Content

1. A case study
2. Hindgut dysbiosis
3. Meet lactic-acid bacteria
4. Pectins
5. Colic risk
6. Should we be saying No to Haylage?
7. That swollen sheath?
8. It can all start from birth - the foal's microbiome
9. In summary
10. Supporting naturally ...
11. Case study conclusion

2. Hindgut dysbiosis

You see a horse swinging his head down his right side to his flanks, usually ears back and nipping at himself? Hindgut dysbiosis. You see a horse cow-kicking under his belly on the right side? Hindgut dysbiosis. A horse biting you, and definitely not a love nibble? Hindgut dysbiosis. And I speak from experience. Our MacAttack, so named because when I first met him his only job in the world was to bite me hard and mean it - had long-term hindgut dysbiosis. I didn’t know this when I took on his care back in 2017, but he came to me with a buffet of major issues so no surprise that they all manifested themselves in many ways while we cleaned him up.

When we finally fitted the last piece in the MacAttack jigsaw in 2021 (KPU), we knew we’d got it right because he literally stopped biting overnight. Now when he stalks me in the field it’s to say Hi and have a face rub; now I can grab rug straps under his belly without risking losing an arm - or at the very least an arterial bleed - from his previously well-aimed cow-kick.

Put simply, hindgut dysbiosis sucks because the hindgut's pH level has dropped significantly, so it's acidic, so it burns, so it hurts. And not just for the horse but the human who happens to be nearby. 😉

Meanwhile, back to our client's horse ...

Forward to Spring 2021 ...

... and this poor chap then tipped himself over the edge. He broke through a fence to a grass strip and binged his socks off. Now his gut really went into overdrive with chronic faecal water.

3. Meet lactic-acid bacteria

Now we're going to introduce lactic-acid (LA) bacteria into the whole sorry scenario, because lactic-acid (LA) is the hindgut's worst enemy, and at the root of all things hindgut dysbiosis.

The one thing we need to avoid is the risk of LA bacteria landing in the hindgut, but it'll get there if the front end of the gut system, the stomach, is out of whack with ulcers/pain/inflammation, and especially if PPIs have been prescribed because they shut the stomach acid production to Off, so there's no disinfecting wash of what's been eaten which means anything and everything passes border control.

LA bacteria come in naturally from the forage a horse eats anyway, especially if they're fed haylage (because the grass ferments courtesy of  LA bacteria, which is why it's really not a great idea to feed haylage), but the stomach acid usually deals with them before they pass into the small intestine. However, if we've got a disrupted gut system, and especially if a PPI has been prescribed, there's no acid to kill them off, so they sneak on through into the small intestine and Boom! They also end up in the hindgut with the forage fibre digesta. The No.1 enemy of the equine gut system has now invaded, and trust me when I say they wreak havoc as they multiply in their gazillions by the second, like all bacteria do.

Welcome to the lactic-acid effect. These LA bacteria ferment sugar and starch, so with all that sugar from our boy's grass binge the LA bacteria were in binge heaven! Thing is, if there's one place where fermentation isn't meant to happen, it's the small intestine. Belly bloat? Fermentation. And the more sugar the horse ingests, the more these LA bacteria multiply, overpowering and killing off the beneficial hindgut microbes. So now we have dysbiosis, meaning the hindgut biome is unbalanced, with more of the bad bugs than the friendlies.

It gets worse. The waste from all these LA bacteria gorging on all that sugar is lactic acid - they literally burp it out. This is badbadnotgood because firstly, it lowers the pH value to sour – remember, the intestinal environment should remain at a sterile, pH-neutral. Also, remember, fermenting shouldn't happen in the small intestine - only enzymatic digestion - because fermenting creates gas, and the SI doesn’t cope with any kind of gas as it’s a very thin tube with no room for gas bloat, so it feels like it's being blown up like a balloon. So, we now have an ever-expanding gas bloat where it doesn’t belong, and it’s very, very uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, the expanding, sour, acidic environment inflames and what gives is the fragile intestinal wall. Meet leaky gut, through which that putrefactive digesta and billions of lactic acid bacteria (amongst others) now leak into the bloodstream. Now cue a runaway immune system trying desperately to fan the flames of a body feeling like it's on fire. If left unattended, so begins a buffet of autoimmune syndromes.

