Best probiotic?

[dominobrown]

Or/ and prebiotic and/or digestive supplement. Must be cost effective, so not wildly expensive. Any tips on what to look for? Used the gold label one in the past and it worked but it’s mostly bran so not really cost effective. What should i be looking for ingredient wise?

 

[PurBee]

The most cost effective ingredient to try initially would be brewers yeast, as that promotes the growth of good gut bacteria aswell as provides b vitamins, which a healthy gut should produce in a horse, but when impaired they can be beneficial to supplement, as the b vits do many essential jobs, especially for neuro health.

Protexin also do a varied range of economical pre-probiotics.

 

[Britestar]

I've used protexin for years.

Seems to do the trick. Have one who needs two scoops, the rest just have one

 

[emilylou]

Equimins do a really good one called Inner Balance Probiotics, it has no fillers, just pure probiotics

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

I used to use the natural horse supplies gut supplement and found it really good, I now use oily herbs and physilium and find my 2 are really settled on that.

 

[Fieldlife]

Or/ and prebiotic and/or digestive supplement. Must be cost effective, so not wildly expensive. Any tips on what to look for? Used the gold label one in the past and it worked but it’s mostly bran so not really cost effective. What should i be looking for ingredient wise?

This fed at 5gms per day (not the 20gms on instructions) gives the same amount of pre and probiotics as Protexin Gut balancer at regular dose, without the alfa filler used in Protexin.

https://horseward.co.uk/collections...t-equals-a-happy-horse?variant=12207182118990

So if you fed 5gms of this it works out about 1/2 cost of Protexin gut balancer.

 

[splashgirl45]

I used to use protein as I had a mare who would get very loose when the grass was new. It worked every time

 

[Squeak]

Tbh I've found that sometimes something has worked and another time it's not done a lot.

At the moment I'm finding this from progressive earth is doing the job and it's cheap and cheerful even on the higher dose some of the time:

https://progressive-earth.com/product/yea-sacc-1026-equine-digestive-health/

 

[sakura]

I hope you don't mind me jumping on this. My mare has such a sensitive tummy which is currently having a flare up due to the change in temperature. She isn't currently on a feed but she has pony nuts in a treat ball daily - so I was wondering if anyone knows of a prebiotic in pellet form?

 

[MuddyMonster]

I've had good results with Protexin, Coopers and currently using a NAF one.

 

[dominobrown]

Thanks guys, some good tips (thanks fieldlife!)

 

[tyner]

This made an incredible difference in my horse https://www.equibiome.org/product-page/equibiome-prebiotic

And cost effective.

He had some issues. So I did the test and gave him this in the interim as advised.

While he was on it while I was waiting for the results to come back nearly everything I was concerned about went away.
It has made a huge difference.

 

[PurBee]

This made an incredible difference in my horse https://www.equibiome.org/product-page/equibiome-prebiotic

And cost effective.

He had some issues. So I did the test and gave him this in the interim as advised.

While he was on it while I was waiting for the results to come back nearly everything I was concerned about went away.
It has made a huge difference.

That looks interesting, thanks for linking it ?

 

[AntiPuck]

This made an incredible difference in my horse https://www.equibiome.org/product-page/equibiome-prebiotic

And cost effective.

He had some issues. So I did the test and gave him this in the interim as advised.

While he was on it while I was waiting for the results to come back nearly everything I was concerned about went away.
It has made a huge difference.

What were the issues he was having, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[tyner]

What were the issues he was having, if you don't mind me asking?

Not at all.

A few things.
He was not in work, and fed a very healthy diet with all the right stuff, but not gaining weight. Could not get out of body score 2-2.5. Was a bit limited as I did not want to feed anything with over 10% combined sugar and he doesn't do well with soya or beet. So I was making regular meals of simple Systems cubes and agrobs chaff, gorilla tubs 4x per day with added balancer from nutritionist, protein supplement, topline plus. As much hayalge as he could have as well and massive summer field of several acres shared with one small pony that wore a grazing muzzle. Costing a fortune.

Little to no worm burden, but wormed anyway to be sure. Bloods tested, all ok, but insulin levels a little high, but nothing to suggest the reason for lack of condition.

My hoof person at the time was wondering if I was even feeding him the biotin, copper, etc. in the supplements. They expected to see a more dramatic difference from the Progressive Earth Platinum Hoof after months on it. It was clear he wasn't metabolizing all the supplements and good things I was putting in there.

