Horse Digestion and Immune System Science

Keeping your Horse’s complex Digestive & Immune Systems operating at peak performance.

Healthy digestion fuels your horse’s ultimate performance, but keeping your horse’s digestive and immune system in a healthy balance can be challenging. In their natural environment, horses are continuously grazing on forage grown on a variety of soil conditions.

It is rare to see a horse in pasture develop colic or suffer from diarrhea or poor immune functionality. Horses have evolved over millions of years and the ideal circumstance is for a horse to be ”grazing” 20 hours a day.

Pasture-grazing creates continual salivation making it easy and efficient for your horse to break down and absorb multiple nutrients efficiently, maintaining a healthy immune function and keeping their gastrointestinal system in balance.

It’s easy to see that proper digestion is essential to your horse’s overall well being.

Most horses today, especially high performance, competitive horses are confined to a small stall or turnouts. They are fed a limited variety of concentrated, high starch commercial feeds usually, just twice a day.

This necessary, but not-so-natural feeding regimen, combined with the stresses of training, trailering, and competitions can often cause your horse’s digestive and immune system to fall out of balance and potentially cause many serious health conditions.

Providing targeted horse supplements will enable your horses to better adapt to their modern life by getting the most necessary nutrients to support their digestive health and immune function.

All horses can benefit from digestive support

Grand Digest provides outstanding gastric and digestive support for all horses, especially those under stress from traveling or competition. The comprehensive formula helps to safeguard the stomach to create a healing environment and to support the healthy function of the entire digestive system.

Horse Digestion & Immune System FAQ

The viability of probiotics is poor as they degrade rapidly when exposed to oxygen, acids in the stomach and the extended process of digestion in the small intestine. Chances are that very few of the live Colony Forming Units (CFU’s) claimed on the label will arrive in the large intestine in a live state. Dried Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Postbiotic Fermentation Product, unlike yeasts used in other digestive products, is a shelf-stable “pre-biotic” and is not compromised by exposure to oxygen and heat. It is the perfect food for enhancing the beneficial bacteria in the large intestine.

The horse is a posterior fermenter. When feed enters the stomach of the horse, it is mixed with digestive acids and enzymes to start the process of nutrient absorption. The workhorse is the small intestine – 80-90 percent of the fats, amino acids, and vitamins are absorbed through the small intestine. As ingredients pass into the small intestine, after about 20 minutes in the stomach, they are mixed with enzymes that break them down for absorption through the intestinal villi. It takes between 6-8 hours for the feed to pass through the small intestine. Once feed enters the large intestine it is the beneficial bacteria that go to work breaking down cellulose, lignans, seeds and grains to obtain any remaining nutrients prior to passing into the rectum.

Even though they are popular and convenient. Complete feeds are not the answer to good horse health. The real problem with feeding cereal grains and high starch concentrates is they can overload a horse’s ability to properly digest and absorb carbohydrates. The excess starch produced in the hindgut can cause acidosis which can lead to colic. These high-starch grains often contain excess omega-6 fatty acids and are pro-inflammatory. Simply put, the horse is not designed to digest cereal grains in large quantities. We believe the widespread use of highly-fortified grain products in large quantities is a primary cause behind many of the digestive problems that have become so common, and also increase the risk of metabolic related problems. Provide your horses with as much forage as they can eat and reduce grain consumption, and you will be restoring your horse to the way he has evolved to eat.

Dried Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Postbiotic Fermentation Product is a fully fermented, stable yeast culture that works as a perfect digestive aid. It supplies a long list of beneficial enzymes and bacteria to the small and large intestine. It boosts the breakdown of fibrous feed digestion and stabilizes pH to safeguard the stomach lining against excess gastric acid. Dried Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Postbiotic Fermentation Product also provides mannooligosaccharides which are crucially important in bacteria scavenging in the small intestine. Dried Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Postbiotic Fermentation Product boosts the efficient function of the large intestine and is therefore critical in helping support the immune system as B vitamins are produced in the large intestine. The production of Volatile Fatty Acids (VFA’s), which are responsible for as much as 30% of the horse’s energy/stamina, are also contingent on the healthy function of the hind gut.

Aspergillus Oryzae

On entering the large intestine partially digested feed is “attacked” by the beneficial bacteria, but to enhance their function Aspergillus Oryzae create notches or wound sites to make it easier for the bacteria to attach to the feed particles.

Healthy horses can benefit from digestive support especially those undergoing feed changes, horses on antibiotics, and particularly those under stressful training, heavy competitive schedules, and trailering long distances. Protecting and enhancing your horse’s natural digestion process is one of the most important things you can do to protect your horse’s overall health.

U.S.
Look for FDA-approved manufacturing facilities. All Grand Meadows Products are manufactured in an approved FDA manufacturing facility located in California and have earned exceptional marks from the National Animal Supplement Council (NASC) for our high quality control and manufacturing processes thus ensuring safe, pure, potent and effective products.

U.K.
All Grand Meadows Products are manufactured in an approved FDA manufacturing facility located in California and have earned exceptional marks from the NASC for our high-quality control and manufacturing processes, thus ensuring safe, pure, potent, and effective products.