One of the main activities of the horse in the wild is eating. Wild
or feral horses can often spend 14 - 16 hours per day grazing. The
domestic horse may spend considerably less time engaged in eating,
especially if stabled and/ or fed concentrated rations.
It may be argued that the domestic horse is different to the wild
or feral horse and comparisons should not be made. However, the physiological
and behavioural characteristics between wild and domestic horses are
in fact very similar. The horse has evolved to exist on a poor quality
forage diet.
However, due to the use of the domestic horse, the energy from forage
is not enough and concentrate feeds are given. This decreases the
amount of time the horse spends eating. This can then lead to physiological
and behavioural problems ranging from laminitis and colic to wood
chewing, wind sucking and crib biting.
While not the sole cause of all of these problems, the horses diet
can certainly be a contributory factor.
In an ideal world horses could be turned out 24 hours a day and fed
additional concentrates as necessary. Realistically this is impossible,
some horses may get too cold outside, especially if clipped, others
may be prone to diseases such as laminitis which means their grazing
needs restricting, turnout facilities may be inadequate - the list
goes on.
A horse will not voluntarily go without food for more than 5 hours
- does yours?
Okay, so its all very well us telling you that horses should spend
14-16 hours a day eating but how do we implement this?
Maybe you do not feel horses need to be eating for this long. Whatever
your opinion, we would like to hear your ideas and views on our
'Feeding' discussion board. |
