Equestrian Bowen

16/05/2026

Applies to horses as well as humans. 90% of your Seratonin is produced in your gut. Not your brain.

Most people don’t die of old age. They die of the consequences of a malconfigured nutritional infrastructure that started the slow process towards disease decades before the end finally came.

21/04/2026

This post contains some very candid information on the side effects of metformin which regularly gets prescribed for horses diagnosed with Cushings. Do you want your horse to endure these side effects?
There a lot of natural remedies and nutrition changes which provide better blood sugar control. Without metformin.

Summary: If you wake up every morning, check your meter, and still see a number above 100 despite eating clean and doing everything right, you're not alone. And you're not imagining it. Most common fixes only treat the surface, not the root cause. In this article, we break down the 5 hidden reasons....

15/04/2026

This is really interesting (and not that surprising). Our animals enjoy a better standard of health care then we humans 🫣

14/04/2026

More about the hideous use of glyphosate 🙁

While most of Devon is bright green, an emerging patchwork of fields will turn yellow, then brown, then silver. This is the kiss of death from glyphosate, the “world’s favourite herbicide”. Most agriculture starts by removing any competing vegetation. In this case, the fields need to be cleared to sow maize for cow feed.

The choice is normally either to plough, costing around £25 per acre, or to spray with glyphosate, costing around £15 per acre. Some argue that glyphosate kills weeds without disturbing the soil, so is less damaging to the environment – and have even branded no-plough farming, facilitated by glyphosate, as ‘regenerative’. Like all artificial pesticides, glyphosate is banned in organic farming.

At college, I was taught that glyphosate breaks down quickly and harmlessly on soil contact, has zero mammalian toxicity, and is harmless in our waterways. All of this turned out to be untrue. It is sprayed on the oats and wheat that go into our breakfast, the legumes in our dinner and the barley that’s turned into our beer. It’s in our tap water and rain; it’s such a persistent chemical that 28% of bread samples tested by the Pesticide Action Network UK were found to contain high levels of glyphosate, while in the US, it can be found in 80% of urine samples. And we’re using more of it than ever – since 1990, the amount of glyphosate used in UK farming has increased by 1,000%.

Every year, I watch these fields die. What upsets me is that maize likes a loose seedbed, so the fields will likely be ploughed anyway. This begs the question: why spray as well? To add to the madness, much of the land will soon be covered with plastic film, to warm the soil and boost early growth. Since 2021, the EU has only allowed biodegradable film, which breaks down into CO2 and water. But in the UK, most of the film is oxo-degradable, breaking down into microplastics that remain in the soil indefinitely. I’m bemused that such widespread plastic pollution is deemed acceptable, while we congratulate ourselves on banning plastic straws.

My point here is not to demonise farmers, but to plead for a food and farming policy that accounts for environmental and financial costs. Farmers are not philosophers; they must make a living. It’s the government’s job to create the framework, so food production is not achieved at the cost of our planet or the health of its people.

📸 Emma Stoner for Veg & Table

13/04/2026

As we all know, energy costs are continuing to rise.

For us, the main pressures come from steel, gas, and diesel - all of which have increased significantly.

I am holding off on price rises for as long as possible, but a review is due later this summer. In the meantime, to help delay this, we need to make our travel routes and scheduling as efficient as we can.

This may mean that, where possible, appointments are grouped by location. If we’re unable to group enough horses in a particular area on a given day, we may need to move your appointment to another day to improve efficiency.

Of course, if rescheduling doesn’t work for you, that’s absolutely fine - however, this may result in an additional travel charge.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support as we navigate these changes.

24/03/2026

This could reshape how we think about metabolic disease entirely, shifting from symptom management to root cause elimination.

This study was done on humans but there’s no doubt it applies equally to horses

Swedish researchers developed gut bacteria treatment that reverses diabetes completely and permanently.

Your gut microbiome might be the most important organ for controlling blood sugar, and Swedish scientists at the Karolinska Institute just proved it. They discovered that transplanting bacteria from non-diabetic individuals into diabetic patients reverses insulin resistance, normalizes glucose control, and maintains improvements for years after a single treatment. This transforms diabetes from a lifelong disease requiring daily medication into a condition that can be genuinely cured.
The mechanism centers on short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production—a process certain bacteria perform brilliantly while others fail completely. Healthy microbiomes produce abundant butyrate, propionate, and acetate, which strengthen the intestinal barrier, reduce inflammation, and improve insulin sensitivity throughout the body. Diabetic microbiomes lack these bacteria, allowing inflammation to rage unchecked. Restoring the correct bacterial species restores metabolic health.
What makes this approach revolutionary is permanence. Unlike medications requiring lifelong adherence, bacterial transplantation creates a self-perpetuating ecosystem. Once healthy bacteria establish themselves, they outcompete harmful species and maintain their own community through competitive exclusion. Patients treated three years ago still maintain normal glucose levels without medication or dietary intervention beyond basic health habits.
The ethical and economic implications are staggering. If diabetes—affecting 422 million people globally—can be cured through gut bacteria transplantation, why are we still treating it as a lifelong medication requirement? One treatment could cost less than one year of insulin therapy while providing permanent cure. This could reshape how we think about metabolic disease entirely, shifting from symptom management to root cause elimination.

Source: Karolinska Institute, Nature Medicine 2025

13/03/2026

THE BEET PULP ARGUMENT CONTINUES...IT IS VERY HIGH IN IRON

Many horse owners in Australia not to mention world wide feed beet pulps with or without sugar. What many in Australia do not realise is the HIGH IRON CONTENT in beet products.

Australian horses rarely require additional iron in their feeds as most our soils are high in iron. The grass and hay from those soils known as ferralsols also contain high levels of iron.

PLEASE READ THE LABELS on your beet products. For example on the Barastoc Speedi beet label iron is stated at 762ppm and calcium is 0.8.
The excellent resource Feedipedia states dehydrated beet pulps which is what most people feed as having iron levels at 647ppm.

ALL beet products are high in iron. All are highly processed waste. They provide very little protein and there are more inexpensive, healthier forms off fibre. Doesnt look very appetising!