Post-ulcer treatment - which ingredients?

[JGC]

So my boy is on his Gastrogard course as of today. Turning to looking at what he's going to be eating once he's off the medicine, could anyone help me about what I should look for/avoid in the ingredients list and what I should avoid - we live in France and we can't get a lot of the brands that are usually recommended for ulcer-sensitive horses on these threads? Also, he is on basically a part-livery yard (DIY does not exist round here) and has to be fed with the other horses. He will be the only horse on a different feed and I can only be there myself for the morning feed. I will only have a limited amount of space for storage and I don't think soaking anything is going to work. I know this sounds ridiculous but this is pretty much the case in all the stables round here at least (possibly a general French thing ) and this stable gives by far the best all-round care and is the only one where I can give him all year turnout so moving isn't an option! I have already got my hands on a tub of RiteTrac for after.

 

[Charley]

You need to try and avoid cereal feeds and high starch feeds, try and find forage based feeds and use oil if you need calories.
You don't say whether your horse is a good doer or a poor doer?
I have my ulcer prone TB on TopSpec balancer and chaff, with added micronised linseed and Yea Sacc (very good for hind gut health) and he's still ulcer free (or certainly symptom free) 3 months after finishing his Gastrogard.
If you can get hold of a chaff and some sort of low starch balancer you'd be on to a winner I reckon.

 

[JGC]

You need to try and avoid cereal feeds and high starch feeds, try and find forage based feeds and use oil if you need calories.
You don't say whether your horse is a good doer or a poor doer?
I have my ulcer prone TB on TopSpec balancer and chaff, with added micronised linseed and Yea Sacc (very good for hind gut health) and he's still ulcer free (or certainly symptom free) 3 months after finishing his Gastrogard.
If you can get hold of a chaff and some sort of low starch balancer you'd be on to a winner I reckon.

Yes, I realised I missed out some crucial information, sorry!

The feed company that supplies the yard and Lambey (which is stocked very locally) do "ulcer friendly" feed, but it still seems to have molasses in it and cereals? Even though I think it's in very small amounts (I have asked them for a proper breakdown). It's all a bit confusing. I can't seem to find any brand that I can get that does the equivalent of Fast Fibre and he needs hard feed as he is not a good doer (although hoping this will pick up after GG).

His current feed has:

Alfalfa, Barley flakes, corn flakes, wheat bran, extracted
partially husked sunflower, dehydrated alfalfa,
cane molasses, corn, flaxseed, calcium carbonate, beet molasses, rapeseed oil, barley, rapeseed expeller, dicalcium phosphate, Diamond V ®, premix additives, linseed oil, flavourings (some of the translation might be dodgy!)

That's obviously not going to be alright, just for info.

He's in moderate to hard work - five schooling sessions a week, usually 20 mins walk out, then 45-60 mins in the school, then 10 mins walk out to cool down, one session will usually be jumping. He'll do a walk hack on one of the other days. I can get hold of chaff, shouldn't be a problem there. I just can't imagine he'll get enough from chaff and a balancer, but that may be my overly traditional brain!

One of the feeds I looked at is advertised as low starch, but still has cereals in the ingredients list. Is that possible?

 

[Charley]

Yes it is possible for cereals to be in the feed but for it to have a low starch content, sugar content is also important though so make sure you get those figures too. The combined starch/sugar content should be under 10% if at all possible (lower the better).

Alfalfa is good - how about that and oil (linseed is great) plus a vit/mineral balancer?