Now let's introduce pectins into the mix.

Pectins

One of the main culprits that causes lactic acid in the hindgut is pectins, which are a plant's cellular building material, a naturally occurring structural carbohydrate, aka a 'starch'. And where do we find a huge concentration of pectins? Our neon-green leafy grass ... Those leaf blades are full of pectins, because the leaf is a critical part of the grass's growth phase, to support its growth into a mature stemmy grass and seed head. Spring grass is very pectin-rich because it's literally the new young leaves of new, growing grass.

Thing is, as a forage feed for horses, they're totally inappropriate because those young growing grass leaves have zero cellulose fibre that the hindgut fibre-fermenters ferment. This fibre is only found in the mature grass stems, i.e. hay or long grass/standing hay. This is why hay is the best grass forage we can give our horses.

Small amounts of pectin are always going to be present in a horse's diet, because it's a plant's natural building material for leaves, flowers and similarly soft-elastic parts of plants. When a horse consumes pectins, their consumed by bacteria that prefer an acidic intestinal environment, i.e. lactic-acid bacteria, and if the diet is overly high in pectins, they'll produce high levels of acid waste (lactic acid).

This is where it all starts to go wrong - an acidic pH value in the large intestine should be avoided at all costs, since the important cellulose-degrading hindgut biome need an absolute neutral pH environment. If it becomes too acidic, these vital microbes die off, which in the long term not only means that the horse can no longer utilise its hay properly, but also triggers the risk of laminitis, colic, and more than likely, cryptopyrroluria (KPU).

See our separate Pectins page for the full story. Oh, and yes - apples and carrots contain pectins too ☹

NB - It's easy to be confused into thinking pectins are good for the gut because our human gut biome needs pectins. However, we have a very different gut biome family than the horse - unlike the horse, us humans naturally have lacto-xxx bacteria in our gut biome. Look at any human probiotic label and you'll see a host of lactobacillus on the list, including lactobacillus acidophilus. If we don’t have enough pectins in our daily ration, our own gut bacteria start attacking our gut wall, so the saying "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" is absolutely right for us humans, because pectins feed our human gut biome and prevent leaky gut.

Meanwhile, back to our client's boy who was now in a ton of trouble after his grass binge created a belly-full of pH-lowering lactic-acid, courtesy of his resident unfriendly lactic-acid bacteria which had turned his GI tract into a red-raw, sour burn.

Another well-known equine pectin-offender is beet - sorry to all the beet lovers but it's true, and I get your frustration because I used to be a beet lover years ago until I learned the facts. Previously thought of as a beneficial fibre feed, beet is actually anything but. Like grass and apple pectin (often found in many horse feeds/gut supplements), beet is fructose (25%) and pectin-rich. The alleged 'molasses-free' equivalent may be lower in sugar but still contains up to 7% residual sugar in the pulp, and is still pectin-rich. Yet still promoted as safe for laminitics ...

Colic risk

Just as an aside, the digestion of all starches and those grass sugars (along with proteins/fats) is all meant to be dealt with in the SI, but if the digestive function of the small intestine is out of kilter, starch and sugar will reach the hindgut, meet lactic-acid bacteria, and get fermented into lactic acid. So there's double-bubble for your money. This can then lead to a spasmodic colic episode.

Meanwhile, the general transition time of food digestion in the small intestine is relatively short, so if the SI function has been disrupted with SIBO, there will be large undigested starch and protein particles due to the short digestion time to digest those larger molecules. Hence they end up in the large intestine, where they can impact and potentially lead to a more serious colic. So, it’s always good to be mindful of starch levels in feed when a horse’s gut function is compromised. The more complex the starch is, the more chance it’ll end up in the hindgut, and we really, really want to avoid this.

Should we be saying no to Haylage?

I hinted at it earlier (with a link to our Haylage page), and I know I don't need to tell you that haylage is fermented grass, but a quick reminder as to what causes fermentation. Yep - lactic-acid bacteria. So it could be said that haylage is probably the worst forage we can feed to our horses.

