No matter what your horse looks like on the outside, and no matter what job you ask him to do, he has one thing in common with all horses - and, that is his digestive tract. Everything he eats must be processed through that tract in order to be used by his body for energy, growth, reproduction and maintenance of health.

Horses are grazing animals with digestive tracts best suited for eating forages for 15-20 hours per day. They have relatively small stomachs, that hold less than a 5-quart ice cream pail, and huge hind-guts that hold 23-30 gallons of fibrous material while billions of bacteria work to digest it. This is a very efficient system, if the horse is fed lots of grass or hay.

But, if we feed more than a few pounds of grain in meals, the system doesn’t work very well. Often, the excess grain starch can’t be digested in the beginning of the tract by the horse’s enzymes, because he just doesn’t have enough enzymes or because the starch is too compact to be broken down. Also, there isn’t enough time, because most feed goes from the mouth through the foregut and into the hindgut in less than 6 hours. Starch that enters the bacterial fermentation vat is turned into acids, which kill beneficial bacteria, often resulting in colic and founder. This is why there is a relationship between high-grain rations and colic and founder in horses.

So, what should we feed our horses?

We need to start with forage. This means pasture or at least 15# of good-quality hay every day. This pasture or hay should be chosen to meet as much as possible of your horse’s protein, energy and fiber needs. The most important thing here is to select the right forage for your horse. Then you can add vitamins, minerals, fats and limited amounts of grains as needed.

So remember, with horses it’s always forage first.