The Pro Earth Difference
Every member of the Pro Earth team has a vested interest in animal health. As horse and cattle owners, we know first-hand the imporance of keeping your animals healthy — whether you’re competing in the arena or counting pounds in the feedlot. This is your primary goal, and it’s ours, too. That is why we are committed to bringing you affordable, effective, all-natural products that deliver reliable, noticeable results.
Horses are intelligent, sensitive animals. This makes them more prone to stress-related issues, such as ulcers. Zesterra is designed to protect the stomach and combat the acid fluctuations that can occur with stress while helping maintain an optimal pH.
Horses are intelligent, sensitive animals. This makes them more prone to stress-related issues, such as ulcers. Zesterra is designed to protect the stomach and combat the acid fluctuations that can occur with stress while helping maintain an optimal pH.
Natural Supplements for Cattle & Horses
Using a natural supplement for cows and calves can not only increase their production capacity and weight gain, but also increase immunity, protecting them from diseases. Similarly, you can reduce stress and improve the nutritional utilization fo performance horses, mares & foals, older horses (hard keepers), and breeding horses by adding an all-natural supplement to your horse’s diet.
Natural supplements may be used to improve nutritional quality, boost the immune system and protect animals from ailments like diarrhea, dehydration, stress and ruminal acidosis. Acidosis is a common metabolic condition caused by a rapid reduction in pH levels in the rumen. It’s commonly caused by feeding cattle a diet with a high concentration of grains.
Most preconditioners, producers, growers, and dairymen depend on concentrated feed formulated to promote rapid growth and consistent milk quality. While this should yield desired results, a switch from a diet of grass or hay to one that contains a high concentration of carbohydrates can result in a drop in pH due to the rapid digestion of carbohydrates. When pH drops, it can lead to the death of beneficial gut bacteria, allowing the growth of opportunistic bacteria that produce a large amount of lactic acid. This is common among calves, heifers, dairy cows and feedlot cattle.
Benefits of Using CattlActive
Our natural bovine supplement, CattlActive, is made of 100% natural ingredients, offering a product with no side effects and no exit period. Because natural animal products such as CattlActive do not contain chemicals or pharmaceuticals, they have no negative effects on the cow and calf or the milk and meat that is produced for human consumption.
A 100% natural supplement can be safely used in conjunction with other forms of medication or preventatives, such as vaccinations. Effective natural supplements can also re-establish and support a healthy environment inside the rumen and digestive tract of a cow. Natural ingredients in the supplement act as prebiotics, helping to increase the growth of good bacteria while raising the stomach’s pH level.
Who Should Invest in a Natural Supplement Like CattlActive?
- Ranchers who want to prevent scouring and death of calves due to bad weather and dehydration
- Preconditioners and feeders looking to help cattle transition easily to a high concentrate diet
- Dairymen looking to increase milk yield and regulate ruminal pH
- Breeders who need to reduce and eliminate stress in their cattle
- Ranchers who want their calves to thrive through better consumption, leading to greater weight gains
- Cattlemen looking for an effective way to get calves back to eating and drinking immediately after branding or weaning to prevent acidosis
Warning Signs of Acidosis
The key warning signs and symptoms of acidosis include:
- A reduction in chewing capacity
- Unhealthy weight loss
- Reduced intake of dry matter
Scours or diarrhea
Acidosis Requires Prompt Action
It’s better to prevent acidosis than to cure it because:
- Acute acidosis may cause shock and/or death
- Damage of the stomach lining may occur, leading to inflammation
- List Leaky gut and damage of the rumen wall may also occur
- Acidosis causes low feed efficiency, slow weight gain, and slow growth
- It can sometimes weaken the immune system and make the animal more susceptible to infection
- Acidosis also increases the risk of bloat and laminitis
Using Natural Supplements to Prevent Acidosis
Acidosis is not always easy to detect, and any cow with this condition can experience a rapid deterioration in health. To prevent acidosis, you can:
- Adopt a different type of grain processing to change the fermentation rate in the cattle’s rumen
- Use a natural cattle supplement, like CattlActive, which can neutralize rumen acid, helping to increase the number of probiotics and support a healthy microbiome in the rumen
- Feed a high-forage diet to reduce the production of D-lactate in the rumen
Common Health Issues for Horses
Some of the most common health issues horses experience include:
Stomach Ulcers
Gastric ulcers are common in horses of all ages and are especially prevalent in horses with irregular feeding schedules, foals, or performance horses who are engaged in a lot of exercise. Horses are designed to graze 24/7 to ensure forage is always in the stomach to reduce acid, however, for most domestic horses, this feeding schedule is often impossible. When horses have an empty stomach — or are exposed to strenuous activity — acid may splash onto the delicate mucosal areas of the stomach, resulting in ulcers forming in the stomach. Ulcers are dangerous for horses as they cause several issues such as loss of appetite and thirst. This means that there is even less food in the stomach to absorb the acid, which results in higher stress levels and an increase in the production of stomach acid. Ulcers also result in extreme discomfort for the horse, causing irritability and loss of performance.
Lack of Water Consumption (Dehydration)
When horses are under a lot of stress, particularly those who travel or train extensively, they may experience an increase in water loss through sweat and expiration, not to mention a decrease in water consumption. Most horses should be drinking about 1 gallon of water (3.79 litres) per 100 lbs (500 kg) of body weight each day to ensure proper hydration. Water is crucial for horses as it helps them regulate their body temperature, facilitates in the digestion of their food and helps them absorb nutrients. In addition to dehydration, a lack of water intake may result in additional health issues such as colic, heat stroke, inability to properly digest feed, metabolize nutrients, and more.
Equine Colic
Colic is a disorder of the digestive system which results in severe abdominal pain or discomfort for the horse. It can be fatal, making prevention of equine colic essential. While there are several types of equine colic with varying degrees of severity, typically, horses with colic will exhibit behaviors such as:
- Rolling on the ground
- Lying down
- Inability to defecate
- Loss of appetite
- Abnormal pulse (more than 50 beats per minute)
- Anxiety or depression
- Inadequate water consumption
Using Natural Equine Supplements to Reduce Stress
Many of the equine health issues listed above can be dramatically improved by reducing the stress level of the horse. Lower stress levels result in less acid being produced in the horse’s stomach, which means there is less chance the horse will develop stomach ulcers, chronic colic, and other health issues. Interestingly, in a catch-22 like scenario, excess acid can create discomfort which increases stress, further promoting the production of acid.
Benefits of Using Zesterra
Zesterra, our 100% all-natural equine supplement, works by neutralizing the pH of the horse’s stomach to:
- Encourage eating and drinking
- Provide a more balanced environment where beneficial microbes can thrive
- Aid in the prevention of ulcer progression
- Improve feed utilization and nutrient aborption
