experiencing this, reach out — we’re currently working on a solution for that scenario.

[52:16]

Elisa: When people call and they’re on something like GastroGard and say, “I did 28 days and then I stopped” — the slow withdrawal is really important. That’s when you slowly start to add your Visceral+ so they meet in the middle.

[52:28]

Scott: There should definitely be crossover — add it before you start backing off pharmaceutical treatment.

[52:35]

Elisa: Claire Wrigley says, “I’ve reduced the daily dose of Visceral+ to half the recommended amount. I was hoping to be a little more efficient with the cost.” We understand that, but am I still offering my mare enough to help and maintain? I think what Claire is doing is maintaining now.

[52:47]

Scott: Yeah, great question. At the end of the day, when we formulate these products, we go through all the research — this is the amount of glutamine we need, this is the amount of lecithin, plus all the other ingredients — and we optimize it to come up with our recommended feeding rate. But it’s not one-size-fits-all. We do recommend people experiment. Maybe you can cut the dose in half; sometimes we even bump up from a half dose in more stressful situations for certain horses.

[53:28]

Scott: Our 80-gram daily recommendation is an average starting place. At a half dose, you’re still getting significant amounts of probiotics, yeast, and glutamine with physiological benefits — just less than the full dose. Maybe that’s enough for your horse. And yes, we understand doing it for cost reasons.

[53:52]

Elisa: Good job, Claire. All right, another one here from Melanie — she has a Hanoverian with free fecal water syndrome. She put him on Optimum Probiotics daily and it cleared up. That’s great, Melanie. Will he be okay to stay on this long-term, or should he be on a different Mad Barn supplement? He’s also on AminoTrace for his feet.

[54:13]

Scott: Thanks for the question. Just to clarify — AminoTrace is a complete mineral and vitamin supplement that does help with hoof health, but it’s not just a “hoof supplement” — it fully balances the diet. Your horse should be on it all the time. As for Optimum Probiotics clearing up the free fecal water syndrome — if it’s cleared up, I’d still experiment. I know it’s scary, especially when you’ve finally found something that works, but you may be able to take it out and maintain results without it. If symptoms return, put him back on. Usually you’ll see changes right away.

[55:09]

Elisa: A few more before we wrap up. This was originally going to be a 10-parter, but probiotics got so many questions tonight that it took the whole show. We’ll be back in a couple weeks — maybe then we’ll do ulcers, because that’s another hour at least. We also want to talk about colic prevention and more on free fecal water syndrome.

[55:49]

Elisa: Megan is asking, “Thoughts on postbiotics versus probiotics?” I think she means prebiotics, but I’m not 100% sure.

[56:02]

Scott: I don’t actually know what a “postbiotic” is — maybe she means prebiotic.

[56:26]

Elisa: Okay, here’s one we missed earlier from Christina: Oldenburg with tons of spook concerns, causing ulcers from his own anxious personality. Any horse with spook concerns — do you think about ulcers there?

[56:57]

Scott: Yeah, always. We hear from people saying, “Wow, my horse is calmer after addressing gut health.” It’s not a cure-all — some horses are naturally high-energy — but make sure the diet’s balanced first. Even mild deficiencies, like thiamine, can affect brain function. The gut-brain axis means dysbiosis can affect psychology and behavior. Take a methodical approach: get the diet balanced, then reassess.

[58:19]

Elisa: Sometimes the season change can make them goofy too — in Canada, fall and spring are the big ones. Not so much if you’re in a place like North Carolina.

[58:37]

Elisa: Lori Brock is a brand-new horse owner — welcome! What do you suggest for a new owner?

[59:05]

Scott: First, you’ve found the right place — we can help you. Do a diet evaluation, or send us an email with as much info as possible: breed, age, what you plan to do with the horse, where it’s kept. That affects the program. And my number-one piece of advice — stay off Google, unless it’s Google Scholar. Find someone you trust for advice. Horses are durable animals; don’t stress too much. Focus on the fundamentals — forage first — and stay out of the supplement aisle until the basics are right.

[1:00:50]

Elisa: We’re getting nice compliments about our customer service — thank you. We’re all horse owners, so we get it, and we want to help. It’s really our mission: to help horse owners, drive research, and deliver useful information. We have a tremendously talented team of nutritionists, with well over 10,000 diets formulated — so there’s a good chance we’ve seen your issue before.

[1:02:03]

Scott: We’ve covered the basics tonight, but there’s lots more to talk about. The horse’s digestive system is complex — people spend their whole careers studying it. If we didn’t answer your question, email us at info@madbarn.com. This whole podcast was recorded — it’ll be on YouTube, Facebook, and on your favorite podcast app. Make sure to rate it — two thumbs up.

[1:03:08]

Elisa: The next webinar will be the Thursday after next — we’ll do these every other Thursday at 7 p.m. If Scott’s away, we’ll have special guests. If you have questions, send them to info@madbarn.com. In Canada, visit madbarn.ca; in the U.S., madbarn.com. Thanks for a great night, my friend.

[1:04:11]

Scott: Thank you, Elisa — always a pleasure. Every time we do this, my mind is blown. On behalf of all horse owners, thanks for the work you’ve done, and thanks to the Mad Barn team. We’ll see you all in a couple of weeks.