Hi all!
I know that some people swear by probiotics, while others (and some studies) say they do jack…I’ve used Probios for my horse before/during times of stress (changing barns, shipping, weekend shows, increased stall time, blah blah etc) and can’t say I’ve noticed a difference one way or the other. I wanted to get people’s personal and hear-say experiences.
I have used them sporadically over the years, similarly to you. If one of my horses are on anti-biotics or have had medication I give it to them. One suffers from ulcers and he was given one, he would also get bloated. I found it really helped with that. However, I know some people don’t like them as apparently it stops the stomach from producing the good bacteria itself and becomes reliant on it?
DH’s mare has a bit of a sensitive stomach especially when the spring grass comes in. He will run a course of about 2-4 weeks of Equine Choice probiotics and it does seem to help her. Her manure is less foul and her gas seems to subside.
I did put my mare on them as well recently after she had surgery and was on bute. I figured it couldn’t hurt and may help keep her insides a bit happier with the stress of post-op recovery.
I know others who have tried various probios and have not noticed and positive change. Perhaps they are better to use when actually needed and not as a year round feed supplement?
ETA: too early in the morning to spell words
After my first horse had colic surgery (fatty tumor strangulation) I was given a probiotic by Rood and Riddle just to help with manure consistency etc., but they said I could use it for however long I wanted if I wanted to keep paying for it. That horse developed complications and didn’t make it, but I’ve kept it up with my new horse. I think it makes a difference with him especially when travelling and showing. FWIW, My vets haven’t ever been concerned or mentioned that his gut could become reliant on the probiotic.
my horse has been prone to mild intermittent diarrhea and I love Manna Pro Otizyme. It really helps! It’s cheap and I don’t need to do the full dose.
I find that supplements totally work different on each horse. I have used the Pro-Bios and seen the most success with TBs and specifically my older 29 yo. We put him on it starting last year in fall to get him ready for winter and it did wonders. He stayed on it the entire winter and we weaned him off this summer to see if he needed to stay on it and did fine without. He had super runny poop and looked awful but it really helped cleanup and clear out his system. Hes doing much better this fall going into winter so we have not started it again but I have some ready should we need to.
I know we had some warmbloods on it at the time as well, and with them we noticed no difference.
When I’ve got a horse with really loose stool I start with probios. That usually clears it up pretty quickly. Within a day. Any longer than that I call the vet, but it’s rare that I need to.
I have a lot of friends who swear by Probios, Platinum Balance, etc. Vets too. Especially for horses like mine who have problems with changes in hay, grass, etc. A lot of hard feeds have probiotics in them already. I have not noticed a difference personally with adding a probiotic supplement.
My thought is Can’t Hurt, May Help.
My newest guy came to me (just over a year ago) on daily Fast Track.
Owner supplied a goodly amount & I continued it for him as well as adding it to my pony’s ration.
When it ran low I found a probiotic supplement with near-identical ingredient list at my local feedstore & switched to that.
Both are in great health, digestive & overall.
Pony was in good shape/no issues before I added this supplement.
Cheap enough so I’d rather just keep feeding daily than use PRN.
when my horse gets diarrhea related to change in diet (usually coming off pasture and starting hay), I use this:
https://www.horseherbs.com/product/probioplus/
It has always cleared up the problem in the ten days recommended dosage. I don’t continue to feed it as she has good digestion otherwise.
I also took some human probiotics (finally) this past summer when I had persistent similar symptoms, maybe from mild foodborne illness of some sort, and it fixed me too.
If the probiotics did not make a fairly quick improvement, I would go further with medical tests. And I don’t see the value of continuing to feed them if the gut has rebalanced and everything is working OK.
They made a WORLD of difference when my one horse was laid up on 2 different antibiotics and NSAIDS (and ompeprazole and sucralfate for GI protection). Without probios paste and powder, she was anorexic. With probios, she would clean up her hay and at least eat some of her feed. It was as important for her as the omperazole IMO.
In more normal situations, I haven’t seen anywhere near as dramatic results. But man, it sure helped in that situation.
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I wish I could say that it helped, but it didn’t. I’ve tried probiotics and prebiotics, of various makes and blends, and the ONLY thing that helped was metronidazole.
