ABOUT ALKAPELLET PH PLUS

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Alkapellet PH PLUS as the name suggests is a high alkaline, fibre pellet.  It is produced using Oat hull, and Home’n’Dry (an ammonia releasing agent & Soya meals), once ammoni’ation has been achieved the pellet has gone through a chemical process resulting in ammonia bicarbonate. 



Alkapellet PH PLUS helps your horse’s digestive system to function optimally.  This results in a shiny, healthy coat, better overall condition, an increase in gut sounds and allows him/her to recover from stressful situations quicker ie; travel, hard workouts, competition, racing and changes in environment.



To understand this better we have to look at the digestive system and how it works.  Horses have evolved eating diets mainly of grass and hay, due to physical demands and the much heavier workloads that are required of performance horses we have found we need to feed higher energy feeds.  These higher energy feeds upset the natural balance of microbes in your horse’s large intestine (hind gut). 



Horses produce a large amount of salvia as they eat, between 12-20 litres, depending on what they are eating.  Grains and dry feeds produce less saliva than horses eating hay as the major roughage source.  Salvia is important as it helps to prepare the food for entry into the digestive system, saliva has a high bicarbonate content.  Alkapellet PH PLUS will help boost these bicarbonate levels.



The alkaline nature of Alkapellet PH PLUS helps support the naturally occurring bicarbonate produced by the small intestine.

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The large intestine (hind gut) is designed as a fibre digestion site. Horses do not have the ability to directly digest some forms of particularly tough fibre found in grass and hay.  To get over this problem, horses have a very special (Symbiotic) relationship with a number of bacteria and other small bugs (protozoa and fungal microbes) that live in the large intestine (hind gut). These “good bugs” live and work their entire lives inside the horse, digesting the fibrous portion of the diet and turning it into an energy form that the horse can use. These bacteria benefit from Alkapellet PH PLUS because of the good source of fibre on offer, keeping the bacteria healthy during the periods between feeds, allowing for better digestion and higher energy release at feed time.



Bacteria and microbes are fairly temperamental and are easily upset by changes in their environment.  If a lot of starch or sugar (from grain or green grass) makes it through to the large intestine (hind gut), the bacteria bugs will process it very effectively, but unlike the useful product of fibre digestion, they often produce excess acid.   These excess acids can stress and kill off these ‘good’ bugs and bacteria causing colic or laminitis.  Because of these stressful digestive conditions the horse will lose appetite as the good bugs die off and digestion slows down, we often say the horse has gone “sour” or “off his food”.