Researchers at the University of Delaware are looking to horse owners across the country for help as they try to tackle the fundamental questions behind the role of bacteria in the horse gut with regard to health and disease.
The Equine Microbiome Project is led by Professor Amy Biddle’s Laboratory in UD’s Department of Animal and Food Sciences (ANFS) in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR).
Horses’ digestive systems are very sensitive to changes, stress or diet. We are learning in the human microbiome, there is a constant conversation between the gut microbes and the host but there hasn’t been a large-scale effort to understand those conversations and those specific relationships within the horse.
“Horses’ digestive systems are very sensitive to changes, stress or diet. And as we’re learning in the human microbiome, there is a constant conversation between the gut microbes and the host but there hasn’t been a large scale effort to understand those conversations and those relationships in horses,” said Biddle.
Studying the bacterial abundance patterns of the microbiomes of horses fed pasture, hay, and hay-concentrate will lead to an understanding of functional differences between the communities leading to colic, laminitis, and weight retention. The long-term goal for this project is to correlate certain bacteria stemming from the digestion of feed to feed-specific diseases.
