Ulcers, The Domestication Disease

The Invisible Cost of the Modern Horse World

If there is one condition that perfectly captures the domestic horse’s adjustment to human life, it is this.

Gastric ulcers.

Ulcers have become so common in modern horses that many people now treat them as normal.

They are not normal.

They are widespread because the domestic environment creates the perfect conditions for them.

To understand ulcers, you have to understand the horse’s design.

A horse produces stomach acid continuously.

Not just at meals.

Continuously.

In the wild, that acid is buffered almost constantly by a steady trickle of forage.

The horse grazes through the day, fibre forms a protective mat, saliva flows, and the stomach is rarely empty.

Domestic life breaks that system.

Meal feeding creates long gaps.

Horses stand for hours with an empty stomach while acid continues to rise.

Add stress, confinement, training pressure, social instability, travel, and the modern horse becomes the perfect ulcer candidate.

This is why I call ulcers a domestication disease.

Not because horses are fragile.

Because we have built a lifestyle that conflicts with their biology.

Ulcers do not always look dramatic.

Many horses suffer quietly.

Common signs include:

A horse that becomes girthy or irritable.

A horse that loses weight despite eating.

A horse that becomes picky or slow to finish meals.

A horse that changes attitude under saddle.

A horse that seems anxious, reactive, or restless.

A horse that cribs, weaves, or develops stable habits.

A horse that simply is “not quite right.”

Ulcers are not just a stomach issue.

They affect behaviour, performance, immunity, and overall wellbeing.

And here is the hard truth.

You cannot supplement your way out of an unnatural system.

Treatment matters, yes.

But prevention is husbandry in its deepest sense.

The ulcer prone horse is often the horse living against its design.

The solution is foundational:

More forage time.

Fewer feeding gaps.

More movement.

Less confinement.

More social stability.

Management that respects the horse’s nervous system, not just its schedule.

A horse is not built for meals, stalls, isolation, and constant pressure.

The domestic horse tolerates these things remarkably.

But the stomach keeps the score.

Ulcers are not weakness.

They are the body’s protest against a life too far removed from nature.

When we begin feeding and managing horses in a way that honours what they are, ulcers become far less mysterious.

The wild horse inside the domestic horse starts to settle again.