Symptoms of Gastric Ulcers...

dressage__diva

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I was wondering whether those who have had horses with gastric ulcers could tell me what made them have their horses tested?

On the internet and vet sites there are very strict symptoms, but I know of quite a few horses who have also had ulcers with not even one of these.

The reason I am asking is because I went to a talk on them a while ago and the vet there said that most of our horses (we were a group of competition riders) would have ulcers of some sort due to travelling stress / competition stress / stabling. It was rather scary!
 
I can remember a site that explained gastric ulcers and tmj which surprisinly enough shows up some of the same symptoms. The lady had experienced both and it was a very good site but cannot remember the URL. It explained everything in laymans terms.
 
The most common reasons we as vets get asked (or suggest) to look for gastric ulcers is because of behavioural things, such as aggression when doing up girth, dislike of being brushed, very grumpy in stable or at feed time and ridden problems. Also recurrent colics.
 
We have a stressy little TB mare on loan atm who crib bites - we assume it is a symptom of ulcers, so we have her on a forage based feed which, over a few weeks, has reduced the crib biting remarkably, and she's now hacking out sensibly instead of thinking the leprachauns are out to get her.
 
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