Equine Feeds

• Feeding strategy

  How an animal satisfies their nutritional requirements
• First Feeding strategy

  • Encompasses biochemical, physical and behavioural processes
  • Biochemical = animals physiology (internal biology and chemistry)
  • Physical = how an animal physically chews and processes food (GIT anatomy)
  • Behavioural = time and energy allocated to searching for, selecting and eating food
• We have most influence over behaviour for any animal we care for and manage
• We have some influence over physical processes - form of feed (pellet vs mix, hay vs chaff)
• We have least influence over biochemical processes
• Second feeding strategy

  • Extensive capacity of the equine LI shows equids are well adapted to diets containing considerable amounts of cell wall
  • Plants high in fibre are low in energy and nutrients
  • Equids must eat high volumes of food to satisfy energy and nutrient requirements
  • Take considerably longer to chew and breakdown to small particles before swallowing
• Satisfying energy and nutrient requirements on diets of low nutritive value and slow intake rate


  1. Long eating times

  2. 0-18 hours grazing/day - not just grass, multitude of plant matter

  3. Graze and browse - selective grazers

  4. Trickle feeders
• Intake rate

  Influences passage rate of food through the GIT
• Exposure of food to digestive enzymes and microbes

  Influences degree of breakdown
• DMI and rate of passage

  Have direct influence on digestibility in equids
• DMI

  Dry Matter Intake - the amount of the feed that is NOT moisture
• Equid feeding strategy compared to ruminants

  • Higher DMI per unit of BW
  • Faster rate of passage of food through the GIT
  • Lower digestive efficiency of fibrous components
• • Advantageous when eating a poor quality, high fibre diet as increased DMI increases intake of soluble cell contents and cell wall components
  • Maintains nutrient absorption per unit of time despite reduced microbial fermentation
• When equid feeding strategy is beneficial

  • Ad libitum feeding, ample availability
• When equid feeding strategy is a disadvantage

  • Restricted feeding, low availability
• Hindgut fermenters do not have physical restrictions on passage of food until it reaches the LI
• Hindgut fermenters can increase their DMI to compensate for eating a diet very low in nutritive value, which is an evolutionary advantage over foregut fermenters which are unable to increase DMI due to the need to degrade feed in order for it to pass from the rumen to the SI
• Feral horses

  Increased forage, decreased starch, increased grazing
• Domestic horses

  Decreased forage, increased starch, decreased grazing
• Welfare of domestic horses

  • Can be improved if their innate nutritional and behavioural needs can be met
  • Changing the method of eating to make it more natural can help improve welfare and wellbeing
  • Both type of food and amount - make more natural = improve welfare
• Specific behaviour is likely linked to management practices and diet
• Reducing the incidence of behavioural problems requires meeting the horse's innate nutritional and behavioural needs
• Common GIT disorders influenced by diet


  • Colic
  • Equine ulcers
  • Hindgut acidosis
  • Laminitis
• Grazing and chewing

  Appetitive behaviours in equids = natural desire to perform these behaviours to satisfy a bodily need
• Performing grazing and chewing behaviours

  There is a feedback mechanism on the motivation to perform such behaviours through the brain's pleasure centre which becomes active as the horse pursues the behaviour
• If a horse cannot forage and chew, other behaviours replace the desired behaviours as the horse is in a constant state of high motivation = stereotypies