Nutrition

Nucleotide Supplementation May Reduce Diarrhea in Foals

Supplementing a newborn foal’s diet with nucleotides reduced the number of days they experienced diarrhea and increased volatile fatty acids, but researchers saw no clear differences in the fecal microbial communities between the foals who received supplementation and those who did not.

Diarrhea is a common experience for young foals. Researchers from Italy wanted to know whether nucleotide supplementation in the form of an oral paste would make a difference because these “semi-essential nutrients” affect rapidly proliferating tissues. Cells have a limited capacity to synthesize these compounds, the researchers wrote. They looked at diarrhea incidence, systemic immunity, intestinal microbiota and volatile fatty acid production in 30 newborn Standardbreds from 3 different premises.

One group received the paste, while the other group received a placebo. They collected fecal and blood samples on days 1 and 35 after birth.

The group that received supplement showed a lower relative frequency in the number of days the animals had diarrhea (6.12% vs 13.33%; P< 0.001), greater weight gain compared with the control group (50.3 ± 5.65 kg vs 44.0 ± 8.65 kg; P< 0.05), as well as higher levels of total volatile fatty acids than the group that was not supplemented.

“This outcome may explain an earlier establishment of a gut microbiota in the foals of the [nucleotide supplementation] group that was closer to that typical of an adult horse, characterized by predominant fibrolytic populations. Volatile fatty acid production (especially butyric acid) has also been shown to correlate with the intestinal well-being of the horse, supporting the use of dietary nucleotide supplements for improved health and well-being in newborn foals,” the researchers wrote.

However, they found no statistical differences in immunity shown by measuring the cytokines (TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-12) or in fecal calprotectin levels between the 2 groups. MeV

For more information:
Penazzi L, Pagliara E, Nervo T, et al. Dietary supplementation of new-born foals with free nucleotides positively affects neonatal diarrhoea management. Ir Vet J. 2025;78(1):7. doi: 10.1186/s13620-025-00294-3.
https://irishvetjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13620-025-00294-3