That said, I do use TRM’s Gut Nutrition Formula on two horses, both of whom are ulcer-prone. The GNF helps, but it’s hard to say whether that’s the probiotic properties or the “raft”. Certainly one of the horses has been on every available probiotic/prebiotic known to man, with NO change at all
[QUOTE=SendenHorse;8889950]
my horse has been prone to mild intermittent diarrhea and I love Manna Pro Otizyme. It really helps! It’s cheap and I don’t need to do the full dose.[/QUOTE]
I’ll second this. The Optizyme is very effective and cheap! My gelding had issues with watery manure for years. Vet said it wasn’t anything to worry about but it was messy. The Optizyme worked very well. The HorseTech High Point vitamin/mineral supplement (with prebiotics and probiotics) also worked very well.
Since I’ve started feeding him a few pounds of TC Senior every day, I haven’t needed to add anything else.
My sons horse needs probios every once in a while. When we first got him, nearly 10 years ago, we observed him repeatedly eating manure. This is exactly what newborn foals do to get the gut flora in their systems initially. We dosed him with probios and the behavior stopped. Every 9-12 months for the next few years we’d see him nibbling manure again, and every time the behavior would stop as soon as he got some probios.
Now my son is grown, and he and his horse were off on their own. Recently the horse came back to me for care while my son relocated. He arrived thin, and in spite of being on grassy pasture nearly 24/7 he was not gaining. Dosed him with probios and within days he had noticeably gained weight.
My horse, on the other hand, has never had pro-bios, not have I seen in him any need for them.
[QUOTE=no.stirrups;8891621]
My sons horse needs probios every once in a while. When we first got him, nearly 10 years ago, we observed him repeatedly eating manure. This is exactly what newborn foals do to get the gut flora in their systems initially. We dosed him with probios and the behavior stopped. Every 9-12 months for the next few years we’d see him nibbling manure again, and every time the behavior would stop as soon as he got some probios.
Now my son is grown, and he and his horse were off on their own. Recently the horse came back to me for care while my son relocated. He arrived thin, and in spite of being on grassy pasture nearly 24/7 he was not gaining. Dosed him with probios and within days he had noticeably gained weight.
My horse, on the other hand, has never had pro-bios, not have I seen in him any need for them.[/QUOTE]
The research on probiotics in humans is interesting. In early life, we each develop our own particular gut flora, and as adults we tend to revert to that gut flora. Like foals eating manure, we grow that gut flora from our early exposure to microbes. There is evidence to suggest that babies born by C-section miss some important bacteria, and that babies brought up in particularly clean environments also don’t develop as strong a gut flora population.
If you load a person up with probiotics and sauerkraut 
you can alter their gut flora, but they tend to revert back to their own “normal” level after you stop treatment. But if the person has lost gut flora due to illness or antibiotics, you can build their flora back up to their own “normal” level.
So all this would support the use of probiotics as needed for horses with symptoms like diarrhea, or horses on antibiotics, or horses that have shown to have hind-gut problems. But if the horse has no problems, then there is likely no point feeding them, as this poster says.
Something to keep in mind is that probiotics function in the hind gut, they increase the “good” microbe level in the colon/large intestine. Horses can be prone to disruptions in the microbes in the colon, if they get too much undigested sugar or starch making its way back there. And I think that if a horse has chronic diarrhea, he can reach a point where he is just squirting out too fast to rebuild a stable microbe population.
So there might be a role for probiotics in treating hind-gut ulcers.
But probiotics do not function in the stomach or foregut/small intestine. The digestion process there is different, it is enzyme-based. So I would not expect probiotics to do anything at all for stomach ulcers.
Also, the human research is suggesting that really effective pro-biotic treatment will eventually be based on testing the gut flora of the individual, and recommending a pro-biotic mix tailored to the individual. There are many different microbes that make it into both human and horse pro-biotics. This means that you might find one brand works better on a particular horse than another brand does.
The problem with any of those products is that they are effective once past the stomach, not in the stomach.
The trouble here, they have to pass thru the stomach and it’s acids and that acid tends to destroy probiotics.
Some are getting around by trying to protect their products from stomach acid, so they go where they need to, others by using PRE-, not PRO-biotics.
Prebiotics tend to make it thru better.
That is one reason today in cases where reforesting intestinal flora is necessary, like after treating for c-dif, the standard is directly by enema.
This is all fairly new science as applied and there are ongoing studies.
I just posted in my thread that my horse started eating another horse’s poop today. And with such vigor that if I tried to get him to leave the poop alone, he would rear!
I have tried probiotics in the past (Platinum Balance), and he gets some in his food, but maybe I need to pick up some Probios from the local store today???
