I also like Uckele Gut for an affordable supplement! Helped my older mares irritated gut issues due to teeth problems. Went from liquid/very loose to almost no regular poo to 85% regular poo in a little bit less than a month. I also had my OTTB mare on it when I got her straight off the track, and it definitely helped her as well.
Second vote for Purina Outlast. Seems to work, initial cost of a bag is over $30 but it lasts longer than a month!
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As an interesting aside, I take Apple Cider Vinegar with the Mother for myself, and it completely cures my heartburn/indigestion. I mix 1 tablespoon in 12 oz of water. For some reason, I really like the taste - it’s like unsweetened apple juice and it’s kind of refreshing. I’ve noticed that if I don’t have it for a few days, I will get heartburn and need to take an OTC Prilosec or Ranitidine – and they aren’t even as effective as the Apple Cider Vinegar.
This looks intriguing but would it’s buffering action only work for a short period of time? Like when you take a Tums. It helps now but is no help in 8 hours.
I’ve become a big fan of Purina Outlast
He gets it in his breakfast, maybe 87 or 8ish, and at dinnertime at 4 or 5 he still cleans out his bucket. That’s just a bit over eight hours. He also doesn’t eat hay (soaked hay pellets) and finishes his lunchtime pellet snack, so he’s comfy enough to eat that and keep some food in his belly. You can always try a small bag and see how it goes for you.
My guy is girthy (I think he just hates his dressage girth) and today I gave him 1 1/2 cups of Outlast to munch on while I assembled all my riding stuff and he seemed less pissy about his girth. I think Outlast is a good product. My personal opinion is it needs to dosed at least 3 times a day but is great before rides.
This is really interesting. I haven’t see this product mentioned anywhere before. I see that it shares some common ingredients with Uckele Gut, minus the proprietary probiotics. It certainly has an attractive price point!
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Over in barrel racer land, everyone has been raving about the Purina Ultium Gastric Care. (which is basically a combination of the Purina Outlast and Amplify) Something to do with the molecules and how they are digested in the horse’s stomach, is what supposedly makes it “different”. I only had my guys on it for not even a month at the end of last season, but I plan to feed it this year and see how it goes. I did treat my Shotgun for ulcers last fall - mostly he does get a little cinchy by the end of the year and gets loose in his stools. (we opted not to scope) The ulcer treatment didn’t really seem to help much, so I am very curious how having him on the Ultium will work (or not work) for the year and if he still comes up with his usual late-season cinchiness. Of interest, Shotgun is NOT a worrier at all! He’s actually totally laid back. But we do haul and compete, and that can be stressful enough.
So, something else to add to your thought list!
Be careful with Ultium Gastric Care. It’s a great product, but you need to read the label carefully. You need to feed quite a lot of grain 3x/day in order for the horse to receive a full dose of Purina Outlast.
After analyzing my horse’s diet, my vet and I decided to stick with standard Ultium and Outlast as separate products. It would simply be too much food for him to feed the combined product.
Of course it will vary horse-to-horse, but I’ve had several acquaintances feel like it made a huge difference for their horses, only doing 1 measuring cup per day of the Ultium Gastric (not the plain Outlast)
You’re right, the bag does “instruct” to feed a lot of it. I don’t follow bags. 
Interesting to note, though.
I like Gastroade made by Cox Vet Labs. Very similar to U-Gard but has more of each ingredient and is cheaper. Along with Aloe Vera.
Zantac 150mg x 10 pills a day, cost is $0.08/pill on Amazon or Walmart, well within your budget.
Feed chia! I work directly with Mary Hartman the CEO of Pure Form Equine that creates Choc Full A Chia. She has devoted so much of her time to researching the ingredients she puts in her biscuits. I’ve put all of my competition horses on the biscuits. If you are looking for an option for a horse who is showing symptons of ulcer’s I would choose the Papaya Panacea biscuit, but for general gastric health any of the variety of chia biscuits offer the support you’re looking for. I’ve linked the brand below. Mary has posted tons of her own research that can provide better directions that I can. (Shamless snub, I do have a CCR4 discount code you can use.) But, really check it out and do your own research. The price point is what you’re looking for. My guys get 3/day.
https://www.pureformequine.com/
How does this fit the price point? If my math is correct 3 of the Papaya biscuits/ day is $1.76/ day or $53 per month which is almost double what the OP had as her budget ($30). I’m all for chia (don’t think it helps with ulcers but feed it for other reasons) but there are cheaper alternatives the Pureform treats - I use ifsbulk.com and can get almost 2 months worth of chia for less than $30 shipped.