He was eating up, eating everything and making a lot of mess because it was nearly all forage. It's like it was all coming back out. Additionally had some fecal water, not bad or messy, but noticeable. Manure score mostly a 4 which is good but sometimes some liquid at the end. Going into muck heap.

Occasionally biting at sides sometimes quite violently that made me think ulcers. Sometimes touchy around flanks too, doing up blanket. Would sometimes kick. Was thinking PSSM2, EMS, Cushings, going down that route.
Just generally mood could be better. So food aggressive like I was starving him.

Tried a few things, couple months of Succeed but no real difference, and then frustrated I went for the Equibiome test because I just couldn't make this guy happy. I got the probiotics then and started them. The weight started coming on, and mood improved massively. Meals got smaller. Now he's on basically one small meal a day. Hooves look great. Bright and happy, no biting at flanks at all. No fecal water.

I was so surprised as I began to see a difference very quickly. The weight came on, he's everyone's favorite at the yard (well he was before too so no difference there ?) and the difference is really amazing especially considering going to winter and the grazing is not that great and he's moved to a much worse field.

How much of the change is due to this ? Horse doesn't live in a vaccum so it's impossible to say. I had tried a lot of things at that point without seeing much of a difference. He may still have some other issues but the gut side and the weight, it's transformed.

I don't really want to attribute everything to this probiotic but the difference was quite noticeable. I think there's a lot still not known about how these work in the feed as supplements and everyone's experience may vary, but I'm keeping an open mind here.

The Equibiome test when it came back did show he was low on a lot of things, not tragically so (but it's a hard test to discipher and I'm not sure how much I trust it as a lot of folks get very similar results and courses of action...) But I was at my wits end. And it seemed to start a positive turn for him.
Hope that helps.

 

[AntiPuck]

Not at all.

A few things.
He was not in work, and fed a very healthy diet with all the right stuff, but not gaining weight. Could not get out of body score 2-2.5. Was a bit limited as I did not want to feed anything with over 10% combined sugar and he doesn't do well with soya or beet. So I was making regular meals of simple Systems cubes and agrobs chaff, gorilla tubs 4x per day with added balancer from nutritionist, protein supplement, topline plus. As much hayalge as he could have as well and massive summer field of several acres shared with one small pony that wore a grazing muzzle. Costing a fortune.

Little to no worm burden, but wormed anyway to be sure. Bloods tested, all ok, but insulin levels a little high, but nothing to suggest the reason for lack of condition.

My hoof person at the time was wondering if I was even feeding him the biotin, copper, etc. in the supplements. They expected to see a more dramatic difference from the Progressive Earth Platinum Hoof after months on it. It was clear he wasn't metabolizing all the supplements and good things I was putting in there.

He was eating up, eating everything and making a lot of mess because it was nearly all forage. It's like it was all coming back out. Additionally had some fecal water, not bad or messy, but noticeable. Manure score mostly a 4 which is good but sometimes some liquid at the end. Going into muck heap.

Occasionally biting at sides sometimes quite violently that made me think ulcers. Sometimes touchy around flanks too, doing up blanket. Would sometimes kick. Was thinking PSSM2, EMS, Cushings, going down that route.
Just generally mood could be better. So food aggressive like I was starving him.

Tried a few things, couple months of Succeed but no real difference, and then frustrated I went for the Equibiome test because I just couldn't make this guy happy. I got the probiotics then and started them. The weight started coming on, and mood improved massively. Meals got smaller. Now he's on basically one small meal a day. Hooves look great. Bright and happy, no biting at flanks at all. No fecal water.

I was so surprised as I began to see a difference very quickly. The weight came on, he's everyone's favorite at the yard (well he was before too so no difference there ?) and the difference is really amazing especially considering going to winter and the grazing is not that great and he's moved to a much worse field.

How much of the change is due to this ? Horse doesn't live in a vaccum so it's impossible to say. I had tried a lot of things at that point without seeing much of a difference. He may still have some other issues but the gut side and the weight, it's transformed.

I don't really want to attribute everything to this probiotic but the difference was quite noticeable. I think there's a lot still not known about how these work in the feed as supplements and everyone's experience may vary, but I'm keeping an open mind here.

The Equibiome test when it came back did show he was low on a lot of things, not tragically so (but it's a hard test to discipher and I'm not sure how much I trust it as a lot of folks get very similar results and courses of action...) But I was at my wits end. And it seemed to start a positive turn for him.
Hope that helps.

Wow, thank you for such a detailed response, it's very helpful.

I'm glad to hear that this worked so well for your horse, sounds like he's a much happier guy on it.