Mallenders

Content

Intro

1. Cut to 2021
2. Vitamin B6 - Introducing P5P - Pyridoxal-5-Phospate
3. It’s one big knock-on effect - is it KPU?
4. Supporting naturally ...

Look up Mallenders/Sallenders online and you'll read that it's a tenacious, and very uncomfortable skin issue, presenting as an accumulation of thickened, crusted scale and scabs on the front and hind legs of horses.

A common ailment in Gypsy, Shire, Friesian - pretty much any hairy, heavy, draft-type horse ... mallenders/sallenders is thought to be caused by excessive keratin production, aka hyperkeratosis. Then again, depending on what you read and here, apparently it's not. Either way the jury seems to be out on this one. However, going by what our clients say, I can definitely concur on the tenacious and very uncomfortable.

Managing it is said to be extraordinary challenging. Mineral balancers out there all seem to contain Biotin, which is said to promote the production of keratin (for the record, we don't include biotin in either of our EquiVita/VitaComplete mineral balancers - more on this below). Soothing ointments of various descriptions need to be applied to soften the scabs, which then seem to return with a vengeance and spread onwards and outwards, leading to secondary fungal and bacterial infections that may lead to lameness.

Clipping the hair back to get to the scabs is an even worse nightmare - the horse is in constant self-preservation react mode, because mallenders/sallenders hurts. Worse still, harsh liver-damaging chemical treatments via the Deosect jab or Frontline are applied to kill off the alleged resident mites in the feathers, yet these don't seem to work either.

So what to do? The general school of thought is to avoid biotin and keep applying the ointments. But surely, there has to be something at the root of it all? Surely if we knew what caused it, we'd know what to do to prevent this truly awful syndrome. Well, there's new research and updates on Mallenders, which is now giving owners great hope as they're now seeing positive results for their horses.

Cut to 2021 ...

... and there's new science out there. It's showing that mallenders/sallenders is thought to be connected to the now better understood multi-metabolic chronic detoxification disorder called Cryptopyrroluria, aka KPU. (See our separate KPU page for the full story).

KPU is specifically a dysfunction in the liver's detoxification process, but as always, it begins in the gut, specifically the hindgut, triggered by dysbiosis in the hindgut microbiome. And when there’s hindgut dysbiosis, the result is an overload of toxins for the liver to have to metabolise (correct name biotransform).

Thing is, the kidneys are also very much involved because the liver shunts all the transformed toxins onwards to the kidneys for excretion via the urine, but if there’s a toxicity overload the kidneys become overwhelmed as well, so they struggle to manage the toxin load, which means an overcrowded queue of toxicity waiting to be eliminated. So, those clever kidneys use the emergency excretion pathway – the skin. Great idea in theory, but in practice it means an excess of toxic residue on the skin surface, very often bringing with it year-round incessant and agonising itching as well.

Of course, as science would have it, it’s a whole lot more complex than this! But at the very root of the problem lies a tiny, yet absolutely critical, micronutrient - vitamin B6. But - it's not a simple case of buying a B6 supplement to fix the problem. Why? There's good, activated B6 (Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate, aka P5P), and then there's questionable, synthetic B6 (Pyridoxine, the inactive (fake) type you see in just about every B6 supplement and those feeds which contain a synthetic vitamin 'premix').

P5P is the real deal, and here's why ...

Vitamin B6 - Introducing P5P - Pyridoxal-5-Phospate

It's all about the hindgut, because it's here where, courtesy of those fabulous fibre-fermenting gut microbes, the hindgut produces vitamin B6 in the activated form that the equine liver needs to perform its vital functions.

The scientific name for this activated form of B6 is Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate, aka P5P, and absolutely not the synthetic form we see in off-the-shelf B-vit supplements, which is Pyridoxine. Feed a horse Pyridoxine and the equine liver neither recognises it or knows what to do with it, so shunts it straight out for excretion. As the saying goes, "An expensive way to make urine", so save your money, never mind mentioning the extra work involved by your horse's liver. NB - little piece of P5P trivia for you; the human gut can convert Pyridoxine to Pyridoxal-5-phosphate, but the equine gut can't.

I digress. However, when the hindgut microbiome is disrupted (dysbiosis, as in a higher population of the unfriendly pro-inflammatory, gut-damaging microbes than the friendly, beneficial, digesting and fermenting microbes), the activated B6 P5P production becomes deficient, and here’s where it all goes badly wrong because … the liver needs this activated form of B6 - P5P – to biotransform, as in break down/metabolise – those toxins. And how does the equine hindgut microbiome get disrupted? Sorry in advance, but it's because we're not feeding our horses as they should be fed.

It’s one big knock-on effect - is it KPU?

Let's work downstream, starting with what's going on with the skin. If the skin has a problem it’s because the kidneys have a problem, because the liver has a problem (lack of P5P), because … and here’s where it all starts – the hindgut process isn't producing it, which means ... there’s dysbiosis in the hindgut microbiome because we've not fed our horse as we should. And the reason there's dysbiosis in the hindgut is two-fold:

1. Most of those shiny feedbags contain junk ingredients and fillers which are both pro-inflammatory and gut-damaging, and ...
2. We're starving the hindgut fibre-fermenting microbes of the very thing they need to ferment - the specific equine-appropriate fibre, namely cellulose/hemicellulose, which is only found in hay, and not the neon-green grass blades that we turn our horses out on, and not haylage as this is a rampant source of lactic-acid bacteria, which is the equine hindgut's worst enemy.

