If behavior problems remain, you can then work on figuring out what else might be bothering the horse.”
For those with ulcers, the usual recommendation is to treat and then confirm healing with follow-up gastroscopy. “A wise first step is to have gastroscopy performed to establish from the beginning if the horse does or does not have gastric ulcers. “We know that if we are going to try to figure out the reason for a behavior change, we don’t want (the horse) to have ulcers on board at the time,” says McDonnell. “The message should be that individuals may have a varying response,” she says. McDonnell says that when comparing gastroscopy findings (those seen when the veterinarian views the horse’s stomach through an endoscope passed through his nostril and down the esophagus), some horses with minor ulceration might show dramatic behavioral changes, while horses with more extreme ulceration might exhibit only mild symptoms. “What we see are vague clinical signs, so we spend a lot of time talking with the owners, the trainers, and the people that handle the horse to see if they notice any of these things,” says Andrews. Stretching out as if needing to urinate.Intermittent eating patterns (leaving feed for a time and then returning).General grumpiness with herdmates and/or caretakers.Food-aggressive behaviors around feeding time, such as rushing to the feed bucket, pawing, threatening neighbors, and kicking the wall.Acting anxious or restless in combination with clusters of behaviors suggesting physical discomfort (weight-shifting, rotational headshaking, kicking up at the abdomen, tail-swishing or -slapping, lip-licking, tongue extension, and chewing motion when not eating).The coat might be ruffled where the horse nuzzles repeatedly Looking back at or nosing the abdomen behind the shoulder, on both sides of the body.“The signs a horse might show are highly variable between individuals and might even be different within an individual over time.” These, say McDonnell and Andrews, might include: “In my experience, at least 60-70% of horses that have gastric ulcers show some sort of behavior suggesting discomfort around the time of feeding or whenever they have not had something to eat for a few hours,” she says. She notes that when horses exhibit attitude or performance changes, they often have gastric ulcers as a primary or a secondary problem. Other factors can also contribute to glandular ulcers, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) use, including Bute (phenylbutazone), Banamine (flunixin meglumine), and even Equioxx (firocoxib), which Andrews notes researchers have recently determined can have some deleterious effects on the glandular stomach.Īt the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine’s (Penn Vet) New Bolton Center, in Kennett Square, horses are sometimes video-monitored over a 24-hour period to assess behavioral patterns that might suggest physical discomfort, says Sue McDonnell, MS, PhD, CAAB, founding head Penn Vet’s Equine Behavior Program.
Those dietary issues include high-sugar diets, Andrews explains, such as large amounts of sweet feed, which, when fermented by the stomach’s natural bacterial flora (microbiota), create short-chain fatty acids that can eat away at the stomach lining. “The glandular mucosa is less susceptible to acid damage, but it is susceptible to stress, dehydration, and dietary issues,” he says. While the stomach’s glandular region enjoys protective mechanisms such as prostaglandins that maintain mucus and blood flow, it’s not immune to ulcer issues, says Andrews. “When the horse has an empty stomach or acid in the stomach due to stress, that acid may splash onto the nonglandular mucosa, especially when exercising,” he says, explaining that the hydrochloric acid the cells in the glandular mucosa produce might damage it. ACVIM, LAIM, LVMA, equine committee professor and director of the Equine Health Studies Program at Louisiana State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine, in Baton Rouge, likens ulcers in the squamous mucosa in horses to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in humans, in which gastric acid damages the esophageal lining.
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