Watch his waistline

Learn all about the digestive system and how it influences weight gain and loss

THE BULK OF your horse’s diet and the majority of his energy should come from forage. This is key for a happy hindgut and a healthy horse. At the same time, controlling forage intake is essential in maintaining a healthy bodyweight and a forage-based diet often does not provide all the vitamins and minerals that your horse requires. So, how can you keep his hindgut healthy while keeping his waistline in check too? To begin, you need to understand how the digestive system works.

Horses have a unique digestive system. They are hind gut fermenters, meaning their digestive system is very different from ours, a dog’s or even a cow’s. Rabbits, elephants, and rhinoceros are some of the other animals that have this type of digestive system, but there are few of them.

In the wild, horses spend most of their time grazing on low-energy forage sources compared with that to which our domesticated friends now have access. As a result, keeping our horses fed sufficiently and within the correct energy balance to maintain a healthy weight can be challenging. However, a regular flow of fibre through your horse’s system is the key to overall digestive health.

■ The mouth

Your horse’s mouth is an important, and sometimes overlooked, part of his digestive system. It is here that mechanical digestion begins via chewing, and saliva is secreted. Dental health is vital to overall digestive health, and it is therefore important to have your horse’s teeth checked regularly. Here, food is broken down into smaller pieces to improve its digestibility and absorption of vital nutrients.

If you have an older horse that struggles with their fibre intake due to missing teeth or other age-related dental issues, your feed provider or