A horse's hindgut system has to have stemmy grasses containing that valuable equine-appropriate fibre going through it, for the hindgut fibre-fermenting microbes to break down and produce those vital metabolites from, which amongst others include P5P. In other words, unless a horse has access to long, flowing grass that's been allowed to grow to a stem and seedhead, they should always have 24/7 access to quality meadow hay, with the various 'meadow' grass species providing the hindgut microbes with a diverse buffet of prebiotics (which feed the hindgut microbes).

If we don't feed the hindgut as it should be fed, long and short this means the liver and kidneys can’t do their job, so the whole natural detoxification process gets messed up. And ultimately, this is why horses get skin problems.

It gets worse. Not only will there be a toxin overload, but these toxins are also damaged, dangerous, putrefactive (relating to or causing decay) toxins, because without P5P the liver hasn't been able to biotransform them properly, and so we end up with damaging circulating toxins in the bloodstream. This is why the effect on the horse is so detrimental.

Which brings us neatly to mallenders/sallenders. Cut to March 2021, and the latest research showed that this same gut/P5P/liver/kidneys production line is now thought to be what’s behind mallenders/sallenders (amongst many other syndromes and issues). In other words, it's an overload on the kidneys due to the loss of P5P production/liver dysfunction, as a direct result of the hindgut dysbiosis.

But – when it’s an ongoing, chronic, permanent condition, it’s actually a much bigger picture than this, as any M&S horse owner knows. Enter the now widespread multi-metabolic chronic detoxification disorder - Cryptopyrroluria, aka KPU.

And - M&S isn't a syndrome that a horse has simply picked up along the way; it's thought to have started from birth, and how the horse was raised as a foal (all explained in our The Foal's Microbiome page). Then us humans get involved, feed our horse wrong somewhere along the line (or a previous owner did), and basically we've just thrown fuel onto the fire.

Pulling this together

So what to do? Simple. We need to restore the P5P production by resetting the gut:liver:kidneys pathway, and relook at how we're feeding our horse.

First up, the key is to repopulate and restore the natural biome colonies in the colon; only a healthy hindgut biome can produce P5P to achieve a normal liver biotransformation function. So, it’s all about hay, hay and more hay, 24/7, 365-days/year, for the cellulose-fibre content in the hay stems to restore the beneficial microbe population. If you turn your horse out on grass, forget it. If you feed a horse haylage, forget it. If you soak your hay for a long time, forget it. If you let your horse run out of hay, especially if stabled overnight, forget it.

Now to the feedbowl, and this should also only ever be a grass-forage fibre, i.e. a meadow-grass cob or a loose grass-forage chaff, as the base carrier for the mineral balancing nutrients, salt for the crucial sodium, and micronized linseed for the omega-3 EFA. (Or see our VitaComplete balancer which includes both the salt and linseed).

If haylage was fed, the gut also needs to deacidify, so feed Spirulina for a couple of weeks which is an excellent toxin-binder and is mainly excreted via the liver-bile-intestine route, thus relieving the kidneys.

Meanwhile, what not to feed! No beet, no alfalfa, no sugars, no pectins (which you'll find in ACV), no muslis, no pellets, no treats, no yeasts/brewers yeast, and definitely no feedbags with pro-inflammatory gut-damaging wheatfeed, oatfeed, soya, NIS, basically anything listed in our The Feedbowl page. So here's the Top-Tip of the Day - always check the ingredients on your current feedbag - if it's not made from grass, don't feed it 😉. The sooner we start getting cellulose fibre going through the hindgut again, the faster the hindgut environment will be restored back to normal.

See our main Feeding our Horses Healthy section from the top menu bar for more information.

Supporting naturally ...

Let's get to it and clean up the hindgut biome:liver:kidneys pathway while re-establishing the P5P production. Don't panic though! If the thought of trying to figure out which your horse needs suddenly seems like a minefield, we do the whole kit as one of our one-stop Wellness Programmes in our Mallenders shop page.

The programme is the same as our KPU Regeneration Programme, but with the addition of a trial bag of our VitaComplete mineral balancer to fortify the diet to address what's nutritionally missing from your horse's forage:

1. First up, we alleviate the gut discomfort and inflammation with DuoBute, while introducing biotin-free VitaComplete forage-balanced nutrients into the diet.
2. We then stabilise the hindgut with a 1-month course of KPUCARE, which deacidifies the acidosis to improve the pH value, addresses the dysbiosis/SIBO/leaky gut/faecal water, and rebuilds the hindgut biome:liver pathway.
3. When the gut regeneration is finished, we then tonify the detoxification orders - the liver/kidneys - with a 1-month course of LKLCARE.

Recommended:

• Feed WildFed to add valuable, natural prebiotic roughage into your horse's diet to support the hindgut biome colonies.

Meanwhile, here are the SHOP links below for you.

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