the Sage By Nature blog

On Merial’s website for their ulcer preventive drug, Dr. Linda Schultz, DVM, PhD, writes a summary of the recently released study on ulcers and horses (mentioned in my earlier post of 9/28). In it, Dr. Schultz points out that:

“Results showed that an amazing seven out of 10 horses transported and housed in off-site conditions simulating a weekend horseshow event developed stomach ulcers by the fifth day. Moreover, the entire transported group had a higher incidence of thickening (hyperkeratosis) and reddening of the stomach lining than the horses in the control group had. Interestingly,
two of the 10 control horses left back at the farm in paddocks also developed low-grade ulcers during this study. Scientists speculate that removing horses from the paddocks changed the social order of the non-transported control group, which might have caused stress
and thus contributed to stomach ulcer development.”

So here we see proof (two of the control group horses left behind developed low grade ulcers) that simply changing herd dynamics can be stressful and have physical consequences to horses. Combine that stress with twice a day feeding and stall confinement with isolation from other horses for the majority of a horse’s day and you have the perfect set of conditions for ulcers – the perfect storm inside their gut. In hindsight it all seems pretty clear that I should have perhaps been treating Sage as if she had ulcers from just about the time I got her at age two and noticed the diarrhea and extreme sensitivity to change. However, not one veterinarian over the years even suggested ulcers as a potential issue with her. She was always an easy keeper and so didn’t have the accompanying weight loss suggested as a sign or symptom, and diarrhea has been listed up til now as a symptom in foals – not adult horses. Also, Sage was not a race horse or performance horse and was never shown, so perhaps the vets thought that she wasn’t under a lot of stress. She was, though, boarded in multiple different stables as I tried to find an acceptable home for her, each stable with its own issues and high turnover and sometimes poorly managed. Horses coming and going seems to be the norm in boarding situations, so even if she had stayed at one barn all this time she still would have had multiple bonds broken with other horses.

Maybe it is time that we start looking at horses’ lives as more stressful than we think – not just assuming they are all cozy and happy in their stalls with their warm blankets and no other horse picking on them or bothering them while they eat their two meals a day. Maybe its time that we all re-examine what we are defining as stressful to a horse because ultimately it is not our definition of stress that matters, but our horses’.