01/12/2025
🐴🧠 When Behaviour Changes, Don’t Blame the Gut First! Look at the Whole Horse
One of the problems in modern equine care is how quickly gastric issues get blamed for every behavioural change.
Yes, the gut matters.
Yes, diet, forage access, feeding routines, and stress can absolutely contribute to gastric disease.
And yes, gastric discomfort can absolutely influence behaviour.
But here’s the key point we keep missing:
👉 Gastric issues are often the result of something else going wrong, not the root cause.
The two biggest and most commonly overlooked contributors?
1️⃣ Musculoskeletal Pain
Musculoskeletal pain, even subtle, low-grade, or chronic, is one of the most frequently missed problems in horses.
As discussed in one of my old articles
https://www.theequinedocumentalist.com/recognising-pain-in-the-horse/
When a horse is working in pain:
• Cortisol rises
• Eating patterns change
• Resting patterns change
• The nervous system shifts into protection mode
• And the gut is one of the first systems to suffer
Pain doesn’t just change movement, it changes physiology.
Ulcers may then develop secondary to the stress and compromised function caused by the underlying pain.
2️⃣ Psychosocial Stress
Horses are highly social, highly emotional animals. Their environment shapes their physiology.
As discussed in our ethology series
https://equineeducationhub.thinkific.com/bundles/how-can-the-equine-industry-maintain-its-social-licence-to-operate
Psychosocial stresses such as:
• Inconsistent routines
• Social isolation
• Frequent transport
• High-pressure training environments
• Poor turnout opportunities
• Rider inconsistency or conflict
• Unpredictable handling
• Lack of choice or agency
…all elevate stress hormones, suppress the immune system, and destabilise the gut environment.
These stresses can cause or worsen gastric disease.
And yet, these are rarely the first things examined.
⚠️ The Gut Is Vital, But Often Not the Starting Point
Of course, diet and gut health can be primary issues.
Poor forage quality, long fasting periods, high-starch feeds, dehydration, and certain medications can all contribute directly to gastric discomfort.
But more often than we acknowledge, the gut is the victim of a larger, unaddressed problem, not the villain.
🧩 Behaviour rarely has a single cause
A horse may show gastric symptoms…
But that doesn’t mean gastric disease is the origin of the behaviour.
A whole-horse approach means considering:
• Musculoskeletal integrity
• Hoof balance and farriery
• Saddle fit
• Rider influence
• Workload and biomechanics
• Environmental stability
• Herd dynamics
• Stress load
• Diet, forage access, and feeding rhythm
• And finally… gastric health
🌿 The message is simple:
When a horse changes behaviour, look deeper than the stomach.
Recognise that the gut is part of a wider system, influenced by pain, emotion, environment, and biomechanics.
Gastric disease deserves attention.
But we should never allow it to become the easy scapegoat that distracts us from the real underlying welfare issues.
See the whole horse. Follow the root cause. Honour what the behaviour is telling you.
Join Dr Ben Skye’s and I tomorrow for a delve into gastric disease.
https://equineeducationhub.thinkific.com/courses/egus
Recording will be available!