Just the same as it happens in the gut, the fermentation process of grass to haylage lowers the pH to more acidic. My connie's gut (Murphy) literally turns into a projectile, high-pressure faecal water spray within just a few hours of eating haylage.

That swollen sheath?

Now back to earlier, and remember that swollen sheath? One vet saying "fatty tissue", and the other saying "muscoskeletal due to muscle pain". Yes, a connecting factor to LA, so the vets were close, but didn’t quite make the connection.

LA can cause the skelelal soft-tissue, i.e. ligaments, tendons and muscles, to feel as if they’re ‘on fire.’ Why? Because when we have dysbiosis/SIBO causing leaky gut, the LA leaks through the permeable gut membrane (leaky gut) into the bloodstream, along with the toxic digesta.

The body's natural detox organs, the liver/kidneys, don't know what to do with these particular toxins so they're sent back into the bloodstream to be stored in, of all places, the connective soft tissue - yes we're talking tendons, ligaments, muscles, where they create their own acidic inflammation and damage the sub-cellular structure. The reason some vets think it’s fatty tissue is because the inflammation can look as if the horse is putting on weight, but it’s actually the lymphatic system sending its fluid – lymph – to the inflammation to urgently try to drain away the LA.

Many clients also mention those orbital pads above the eyes. Some people think what looks like swollen pads above the eyes are fat; others think it’s Cushing’s. The good news is that they’re not fat – there’s no tissue here for fat cells to grow in; nor are they Cushing’s related. Anatomically there’s a lot of connective tissue and facia here, so as before it’s more likely lymph.

Long and short, collectively these are perfect indicators that there's significant metabolism disorder.

This can all start from birth - the foal's microbiome

Another factor is the horse’s history. We rarely know what’s gone before with our horse unless we bred them. When a foal is born they don't have an established microbiome - their tiny gut system is beautifully sterile, so the gut microbes need to get into the hindgut to establish their biome, and a foal does this by eating their mother's faeces, a process known as coprophagia.

The first 4-5 months is crucial for the foal. By eating mum's faeces the foal naturally colonises their hindgut's fibre-fermenting microbes (residing in the hindgut's cecum, home to the trillions of gut biome colonies). Disturb this process or wean too early, and the foal will end up with lifelong digestive and metabolic problems due to a poorly created gut biome. If you give a foal antibiotics, or feed it haylage, this will also disturb the process of the microbes learning to live in the young gut. See our Creating the foal's microbiome page.

The integrity of the foal's biome also completely depends on how the mother was raised from a foal, and how she had been fed/how healthy her own biome was, i.e. if she was fed haylage or antibiotics at any time. If so, and therefore by default, if the dam has LA bacteria in her hindgut, the foal’s immune system will acknowledge the LA bacteria from their mother’s faeces as ‘normal’, making LA bacteria accepted as a lifelong resident. 

In other words, if the dam has the wrong microbes, this will be passed on through the generations.

This will dramatically affect a horse's future ability to ferment cellulose fibre in their hindgut, which will have the direct effect of dramatically affecting the horse’s energy production. In these cases, it’s essential to change the feed regime to 24/7 hay which will create a hostile-enough environment for the gut-damaging bacteria by starving them of their beloved sugar. This will then allow the beneficial microbes to recolonise and outgrow the bad bugs.

This scenario is now sadly so widespread these days, as so many breeders are feeding haylage to their foals. Already we’re seeing foals with metabolic problems, i.e. sweet itch at the age 2. Totally a man-made problem.

In summary

Basically, feed a horse wrong and it creates the wrong microbes which are passed on through the generations. For the last 20-30 years, most scientific research has been focused just on the small intestine, yet the crucial fibre-digesting takes place in the hindgut. Scientists are now realising they’ve strongly neglected studying the hindgut but are now realising that a healthy hindgut = a healthy metabolism.

The last decade has been the decade of human microbiome research, discovering the connection to so many human-related gut conditions, i.e. IBS, Crones, Celiac, gluten intolerance and so on, so research has intensified and interest has grown. It's now acknowledged that the gut biome manipulates everything.

