New Study of horses with Gastric Ulcers

[steve]

Saw this and thought it might be of interest to some of you:

Behaviour and Stress Responses in Horses with Gastric Ulceration:
tinyurl.com/bp4ykbw

[helenj]

Lordy me - It's hideous to think that they could find 30 horses with severe ulcers in 1 stud!! - or am I being naiive.

Interesting start - eapecially that the stress is happening and affecting the physiology even when it isn't behaviourally visible.

[laurac]

Interesting !
My big fella scoped clear of stomach ulcers but has real problems in his caecum/hind gut, still being treated by the vet, who is back again on wednesday, in his case his stress / behaviour responses to his hind gut gassiness are well on show and affect him a lot even when he is not worked

[Kelly Marks]

Something that has occured to me though ... I wonder if there are any studies of feral horses (probably have to be post mortems) and whether they might have gastric ulcers too? It's like people over 40 with 'slipped discs' - fact is - most of us have them - it's a fact of life. I'm not saying with gastric ulcers this IS the case, I'm just saying I'd like to know more about them as I'm hearing that most horses do have them but it doesn't have to affect them adversely if they are managed correctly.

[Deleted]

I was wondering if there's any studies of what % of cribbers have ulcers. Most people seem to assume now that cribbing = ulcers but I don't know if there's evidence to back that up or not.

Tim Brazil said to me that the presence of ulcers doesn't always present physical symptoms and so that makes you wonder if those horses are actually in pain or if (like the slipped dics business) many live with them pain free.

I know my vets told me if you do a bone scan nearly every horse on the planet will show up hotspots but nerve blocks show they're not causing the horse pain.

[cookie]

Michelle that's interesting, what Tim said seems borne out in this study in that only one horse had any physical indicators. The 30/98 or 30% figure doesn't sound ridiculous for horses on a professional yard, if you compare to the oft quoted 75% of thoroughbreds having ulcers...

Kelly, that's interesting, ferals are probably the 'truest' control group for comparing prevalence, it would be an interesting comparison to make.

[Yann]

That is interesting, and looks to have been well designed and analysed. If I understand it correctly though it suggests that the horses with ulcers produced more stress related waste products. Could there be an element of chicken and egg in this, that those horses are more likely to develop ulcers, rather than the ulcers making the stress more acute?

[SarahW]

I wonder if we could persuade the New Forest hunt to check the stomachs of all the fallen ponies that come in off the Forest. Gruesome but they do all go through there (and it saves some other poor horse dying in order to feed the hounds). I'll ask them next time I am there with the Firemen (it's a long story!)

[Kelly Marks]

Sarah - that would be really interesting - and I think a major step forward in understanding ulcers better.