Diagnosing Hind Gut Ulcers in Horses
If your horse has a weak hind end that’s unrelated to physical injury, and if the horse has a long history of stomach ulcers, then there is a likelihood that a hind gut ulcer has caused the problem. Nutrient Buffer® H/G is designed to do for the hind gut what the original Nutrient Buffer® liquid does for the stomach. The two products combined are a complete buffering system for the equine digestive tract.
Signs of Excess Acidity in the Hind Gut:
- Hind Gut Ulcers
- String halt
- Hiking
- Shivers
- Allergies
- Hives - see clinical trial on hives
- EPM and various hind end neurological syndromes from leaky gut syndrome
- Left front stress hoof and tendon problems in working horses, as the weight is shifted from the weakened right hind to the left front
- The appearance of hock problems in right hind, but hock injections don’t help
- Difficulty with the right lead
- Weakness of the hind end, especially the right hind
- Often you see a slew foot on the left front and a clubby looking foot on the right front, as weight is shifted more to the stable left front
- Hyper, nervous, separation anxiety, wild ADD ADHD
- Bolting
- Gaunt look in the flank
- Periodic diarrhea or loose stools
- Often times, the owner reports an injury to the right hind that precipitates more severe symptoms, but that is because the right hind was weakened by hind gut ulcers
- Cannot bring the right hind forward as far as the left hind at the walk and canter, causing both hind legs to act almost as one, rabbit hopping at the canter.
- Racing horses often will point the head to the right, and travel and drift to the right. Jockey will report that they have to put more weight in left stirrup and pull on left rein to keep horse straight, often thinking it is a learning problem, which it is not. Gives jockey a sore left shoulder.
Manure can be off color, from excessively dark to clay color and cow patty like, with little to no formation. Manure smells off from incorrect fermentation bacteria because of acidic pH favoring wrong bacteria in hind gut.
Stance is often a tripod stance, cow hocks, changing from close behind and wide in front to the opposite for resting, and then back again. Cowhocks is not necessarily genetic, and can be corrected, even in adult horses who were born with it — see the clinical trial on Environmental Cowhocks here
If you have signs of hind gut ulcers, you'll also likely find upper gastric ulcers as they usually preceed lower gastric ones.