The good news is that as a result, there’s more research happening on the equine microbiome with the first publications now coming out, and the early realisation that so many horses have disrupted biomes at the root cause of many metabolic disturbances, especially in the IR lami-prone horse resulting in colic, faecal water syndromes, trapped gas. All signs of dysbiosis in hindgut.

As hinted above, it's also thought that a disturbed hindgut biome is also the cause behind the relatively unknown, yet now widespread, multi-metabolic detoxification disorder, Cryptopyrroluria, aka KPU. This is very much connected to many autoimmune syndromes such as sweet itch, pollen allergies, mallenders/sallenders ... the list goes on, and which the most recent research also shows these syndromes to have their roots in a disturbed microbiome. For so many horses this could well have originally started with the foal not able to to colonise their cecum microbes appropriately.

See our KPU page for the full story, to see if it resonates with what's going on with your horse.

4. Supporting naturally ...

So, there we have it - enough of the Carol-ramble, and let’s move on to what we can do about hindgut dysbiosis. No question - we Alleviate (the symptoms), Detox (the bad stuff out), and Fortify (relook at the diet, get a ton of quality meadow hay going through the hindgut, and nourish the horse back to health). Generally you'll be looking at something along the lines of the following, and yes it may seem complex as the support kit is multifaceted.

Don't panic though! If it all seems like a minefield, we also do the whole programme as one of our one-stop-shop COMBO Collections in our Gut shop page. You'll see our SIBO COMBO in the link below.

Meanwhile here's the process deconstructed for you:

1. First up, we need to get some immediate pain and stress alleviation going. There's always pain when there's dysbiosis so it’s a minimum 2-week course of our DuoBute. If a horse is showing signs of chronic stress as well, we suggest a 1-month/1kg course of our StressTonic. Feed these together for a couple of days in a p.m. feed to start taking the edge off, then we begin the hindgut regeneration programme alongside.
2. In an a.m. feed it's a a 1-month course of our SiboCARE alongside our GutAminos (which starts reconnecting the leaky gut damage to the intestinal membrane). It's also adviseable to feed Spirulina for around 2-weeks to help deacidify the hindgut environment and mop up mycotoxins. Note: if you think your horse is a KPU candidate, you'll need to add in the P5P as well, to reset the liver biotransformation function. You'll see all this explained in our KPU page.
3. Once the SiboCARE is finished, we now tone the liver/kidneys/lymphatics function with a 1-month course of our LKLCARE.

Thereafter?

1. We recommended our BiomeTonic, aka the well-known 'oily herbs' which support the intestinal environment, creating a friendly home for the recognised gut microbes to thrive, but a hostile (neutral) environment for the unfriendlies. Some horses seem to need it permanently; others (like our MacAttack) did well on it being fed occasionally, i.e. a couple of weeks every couple of months. It's very much horses for courses so your horse will no doubt tell you.
2. Our WildFed mix is also useful to feed occasionally to add valuable roughage nutrient diversity to the diet. You can either add to the feedbowl or sprinkle a handful over hay every other day or so.
3. Finally, we look at fortifying the diet, dumping the junk feeds for feeds made from multi-species grass forage fibre, i..e a meadow cob or chaff, and getting as much quality hay going through the hindgut, while closing the nutrient gap with forage-balanced minerals - see our EquiVita/VitaComplete range.

5. Case study conclusion

Back to our client's horse, where this poor boy's entire gut system was in meltdown, his whole body felt like it was on fire, and his sheath and inside legs were swollen from lactic-acid storage in his soft-tissue cells.

There was no question that we needed to reset him back to his natural state by stabilising his pain and stress, getting him off the ultra-processed feedbags by switching up his diet/forage management to species-appropriate grass forage, and getting him off the green grass and onto hay.

Once stabilised, it was then all about cleaning him up from the inside-out with the above programme. Our client is completely onboard - she's already got the protocol underway, and removed the offending feedbags from his feedbowl. As for grazing on grass? I think you know the answer to that! He’s been switched to hay, more hay, and nothing but lovely hay 24/7/365 😉.

Here’s wishing this lovely chap a happier and certainly a more comfy, pain-free, stress-free, healthy future.

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