Sunday Stills

Norman and Cuff Links

Griselle

Silver, Lofty, Cocomo, Asterik and Gus

B-Rad, Nemo and Taco

George and Asterik

B-Rad and Alex

Lily returning home after spending a week at the vet clinic. She had a nice greeting committee lined up. (L-R Maisie, Calimba, Cinnamon and Dolly)

Another view of the greeting committee. I cut Maisie out but got MyLight in the picture. Calimba, Cinnamon, Dolly and MyLight.

Lily took off

Then everyone went for a welcome home lap around the pasture (Traveller, Cinnamon, Lily, MyLight and Calimba)

Traveller, Cinnamon and MyLight

Probiotics and Prebiotics

(post by Jason) Probiotics and prebiotics. We hear these terms bandied about fairly regularly in the equine world. Too often I hear these terms used interchangably, often in the wrong context or prescribed by folks who frankly ought to know better to treat a condition that can better be addressed in other ways. Tonight's post will hopefully shed some light on the differences between these terms and also will shed some light on what they can and can't do. 

In the feed industry prebiotics are feed ingredients that escape digestion in the upper GI tract long enough to (hopefully) stimulate the growth of certain beneficial microbes which will aid in the digestive process in one of several ways which will be discussed in more detail shortly. Nutritionally speaking in broad terms prebiotics are typically just complex chains of sugars; typically but not always oligosaccharides. They don't work directly or directly proliferate within the gut; rather they act as catalysts which help stimulate positive bacterial or microbial growth somewhere in the GI tract. In turn this aids in improving the efficiency of the digestive process.

Probiotics are live microbes added to the GI tract in numbers sufficient to survive the digestive process long enough to have direct effects on modulating immune responses and/or positively enhancing metabolic activities associated with the digestive process. 

Broadly speaking, probiotics and prebiotics are added to diets to accomplish one of three things:

1. To improve fibre digestion by increasing the amount of nutrients (energy, protein, vitamins, minerals,etc) removed and utilized from hay, grass, beet pulp or other fibre sources. 

2. To improve grain digestion by increasing the amount of nutrients removed and utilized from every pound of grain fed. 

3. To bind or uptake certain substances which may otherwise have a deleterious effect on digestive efficiency. 

Whether to use a prebiotic or a probiotic or some combination of the two as the means to accomplish one's end....there are MANY types of each...is a discussion that's far too deep for the scope of this blog. What I will say is that whether you choose to add probiotics or prebiotics or both the reasons need to be right AND these substances need to be added at the correct dosage to get the job done or else you are wasting your money. The other thing to note is that probiotics/prebiotics almost never show results quickly. Think several weeks to several months to see beneficial results. If the condition you are trying to treat will right itself in a few weeks, adding probiotics or prebiotics to aid in fixing said condition is almost certainly a waste of your time and money. 

There are lots and lots of valid reasons to consider adding probiotics or prebiotics to your horse's diet. Maybe you've got poor quality hay that you can't replace and have to feed. Maybe you've got an older horse, a horse with no teeth, or a horse that's a hard keeper or is otherwise finicky, picky or difficult when it comes to getting more feed into said horse. Maybe your grain is no longer keeping enough weight on your horse. Maybe you're trying to bind up substances in grain or hay that may be potentially deleterious or have anti-nutritive qualities. As I said there are LOTS of valid reasons to consider probiotics and prebiotics. 

Probiotics and prebiotics won't directly add nutrients of any type to your horse's diet. If, for instance, your horse's blood test shows that he's low in magnesium it would probably make a lot more sense to add a source of magnesium directly to your horse's diet than it would to attempt to glean more magnesium from current feedstuffs by adding prebiotics or probiotics. In the same vein, I've often seen probiotics blindly added to diets to address such things as diarrhea. Since diarrhea can be caused by any number of conditions, in my mind it might make sense to figure out the underlying causes of diarrhea and address that before attempting to correct it with probiotics and/or prebiotics.

There are so many probiotics and prebiotics on the market today that claim to do so many different things that I would strongly suggest that you talk to an equine nutrition professional to assess the efficacy of adding them to your equine diet. Hope this post clarifies rather than confuses! 