I made a diet change five months ago with my ulcery horse to address explosive behavioral issues and it has been dramatically successful. The unexpected side effect is that I am saving boatloads of money. If you want to heal the gut and prevent the cause of the ulcers rather than the symptoms, spend some time reading these blogs:
https://theequinepractice.com/decomp…on-12-summary/
I pasted the link to the final/summary blog. But if you scroll to the bottom there is a list of all 12 blogs explaining the whys and how’s of feeding a forage diet with protein supplementation.
Instead of expensive feeds (Cavalor), ration balancers, ulcer supplements (Gastrotechg/Gastro Care), and Ulcerguard (for my ulcery guy that was starting 48 hrs before a show, out of town travel, or similar stressful situations, continuing through the show, and tapering after), I now feed only a small amount of soybean meal to each horse every day in addition to the free choice grass hay and pasture they had already been getting and a flake of alfalfa. Tge horse in the heaviest work also gets some Coolstance. And they have Himalayan rock salt.
Soybean meal (needs to be de-hulled, oil-extracted, and toasted/roasted) is in many, many horse feeds already because it’s an excellent protein source. I get it from the local feed store. A 100# bag costs $38. I feed each horse 1 pound a day. After 6-12 months on this diet many horses can drop to 1/2 pound a day.
So I am spending $0.38 per horse per day (plus hay and salt, which I was already buying/feeding).
I can’t begin to add up what I was spending six months ago on Ulcerguard, Cavalor, Mrs. Pasture’s Cookies, etc. If you want to try this regime, be completely committed to it for several weeks (no treats other than alfalfa cubes or salted peanuts, no red mineral salt blocks, none of the supplements that you are feeding that have grain biproducts like wheat middlings, etc.) and see if it works for you. You can always go back to the way you used to feed, but if you get the results I’ve seen, you will never feed grains or grain products again. You, your horses, and your wallet will be thrilled.
Just grass, hay, alfalfa, SBM, and later if extra calories are needed perhaps some Coolstance.
I did not try this diet to save money. I tried this diet in desperatation to make my horse comfortable. But i am saving a boatload and my four horses look fabulous on it.
And my horses work! One shows I-2 dressage and is schooling all the GP with hopes to show at that level soonish, and has plenty of energy for his work (he’s the only one getting some Coolstance). I jump my mare (3’6"ish). They go for two hour hacks regularly.
I hope this helps. Before trying adding all these other things to the diet suggested throughout this thread, I’d instead try pulling all the stuff that is likely causing the ulcers in the first place, let the gut and the microbes heal. Least expensive way to go. And from my experience and that of a dozen friends who have made this switch after observing my horses, this diet is the least intrusive and most likely to be a sustainable program that solves the underlying issues.
Lots of info in those blogs and the Q&As at the end of them. And the vet who wrote them has been very accessible and helpful to me via email. Good luck!
This is VERY interesting to me ( you got me at “explosive behavior” lol). I’ve always wanted to simplify my horse’s diet, feed her mostly hay and very little grain but she is a 21 old Tb who’s always been a hard keeper ever since I got her from the track at 4. She has been in very good weight / condition for a number of years now, on TC Senior or Fibermax + comprehensive joint supplement + U-guard. She still does, however, have those “explosive moments” (almost bucked me off into the arena wall last week-end) which I mostly think are linked to lack of work and being stalled for the winter…
I am scared of changing her diet and see her lose weight again…
Read the blogs. A lot of hard keepers are getting plenty of calories shoveled into them but their guts aren’t healthy enough to extract what they need. Thus diet can heal the gut and let them build muscle and top line. I bet if you read the blogs you will recognize your horse’s issues and you will be convinced to give it a try. A friend in Tryon with a hard keeper has seen tremendous results for her horse and now has switched all of her horses to this and many of her students are following suit.
Where do you buy them? I have a preferred site, but always looking for others.
I give my gelding 4 oz of aloe vera juice with 2 tsp of slippery elm powder in his evening bucket (mixed together they form a thick, mucilaginous “snot” to coat the gut). Works great; aloe vera juice gallon at Walmart is under $7 and lasts for a month; Starwest slippery elm powder is around $28 a pound, and a pound lasts about 6 months @ 2 tsps a day. I get the slippery elm from Swanson Vitamins. This combo seems to work better for my ulcer prone gelding than straight aloe vera juice or any of the commercial products I’ve tried in the past, and you sure as heck can’t beat the price.
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