07/01/2023
A very interesting read!
🌱 Meal Size Matters!
🐴 It's time to put the digestive physiology and health of horses before convenience and guilt, because whether you'd like to hear it or not, so many of the health conditions we see in equines today (gastric ulcers, hindgut acidosis, colic, sand ingestion, insulin dysregulation, metabolic conditions, laminitis, wind-sucking/cribbing) are “man-made” issues that continue to become more apparent because horses continue to be fed, exercised, and housed inappropriately.
⚖️ Modern-day feeding practices of the domesticated equine have conditioned us to feel somewhat guilty if we are not providing large hard feed meals on a daily basis. This often involves filling buckets with chaff or finely chopped roughage sources to "bulk up" the meal and keep the horse "satisfied" for longer, or feeding anywhere from 3 to 6 kilograms of a premixed feed in one sitting because that is what the recommended daily feeding guidelines say to do.
🌾 The stomach of a horse is relatively small in relation to the size of the animal, and they are simply not physiologically equipped to be ingesting and digesting large amounts of food in short periods of time, nor are they designed to be spending long periods of time without any food at all. Meals that exceed a horse's stomach capacity are likely to be poorly enzymatically broken down, and inadequately digested or undigested feed is then likely to tip into the small intestine prematurely. Feed that hasn't been adequately processed in the stomach isn't as effectively absorbed and utilised throughout the remainder of the digestive system which reduces nutrient and calorie bioavailability. Hindgut issues may result where large proportions of cereal grains are fed, as grain that is not digested in the small intestine will enter the large intestine (hindgut) which functions to ferment predominantly fibre through microbial fermentation. As grain often contains high concentrations of starch, this can upset the fibre-feeding microbial population of the hindgut and cause pathogenic (disease-causing) microbes to thrive.
🐎 How much stomach capacity does the average sized horse actually have? Around 15 litres maximum, which is roughly the equivalent of a plastic Coles or Woolworths shopping bag if you'd like a visual comparison. Given how large a 500kg horse looks on the outside, 15 litres of stomach capacity is not much room to work with, particularly for horses who have been immediately removed from grazing on pasture or hay prior to receiving their concentrate/hard feed meal and therefore have even less stomach capacity available.
🌱 The first and most important aspect of gastrointestinal health and weight gain/maintenance in equines (who do not have health challenges such as poor dentition) is to allow an almost continuous supply of long-stemmed roughage in the form of pasture or hay. "An almost continuous supply" does not necessarily mean "ad libitum" or "as much as they can eat" as this could be dangerous for equines who struggle with obesity, metabolic conditions, or laminitis. "An almost continuous supply" essentially means that the horse should not spend longer than 4-5 hours without eating some form of roughage, whether that looks like unlimited access to pasture and/or hay for horses with no weight or metabolic concerns, or perhaps a grazing muzzle or slow feeder hay net for the "curvy" or metabolically challenged equines.
🪣 Concentrate/hard feed meal sizes should only be increased or altered once the forage aspect of the horse's intake is taken care of, although it is so incredibly important to ensure that meal sizes do not risk exceeding stomach capacity in an attempt to prevent poor feed digestion and wastage of your hard earned money. A really good example of unnecessarily large meals is the overuse of chaff in modern-day feeding regimes. Horses make their own chaff through masticating (chewing) long-stemmed roughages, and they produce so much more saliva when chewing pasture or hay as opposed to chaff. If a horse needs the "calories" or "bulk" provided by an ice-cream container or 10 litre bucket full of chaff, they are so much better off having this provided in the form of hay as not only will they produce more saliva which is vital for buffering gastric acid, but they will also take longer to consume it which means it will move through their GI tract at a slower rate which = increased nutrient bioavailability.
✨ Of course, there are always exceptions such as horses who are dentally challenged or situations where pasture and hay just aren't available (drought), however as a general statement, it's time we do better and start working on feeding to prevent health issues rather than feeding and medicating to treat the symptoms once they have already established.