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Johnny

Remmy and Fabrizzio

Hesse and Bruno

Slinky, Lightning and Lucky

Rip and Apollo

Donovan and Clayton

Largo, Stormy and Walon

Dolly, Silky and Maisie

O'Reilly

Merlin, Duesy and Hesse

Sunday Stills

Gibson, Lotus and Romeo

Romeo and Gibson

Cocomo, Lotus, Silver and Flyer

Flyer and George

Homer and Thomas

Faune and Gus

Cuff Links and Norman

Oskar and Donovan

Ritchie and Apollo

River and Kennedy playing, Stormy was ignoring them

Toledo and Johnny

Hemi and Grand

Still Sick

Jason and I have unwittingly been having a contest to see who can be the grouchiest and the most sick. Jason is winning by a landslide in the grouchy competition. He has also pulled ahead in the sick category as well. So of course that meant we had a horse that needed to go to the vet clinic yesterday. The horse in question hadn't been on a trailer in almost five years. Unfortunately Jason and I both had violent coughing fits right as the horse was thinking "hey, maybe walking on this trailer isn't so bad after all." Thankfully the horse walked on nicely once Jason and I managed to stop making extraneous noises for a few minutes. 

We're slogging through life right now and we've both been fine tuning our abilities to feel sorry for ourselves. We're pretty much pros at that now. Carter has thankfully managed to remain healthy. I will never forget the time when we all three had the stomach flu at the same time a couple of winters ago. I will especially never forget that we had to blanket all of the horses in the middle of that. Jason and I alternated hanging on to the fence and throwing up and then chasing down a horse or two and putting their blanket on. I also remember that it was windy, cold and raining. Truly, it was a fabulous day on the farm. Compared to that it makes our current situation look tons better. We aren't throwing up, we aren't putting on blankets, the weather has been glorious (80F/26C the last couple of days) with a light breeze. I feel better with every sentence I type!

Anyway, I'm slowly inching my way towards feeling better. Jason still hasn't discovered just how horrible he is going to feel before he starts feeling better. I would recommend not getting whatever it is we have.

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Stormy, Walon and Rocky

Baby and Homer

this turkey was showing off

Traveller and Maisie

Cinnamon and Lily

Calimba and MyLight (Silky in the background)

some of the trees are thinking about leafing out; a few of the maples already have

Johnny and Clayton

pretty sunset

Trigger and Tony

Hemi and Apollo

Africa and Johnny

Sick

Jason and I have both succumbed to something over the last few days. We're pretty sure I have had the flu and according to the doctor Jason has had a sinus infection. Since I refused felt it unnecessary to go to the doctor we're only guessing at what has caused my issues. 

Hunting for Easter eggs apparently tipped me over the edge from being kind of sick but able to power on anyway to miserably sick.  We had another day scheduled with the horse dentist on Monday. I can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of times we've cancelled an appointment of any type with a vet, farrier, dentist, etc over the last decade. Heck, the day after my father died I was holding horses for the farrier all day. 

All day Sunday I kept insisting to Jason that I could get through the day with the dentist on Monday as he constantly told me I should cancel our appointment. Of course this involves getting up not later than 5am and working straight without essentially no breaks until 5pm or later by the time we get through all of the non-dentist related work. I finally waved the white flag Sunday evening when my fever made it to 102 and called the dentist and cancelled. It is a total pain to reschedule these things as any good practitioner stays busy, but I just couldn't do it.

Jason had been slowly inching his way towards being full blown sick and by Monday morning he had joined me in my misery so it was a good thing we had already cancelled. We snarked and groused at each other all day as we got through morning and afternoon chores and the other work we needed to do.  Today I had improved to the point that I only felt half-dead so I declined going to the doctor with Jason. If the trend continues tomorrow I should feel like I might actually get through this and by the end of the week I should be back among the living. Hopefully Jason will follow the same upward momentum. Here's hoping we will both be mostly functional again soon!

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Nemo, Sebastian and Johnny

Lighty, Sam, Taco and Renny

Murphy, Mick and Johnny

Baby and Thomas

Leo, Chance and Homer

Kennedy, Toledo and Stormy

Dolly, Maisie and Silky