Understanding how your horse digests its food is a great way to help you choose what to feed for optimal health and wellness, says Bernie Grumpelt, a nutritionist from Wetaskiwin, Alberta.
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Nutritionist Bernie Grumpelt addresses questions from the audience after his seminar on equine nutrition Saturday at The Mane Event.
Photo: Sherry Butt
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Grumpelt presented a comprehensive look at this very subject at a Mane Event seminar called Understanding Equine Nutrition.
Equine digestion takes place in the foregut (stomach and small intestine) and the hindgut (cecum and colon). Food first passes through the foregut and then is passed to the hindgut where bacteria breaks it down further. The most important rule when feeding horses is to feed the bacteria in the hindgut, says Grumpelt.
"It's important for a horse to eat a lot of small meals," he says. Acid is continuously dumped into the stomach, so always having food in the foregut is much easier on the horse.
Here are some other important points Grumpelt makes in his presentation:
• "Water is essential for all metabolic functions," he says. The average horse should consume 25 to 40 L of quality water a day.
• Energy is the horse's fuel source for maintenance, growth and work. Horses get their energy from eating non-structured carbohydrates (starches and sugars); structured carbohydrates (fibre) and fats and oils.
• You need to be careful with the amount of non-structured carbohydrates (NSC) you feed your horse, says Grumpelt. "Higher levels of NSC with limited activity will produce a hot headed horse that can be difficult to handle," he says. Eating too much NSC may cause excess NSC to spill over from the foregut into the hindgut causing problems such as the production of lactic acid that may cause diarrhea, colic or laminitis.
• In addition to non-structured and structured carbohydrates, horses also need a balance of fats and oils, vitamins and minerals and protein. Fats and oils provide extra energy but you must have a correct mineral balance for the fats to be absorbed through the gut wall. Protein is a major component of muscles, which are critical for movement, he says.