Improved Nutrient Absorption

Digestive health means more than just avoiding serious issues like ulcers and colic. That’s because being healthy is more than just not being sick. It means all systems are functioning optimally – starting with equine nutrition. Improving nutrient absorption is one key way to help even a healthy horse function even better. When your horse can get all it needs out of its food, its overall wellness will improve as will its ability to be that partner you’ve always wanted.

Equine Nutrition Affects Overall Health

Horses are able to get a large portion of their nutrition from good quality grass and hay. Small amounts of grain or supplements may be necessary to provide nutrients that are sometimes missing from different grasses. And how well – or not – horses absorb the nutrients from their feed affects several key factors of a horse’s health and performance ability:

• Energy levels
• Stamina and speed
• Ability to recover quickly from exercise
• Maintaining weight

For all of these reasons, it’s important to ensure that your horse is getting all it can from the food it eats.

How Nutrients are Digested and Absorbed

Digesting Sugars: Easy

Horses obtain sugar from both pasture grasses and from processed or hard feed. The simple sugars in both are readily digestible and are primarily digested in the small intestine

Digesting Starches: Hard

Starch is more structurally complex than sugar, making it more difficult for the horse to digest. A major component of cereal grains, starch makes up 50% of oats and around 70% of corn.

Horses can digest some types of starches more readily than others. And depending on factors such as the type of starch, transit time through the small intestine, and availability of starch-digesting enzymes, some starch may reach the hindgut undigested.

Absorbing Vitamins, Fat, and Protein

It’s fairly easy for horses to digest fat, protein, and vitamins, all of which happens in the small intestine. Proteins are broken down into their smaller components called amino acids, and then absorbed into the bloodstream along with these other nutrients.

Fermenting Fiber for Energy

Nutrients are absorbed in the span of a few hours as they pass through the small intestine. Everything that remains then makes its way to the hindgut where it ferments for as long as 2-3 days. At this point, all that should be left is the fiber from forage. It ferments in the cecum and is absorbed in the colon, providing the horse’s primary source of energy.

Improving Nutrient Absorption With SUCCEED®

When a horse’s GI function is compromised, it can’t digest and absorb nutrients as well. Your horse may not be absorbing enough fat and protein to maintain his weight. He might be lethargic and lazy because he’s not getting enough of the all-important VFAs produced by fermenting fiber. Or energy-providing grains are passing through the small intestines too quickly to be fully digested and absorbed.

SUCCEED® Digestive Conditioning Program® is formulated from natural ingredients that aid digestive function. It increases nutrient absorption with:

• Oat Flour (beta-glucan): SUCCEED® contains oat flour rich in a soluble fiber called Beta glucan, which moderates transit time in digestion.  This allows for increased digestion of processed feeds in the small intestines as well as a moderated release of sugar into the bloodstream.
• Irradiated Dried Yeast: two types of complex yeast sugars in SUCCEED®, known as Mannan Oligosaccharides (MOS), act as a sponge to remove bad bacteria and toxins that can hinder digestive function in the hindgut and affect overall health.
• L-Glutamine: this amino acid helps build the villi (ripples in the gut wall), maximizing surface area for greater nutrient absorption.
• L-Threonine: an essential amino acid, supports the production of mucin, a necessary component of mucus that lubricates and protects the GI tract lining.
• Oat Oil (polar lipids): the oat oil in SUCCEED is rich in Polar Lipids, fat molecules that coat damaged tissues in the gut and provide an amazing conduit for getting nutrients into the bloodstream.

Improve your horse’s ability to get the most from its feed by taking the SUCCEED Challenge today.