Gastric ulceration, appetite and feeding practices in standardbred racehorses in the Czech Republic.

摘要

The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of poor appetite and its correlation with the prevalence of gastric ulceration and to evaluate the relation between feeding management (feeding frequency and feeding regularity) and gastric ulceration. 54 Standardbred racehorses in training were used in this study. The prevalence of gastric ulceration in the group of horses with poor general appetite was 94.8%. The prevalence of gastric ulceration in the group of horses with good generalappetite was 48.6%. A significant association between poor general appetite and squamous gastric ulcer presence was observed (p<0.001). Gastric ulceration was found in 75.0% of horses fed twice daily and in 57.9% horses fed thrice a day. 57.9% ofregularly fed horses had gastric ulcers. 75% of the irregularly fed horses were ulcer-positive. An insignificant association between feeding frequency or regularity and the occurrence of gastric ulcers was observed.