Gastric Ulcers and Behavior Problems
When your normally well-behaved performance horse starts acting strangely, what do you do? Do you immediately think he's developing an attitude or do you look for other causes? If your horse demonstrates any or all of the behaviors below you may want to think twice before assuming he has an attitude problem:

• Refusing jumps
• Acting up in the alley way
• Kicking in the trailer
• Pinning his ears when you put your leg on
• Biting or kicking when his girth is tightened

While these may seem like a group of unrelated symptoms, they're not. They are common symptoms in horses with ulcers. Veterinarians and other researchers have recently recognized gastric and colonic ulcers as serious health threats, especially among performance horses or horses in training. The reasons ulcers are so common among these horses include:

• Infrequent high carbohydrate meals plus inadequate access to hay or pasture
• Heavy training schedules
• High stress environments
• Excessive use of drugs, especially non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs

Since most of the research has focused on gastric ulcers (rather than colonic), we know quite a bit about the factors that cause them.

Thanks for reading this preview! The remainder of this section in Holistic Horsekeeping discusses the causes of ulcers and why they can cause behavior problems, natural alternatives for treating ulcers, and dietary guidelines for horses with ulcers.

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