The most suitable nutrition for a horse’s digestive system is fibrous feed that is available continuously. Extended times without feed, especially if lasting more than four hours, negatively impact the horse’s digestive system by compromising its microbial population and increasing acidity levels. This effect can be worsened if grain-based, high-energy feeds are being used. A poorly functioning digestive system heightens the risk of various digestive problems and illnesses in horses. These are for example laminitis, colic, and gastric ulcers. Grain-based feeds may also induce stereotypic behaviors, especially wood chewing.
Body condition score
The role of nutrition is to provide the necessary nutrients for the body to function. A healthy body is also proportional in size and weight. However, overweight in horses has significantly increased in recent years, becoming one of the major challenges to equine welfare. This indicates that horses might be fed an energy-rich diet beyond their actual needs.
Various scales have been developed to define the body condition score (BCS) of horses. These definitions range from very lean to extremely obese and differ in the number of definitions used. However, the challenge with BCS is the existence of multiple scales that are used for assessment. The most common ones are either five- or nine-point scales. There’s no universal BCS used nationally or internationally.
BCS provides valuable information about the horse’s body composition. This is information is received by manually identifying different body parts’ composition and fat accumulation. However, the assessment of the BCS it’s deemed reliable primarily when it’s assessed by experienced evaluators. Horses with higher BCS are known to have a greater risk of digestive-related diseases, such as insulin resistance. Although BCS doesn’t determine the digestive system’s health, it aids in analyzing the suitability of feeding practices for a particular horse.
Feeding practices
For the well-being of a horse’s digestive system, continuous grazing over a 24-hour period is considered the best option. The pastures must be of high quality and free from harmful plants for horses. Studies suggest that horses naturally avoid harmful plants when on pasture, but they may not recognize them when mixed in hay.
Constant access to roughage, especially for horses housed indoors, promotes the well-being of the digestive tract. Several feeding times throughout the day have been shown to enhance the microbial balance in the gastro-intestinal-tract (GIT). It’s also widely known that long periods without roughage are detrimental for the horse’s welfare. Particularly during the early hours of the morning, the horse’s stomach pH becomes acidic. Providing roughage during these hours could help the digestive system in staying in more suitable acidic levels.
Concentrated feeds are often used, especially if a horse’s nutritional needs are not met solely by roughage. However, high grain and starch content in feeds expose the horse’s digestive system to various problems. The equine intestine cannot effectively digest and utilize the high starch content usually found in concentrates and grains. On the other hand, starch, when fed in small portions frequently, serves as a good energy. Hence, the composition and portion sizes are important factors.
Horses must always have clean water available. The absence of water in pastures or paddocks can even contribute to gastric ulcerations. Assessing a horse’s thirst is currently not possible, so monitoring drinking can only happen by observing the water consumption. Occasionally, assessing dehydration is attempted by pinching the skin and measuring recovery time, but this method lacks consistency and therefore reliability.
The drinking buckets, and the water they contain, must be clean. The quality of the bucket may also influence a horse’s willingness to drink. Horses prefer shallow buckets with several centimeters of water at the bottom. If automatic buckets are used, the refill valve should be as quiet as possible. Some studies suggest that horses drink better from light-colored drinking tubs, but there’s variability across studies. However, dark tubs usually heat up quickly in the sun. Additionally, it is more difficult to notice if water is dirty in darker buckets.
Summary
Nutrition affects equine welfare and health in many ways. It can also be versatilely used as an indicator of equine welfare. Assessing the number of feeding times, used feeds and their composition, and the horse’s body condition can give a good indication about a horse’s well-being. Although the health of a horse’s intestine is reliably determined only through imaging, assessments of digestive tract health can be made based on feeds and feeding practices. Drinking is an essential part of feeding and nutrition, and it can also be used as an indicator of equine welfare.
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