California Riding Magazine • June, 2009

Horsey Humor
Horses have delicate eating habits.

by Bob Goddard

The Great Book of Horse Knowledge tells us that wild horses graze up to 16 hours a day. The behavior of domesticated horses supports this. It seems like these animals are eating all the time.

While it is true that horses eat a lot, The Great Book says it is important to remember that this species prefers a slow, but steady eating pace. Unlike Homo sapiens (us) and other predators, horses do not have the luxury of gorging themselves at lunch and then taking the rest of the afternoon to goof off. The sluggish behavior associated with overindulgence is very unhorse like.

Many people would be surprised to learn that a horse has a delicate digestive system. After all, they’re big, strong, and they eat outside—off the ground. Shouldn’t they have huge, cast iron like stomachs? Or maybe multiple stomachs like their farm cousins, the cows? Instead, horses are stuck with a single, relatively small stomach. And this lonely organ is easily upset.

A horse has to be careful how and what he eats. Too much of the wrong thing or too little of the right thing and he’ll colic. Things will just stop moving. His digestive process works best when his slow, but steady intake is accompanied by a slow, but steady outgo. A horse’s stomach is more like a temporary transfer station then a repository. It’s kind of like the O’Hare International of mammalian internal organs.

Grass and grass hay make up the bulk of a horse’s diet. While this may seem a bit dull, The Great Book says not to worry. Grass is good. In fact, grass and grass hay are the foods that come closest to providing the horse with the appropriate mix of the equine version of the four basic food groups: fats, protein, fiber, and soluble carbohydrates.

This just in: horses know what they’re doing.

But isn’t grass supposed to be difficult to digest? For humans, it is. Our system can’t handle it at all. If it could, that would be great news for our race. This abundant source of food could feed the world—until we started fighting wars over it. And when we weren’t fighting, we would be discovering new ways to prepare it so that was bad for us. Sugarcoated Rye Grass or Deep Fried Kentucky Blue.

Horses are able to digest grass because of the presence of special bacteria in their digestive system. While we normally associate bacteria with unpleasant things like The Plague or the guys’ bathroom, and would prefer to rid the world of them (a very bad idea), our anti-bacterial prejudices have no place here. These are helpful bacteria. Since they help break down ingested grass into useable nutrients, they are critical to the process. Without the bacteria, a horse eating grass would be like us (Homo sapiens) eating corn flakes by swallowing the box whole.

While the digestive bacteria are friendly and helpful, they are also a bit demanding. If the horse goes too long without eating, the bacteria will get bored and leave. Actually, without material to work on, the bacteria start to die. Without these little helpers, the horse can end up with severe digestive disorders such as colic. Frequent meals are good for horses.

It is probably a good thing that humans can’t graze. It’s not for impatient types. Grazing is all about nibbling and slow chewing. It’s about searching, locating and savoring every morsel. It’s about spending an hour going after a single blade of grass just out of reach on the other side of the fence. Even the word “grazing” – a cross between graceful and lazy – has a leisurely quality to it. It’s almost a Zen thing. Humans are more of a gobbling species.