Probiotics: Effective or snake oil?

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cp1980

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Horses' caecum/hind gut/large intestine is chock full of bacteria to break down the cellulose in the fibre.

Stress/illness/hard work or other factors can reduce the activity of the bacteria in the hind gut; this would, I suppose, mean horses lose weight or get, at worst, get colic.

Probiotics can be bought and fed to horses and it is suppose to increase the amount of bacteria in the hind gut.

Will this improve the activity of the hind gut? Is it it just a load of old snake oil, as the acid in the stomach will kill of the bacteria before it can reach the hind gut?

Has anyone found it has improve the health of their horse? Does he/she find it easier to keep the weight on? What noticeable effects does feeding probiotics have on your horse?

Thanks for your thoughts.
 
Whilst I was a sceptic, one of my TB's had a really dodgy tummy, with very loose droppings and an most unpleasant smell. Vet took sample but no infections came up. I started him on probiotics and 2 weeks later droppings a good consistency and the offensive smell has gone...... nothing else has changed and he had the symtoms for a good 4 months previously, so I can only put it down to the probiotics. That said, I guess it depends on the circumstances!
 
tamsinkb said:
Whilst I was a sceptic,...... nothing else has changed and he had the symtoms for a good 4 months previously, so I can only put it down to the probiotics. That said, I guess it depends on the circumstances!
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Interesting example - sounds like they were useful in your case.

Could explain what probiotic product you used and how it was fed (how much, when, etc)?

I'd be interested to see if some types work better than others.

Thanks
 
Effective IME.

My big lad lost a lot of weight the first winter we had him and was really struggling to put it on in the spring. I think the combination of the move to us and a course of antibiotics in late winter, due to a puncture wound, stressed his system. I gave him a 10 day course of NAF biotics and he picked up and put plenty (too blooming much, turned out he was the good doer his previous owner told us he was!) of weight on.

Very recently both boys had sloppy poo and big lad was showing some gut discomfort. They've both had another 10 day course of biotics and have normal poo again. :)

Edited to add - for an intensive course I always use NAF Biotics at 30 g/horse/day - all in their dinner. My two lads also have Yeasacc at 10 - 12.5 g/day (horse size dependent) as part of their mineral mix.
 
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I put my 4yr old on Protexin after multiple courses of antibiotics, and she got the shine back almost straight away, and stopped picking up every bug/infection going!
 
Prolonged use of Protexin has sorted out my TB,s dickie tummy no doult about it I now have hin on a maintainence dose and double it as soon as he has any extra stress .
 
cp1980 said:
Horses' caecum/hind gut/large intestine is chock full of bacteria to break down the cellulose in the fibre.

Stress/illness/hard work or other factors can reduce the activity of the bacteria in the hind gut; this would, I suppose, mean horses lose weight or get, at worst, get colic.

Probiotics can be bought and fed to horses and it is suppose to increase the amount of bacteria in the hind gut.

Will this improve the activity of the hind gut? Is it it just a load of old snake oil, as the acid in the stomach will kill of the bacteria before it can reach the hind gut?

Has anyone found it has improve the health of their horse? Does he/she find it easier to keep the weight on? What noticeable effects does feeding probiotics have on your horse?

Thanks for your thoughts.
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I certainly rate protexin, in addition, with some people worming and therefore stripping their horse of beneficial bacteria every 8 weeks, I believe that probiotics do have a real place in helping the gut flora propagate and restore to a healthy level. After stripping it takes a number of weeks for the 'good bacteria' to reach optimum level, a couple of weeks at this level and it is wiped out through worming again. Probiotics can speed up the process of restoring the correct balance in the gut. I was also reccomended to put my mare on it as soon as she started to lose weight through her illness, perhaps it contributed to her weight plateauing? Who knows, but Id rather spend money on snake oil that may actually be more than snake oil than not.
 
After several courses of ABs my vet prescribed Probiotic - also fed simple system probiotic after we finished and came back into work. They did help clear up his dodgy tummy!
 
Mallee1989 said:
My understanding is most probiotics work on upper digestive tract (i could be wrong but this is what my vet said)
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Dengie's website says the Yea-Sacc1026 yeast works OK in the hind gut, but there isn't enough evidence to suggest feeding probiotic bacteria will work in horses.


Mallee1989 said:
if there is a hind gut problem he said the old school approach was getting a healthy horses manure and putting it in a stocking, soak it in water and then get the liquid and drench the sick horse with it. he said that was the best way to restore bacteria in hind gut and used to fix a lot of the cases back in the day.
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Well that makes sense. The OH (who is a proper scientist) says that Yakhult probably works well because the bacteria is in high enough concentrations that some bacteria stand a chance of surviving the stomach acid.

Dengie's website stresses that not there isn't enough research on probiotic bacteria in horses at this stage...

http://www.dengie.com/pages/feed-advice/article-library/feeding-digestive-supplements.php
 
One of mine is very prone to scouring whenever there is a flush in the grass/change of haylage or an exciting situation. I use the Protexin quick paste which works like magic. We had a hunting trip last year when had a 6 hour trip down & then we went out Sat, Tues, thurs, sat. Given that he starts quivering just thinking about hunting I thought that he would come back looking vacuum packed from the sheer excitement of it all, so I took some protexin paste & he came back producing far less/firmer poos than when we left.
 
