Lecture 8- Equine nutrition Flashcards
What type of animal is a horse?
• Non-Ruminant herbivore
-hindgut dominant
How can horses utilize roughage?
- Utilize roughage by:
- Large caecum and colon
- Caecum has large bacteria population for fibre digestion
What is the importance of dental care in horses?
Very important in maintaining a healthy horse
What type of teeth do horses have and how do they chew?
- Have both top and bottom incisors
- Incisors used for apprehension
- Chew in a sideways circular motion using cheek teeth to grind food
- Can lead to sharp hooks on the lateral side of upper cheek teeth and medial side of lower cheek teeth
What are the signs of problems with dental care in horses?
- Signs of problems:
- Head is sideways to chew
- Dropping of feed
- Refusing feed
- Weightloss
- Teeth must be floated to remove sharp points
PIC1What is the anatomy of the digestive tract of the horse?
1. Oesophagus
- Can’t vomit, strong cardiac sphincter muscle in stomach prevents
- Digestive upset = Colic
2. Foregut • Stomach • Small intestine
3.• Hindgut • Caecum • Large colon • Small colon • Rectum
What are the characteristics of the stomach (part of the foregut)?
- 10% of tract
- Limited digestion
- Partial feed breakdown
- Some starch and protein digestion
- Rapid rate of passage into small intestine • Continuous feeders
- in natural environment and sometimes in domestic environment
- Stomach never completely empties
- Can develop gastric ulcers
- Causes: Stress, overuse of anti-inflammatory drugs.
- Lie on back, salivate, depression, colic, grit teeth
What are the characteristics of the small intestine (part of the foregut)?
- 30% of tract
- Digestion of • Starch 65-75% • Protein, AA’s 60-70% • Fat 90% • Ca absorption 95-99% • Phosphorous 20-25%
- 3 Sections: • Duodenum • Jejunum • Ileum
- Fast rate of passage
- Gall Bladder? • None! • Bile continuously secreted from liver
What are some characteristics of the hindgut?
- Forage digestion
- Caecum, large colon, small colon, rectum
- Caecum
- Similiar to role of rumen in cattle
- 16% of tract
- Blind pouch at junction of small intestine and large colon
What happens in cecum?
- Digestion
- microbes will produce vitamin K, B-complex vitamins, proteins, and VFA’s
- Vitamins and fatty acids will be absorbed, but little if any protein will be absorbed
- Slow rate of passage
What happens in the large colon?
- 40-50% of tract
- 5 major parts
- Right ventral colon - Sternal flexure
- Left ventral colon - Pelvic flexure
- Right dorsal colon - Diaphramatic flexure
- Left dorsal colon-Descending colon
- Absorbs: • H20 • VFA • Amino acids • Phosphorus • minerals
What happens in the small colon?
- Absorption of H2O
- Faecal ball formation
What happens in the rectum?
• Holds waste materials
What are the basics of equine nutrition?
- Over eating of cereal grains causes problems
- Lots of carbohydrates in caecum leads to:
- Fermentation
- Makes gas/lactic acid
- Can lead to colic, laminitis
- If need to feed over 2 to 3 kg of grain per feeding
- Break down to 2 or more small feedings
What are the different rates of passage in equines and ruminants?
• Equine
- rush through foregut
- time delay in caecum
- rush through rectum
• Ruminant
• Slow recycling flow of digesta
How does the development of hindgut, caecum, and large intestine?
- Not fully developed until about 18 months of age
- At 18 months sign of microbial population within hindgut
- Acts as a simple stomach prior to development of hindgut
- Allows use of creep feeding for foals
- Minimizing laminitis, colic
What is the case about copohragy?
- Copophragy
- Behavorial
- Eating of faeces to obtain microbes for fiber digestion
How do you feed a horse?
- Make gradual changes in diet to avoid digestive problems: colic, laminitis, etc.
- Feed at regular intervals
- As close to 12 hours as possible
- 0.5% BW in grain maximum per feeding
What are the mineral requirements of a horse?
- Mature horse
- Ca and P
- Continuousloss
- Always more Ca than P
- 70% of the mineral content of the body
- 99% of the calcium and 80% of the phosphorus in the bones and teeth
- 1.1—2.0 parts of calcium to 1.0 part phosphorus is ideal
-• Salt
- Free choice
- ~ 60 g/d • Either in block form or loose
What are the water requirements for horses?
- Should have free choice to water during day
- Maintenance 16 to 30 l/d
- Gestation 28 to 40
- Moderate Work 36 to 60
- Hard Work 50 to 75
-this depends heavily on how much the horse is moving
What is an example of expected total feed consumption in a horse?
- At Maintenance:
- Total Feed (% BW) • 1.5to2
- % Roughage • 100-75
- % Concentrate • 0-25%
What is an example of expected total feed consumption in a horse? (late gestation)
- At Late gestation:
- Total Feed (% BW) • 1.5to2
- % Roughage • 80-65
- % Concentrate • 20-35
-cannot fit as much in the stomach as the fetus takes up space
What is an example of expected total feed consumption in a horse? (early lactation)
- At Early Lactation:
- Total Feed (% BW) • 2-3
- % Roughage • 40-60
- % Concentrate • 60-40
-large energy requirements!
What is an example of expected total feed consumption in a horse? (moderate work)
- At Moderate Work:
- Total Feed (% BW) • 1.75-2.5
- % Roughage • 40-60
- % Concentrate • 60-40
What is an example of expected total feed consumption in a horse? (growth)
- At Growth:
- Total Feed (% BW) • 2-3
- % Roughage • 40-70
- % Concentrate • 60-30
What are the factors influencing requirements?
- Temperature
- Activity
- Type of food
- Function
- Increase 8-10% last 1/3 of gestation
- Lactation increase 50-70%
What to remember?
- Make educated decisions
- Feed by weight not by volume
- All feed should be clean of mold, dust, etc
. • Feed at regular intervals
- ~12 hours
- Make gradual changes in feeding program
- “Safer” to increase hay then grain
