Horse Nutrition and Feeding

The horse is a non ruminant herbivore; in other words it exists on a diet of plants without the benefit of the complex stomachs found in ruminants such as cattle, sheep and goats. A lot of the information about horses is taken from feeding pigs. They have a simple non ruminant gut and are thus considered to be more like horses. Obviously since pigs are not trained to racing fitness, plus the fact that horses are too large and expensive for much field trial work to be done on them, means that many aspects of equine nutrition are a long way behind that of other animals and there is still a lot of mystique attached to good feeding.

We have taken the horse and enclosed it in paddocks and stables, dramatically changing both life style and feeding habits. Feeding time has been greatly reduced and we have introduced cereals and protein concentrates. No wonder horses are prone to colics and other problems associated with feeding. The art of feeding horses has developed over centuries to try and ensure that horses are kept as healthy as possible on this artificial regime.

Many of us keep horses at grass for much of the year and a knowledge of the basic principles of grassland management will help get the best out of our limited resources during the grassland year. These sound scientific principles are used to produce simple practical guidelines for feeding horses as diverse as orphan foals and competition horses. The horse is not a machine and even the best cared for horse may suffer dietary problems from time to time.

It takes a combination of good stable management and good traing to help a horse achieve its full potential. A vital aspect of that stable management is nutrition and feeding. This site is designed to give riders, owners, trainers and students of the horse a knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the horse. Knowing how the horse is organised and how it works will help you understand why we feed the way we do and will highlight areas that can be improved. An understanding of the science of nutrition combined with the age old art of feeding horses will result in happier, healthier horses, reduced feed and veterinary bills and a horse that is more likely to be able to respond to the demands that we make on it.

The wild horse evolved over millions of years to exist on a browsing and grazing diet, living much as zebras do today. Selecting the grasses and herbs it wants, grazing for short periods throughout most of the day and night and leaving its droppings behind so that the worm burden does not get too high. This system is obviously efficient, you rarely see a thin zebra.