Good equine nutrition - achieved through a balanced diet - is the vital starting point to ensuring that you have a happy, healthy horse. Like all animals, horses need five elements in their diet: water, energy (primarily through fats and carbohydrates), proteins, vitamins and minerals.
Horses are herbivores and have evolved a way of breaking down plant fibre through a fermentation process. Effective equine nutrition is based around understanding the way the horse’s digestive system works.
In the wild horses graze throughout the day and can travel miles to find the plants, grasses and herbs for horses they need.
When horses began to be domesticated their nutritional needs and dietary habits changed. It became more common for horses to be fed twice a day for the convenience of their owners. In fact a horse’s body – it has a small stomach for its size - is more suited to several small feeds a day or constant grazing. The horse's stomach also begins to empty when it is two-thirds full, whether the food in the stomach has been processed or not.
Nutritional needs will vary considerably depending on the age and weight of the horse and the amount of work it needs to do.
Equine nutrition supplements are given to horses whose diets are not keeping them in optimum health. Nutritional equine supplements should not be regarded as a substitute for a proper, balanced diet.
Equine digestion
The horse has a delicate digestive system. The oesophagus – a muscular food tube which carries food away from the mouth - enters the horse’s stomach at an acute angle creating a one-way valve. It has a powerful sphincter mechanism at the gastro-oesophageal junction meaning that horses cannot vomit – even if they overeat or take something poisonous.
The small intestine is the major digestive organ where 50 to 70 per cent of all nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. Horses do not have a gall bladder so bile flows constantly here doing its digestive work. Historically, this helped the horse deal with a slow and steady supply of food in the wild.
The first section of the large intestine is called the cecum, or 'hind gut'. This is where cellulose plant fibre is fermented by microbes before passing through to the large colon.
The reason horses must have their diets changed slowly is so the microbes have time to adapt to the different chemical structures of new food. Too abrupt a change in diet can cause colic.
The rest of the large intestine is made up of the large colon, small colon, and rectum.
The large colon absorbs carbohydrates which are broken down from cellulose in the cecum. The small colon is where the majority of water is absorbed. The rectum holds waste before it is expelled from the body.
Common issues in equine nutrition
Equine obesity is a growing problem in the UK with claims that 81% of horses are overweight. In an attempt to tackle this, owners sometimes feed their horses less than the recommended amounts of manufactured feed, but this can also mean that the horse takes in less essential vitamins and minerals.
Young growing horses have special nutritional needs. A number of skeletal problems may occur in young horses with an unbalanced diet.
Horses that are heavily exercised, growing, pregnant or lactating need extra energy and protein in their diet.
How horse supplements help with equine nutrition issues
A huge selection of equine nutrition supplements and products are available including digestive aids, colic prevention, electrolytes, hoof supplements, growth development, energy supplements and vitamin and mineral supplements.
When managing equine obesity a broad spectrum vitamins and minerals supplement can be helpful in ensuring that vital goodness is not lost as food intake is reduced.
Supplements such as biotin (vitamin B) are important to healthy skin and horn growth. A long-term vitamin deficiency can result in crumbling and cracking of the hoof. Biotin can rectify this problem and after 6-9 months the hoof will have noticeably improved.
Minerals are required for healthy bones, joints, nerves, and muscles. These include calcium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, and chloride. Horses that graze may find some pastures contain few trace minerals such as selenium, zinc, and copper. Supplementing a horses' trace mineral intake can solve health problems arising from such deficiencies.
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