Thirty plus years ago, when vets had brown coats and there was no such thing as probiotics.

Our vet, in his stinky brown coat that the horses hated, was called out to look at a TB who tended to drop condition and had a non stop runny tummy. We were packed off the to super market to buy live yoghurt.

That horse spent the rest of his life on one pot per day of the stuff. His droppings were perfect and he maintained a nice weight.
 
AdorableAlice said:
Thirty plus years ago, when vets had brown coats and there was no such thing as probiotics.

Our vet, in his stinky brown coat that the horses hated, was called out to look at a TB who tended to drop condition and had a non stop runny tummy. We were packed off the to super market to buy live yoghurt.

That horse spent the rest of his life on one pot per day of the stuff. His droppings were perfect and he maintained a nice weight.
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We fed yogurt on the first yard I worked on, however I am not happy to do so now , apart from when foals horses not are meanlt to eat milk based products .We also fed them eggs and Guinness and milk pellets ( they had a lovely smell ) !!!! Not sure how they survived .
 
Goldenstar said:
We fed yogurt on the first yard I worked on, however I am not happy to do so now , apart from when foals horses not are meanlt to eat milk based products .We also fed them eggs and Guinness and milk pellets ( they had a lovely smell ) !!!! Not sure how they survived .
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But they did and it all worked. The big difference from years gone by is horses truly worked hard and had to make do with what was available at the time. Levels of care, nutrition and veterinary medicine have moved on and improved.
 
We used to feed eggs and Guiness as well ...

Brewer's Yeast definitely made a difference to my skinny minny's condition - after years of winter troubles, she's now been a constant weight pretty much since day 10 of feeding the stuff.

I do usually have a pot of expensive biotics on the yard and if a pony has a smelly poo or needs to be box rested they will go on a course. Who knows if it helps balance them or whatever but it's never harmed and certainly SEEMS to help. Who knows ...
 
AdorableAlice said:
Our vet, in his stinky brown coat that the horses hated, was called out to look at a TB who tended to drop condition and had a non stop runny tummy. We were packed off the to super market to buy live yoghurt.

.
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I give my chickens live yoghurt if I suspect they have sour crop, but I cannot persuade the horse who needs probiotic to touch it in his feed (and he is normally a gannet and will eat anything).
 
cp1980 said:
Interesting example - sounds like they were useful in your case.

Could explain what probiotic product you used and how it was fed (how much, when, etc)?

I'd be interested to see if some types work better than others.

Thanks
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Sorry for the late reply - I used feedmark's bio-pro and fed it 2x day with his regular feed - 1x 50ml scoop per feed I still feed it ( 6 weeks later ) but will be weaning him off it over the next few weeks....watch this space!
 
I buy my Yea Sacc from Prgressive Earth on eBay. Forage Plus also do it now. Think these will work out less expensive than the bigger brands :)
 
Ali2 said:
I buy my Yea Sacc from Prgressive Earth on eBay. Forage Plus also do it now. Think these will work out less expensive than the bigger brands :)
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Currently feeding BY, from Charnwood, but pondering Yea Sacc, how much a day do you need to feed please?

Have seen the answer, 10 - 25g a day!
 
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Yes, I feed lower end of the range. I feed little lad 10 g and big lad 12.5 g per day. Generally keeps them in good order, not sure what went wrong recently!
 
Interesting topic.
My mare is prone to sloppy droppings and I tryed her on Equimins probiotics for 3 months to no avail.
I decided to try brewers yeast. 2 tablespoons a day and her droppings have gone back to a healthy consistancy.

Never tryed Yea-Sacc, I wonder if it has the same properties as brewers yeast?.
 
The brewers yeast that's sold as a supplement has been killed so it is no longer viable. Yea-Sacc is a viable Saccharomyces Cerevisiae strain so it is active. So the Yea-sacc idea is that it metabolises in the horses gut secreting molecules that aid hind gut stability and microflora balance. I would think that the brewers yeast is 'just' acting as a nutrient source. It tends to be fed in greater amounts than yea sacc
 
Update - for anyone interested! Having weaned my boy off the probiotics he returned to having very loose and smelly droppings, so put him back on them and he's back to normal.....I guess they work for him!
 
I ran out of yea-sacc last winter. The amount of poops in Obi's stable made me cry for two weeks until I could get some more :eek:.
 
My sister's tb used to be very prone to colic to the point that it was every week or two one winter. It got to the point that the vets taught my sister how to do IV shots and supplied us with a dose of buscopan to be used as needed (I think they were fed up of coming at 9pm on a Sunday). He was always very consistent in symptoms and improved dramatically with a shot and an hour of walking but being a wussy tb would act like he was dying until treated. We had the meds because the vets trust us that if anything was different from the norm or he didn't improve within the hour they would be called.

Since he was started on pro & pre-biotics he hasn't had a single episode of colic in 2 years
 
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