It is known that for a healthy horse, we need a healthy gut. Many horse owners spend large amounts of time, effort and money on supplements and management practices to ensure optimal gut health for their horses, however most of the time we are doing it via guess work without knowing what is actually happening within our horses.

Arguably, the most important part of a horse’s gut health is the microbiome. The bacterial community (microbiome) present in horses’ guts is a key part of your horse’s health, with the microbiome responsible for digestion of food and immunity. Between 30-40% of a horses’ energy requirements comes from the fermentation of fibre by caecum microbes, therefore the ratio of microbial family/genera can have overall health impacts. Imbalances can lead to conditions such as colitis, scouring and even colic. Horses with gut issues, poor condition or even obesity related conditions may benefit from microbiome profiling to enable more informed decisions about diet, management or medication changes to improve horse health. Microbiome profiling may even be used to increase performance, with high levels of certain bacteria resulting in improved fuelling for high performance horses.  

WormCheck is looking into introducing a faecal microbiome profiling service for horse owners, and I am hoping for ~30 horse owners who would be interested in being involved by getting their horses screened while I optimise kits, timing of results, reports and to help to fund the purchasing of required lab equipment/reagents.

Initial pricing is $250 per horse, this will include collection kits, all postage, and a microbiome profile report with suggestions for diet and management changes to improve their microbiome and potentially health and performance. At the moment, I am investigating the possibility of outright purchasing the equipment to do the all work in house, compared to outsourcing some parts (which has a 4-6 week wait time).