07/11/2021
🤔Horses were meant to eat grass… right?
Well it depends on what type of grass.
If you are talking about the tufts of fibrous grasses out in the Great Basin of the USA, then yes 👍
Horses roam this vast rugged landscape, continually moving, browsing and foraging on the odd bit of tough grass they find here and there.
Their bodies, legs and hooves were set up to move.
Their teeth were designed to chew and grind down on these really fibrous tough plants.
Those massive molar arcades, 4 of them, were perfectly created to ensure the horse can eat the toughest of plants, to obtain the nutrition they need.
But what about our domestic horses?
Ah, well life is usually a little different for them. 😏
They still have that amazing body, legs and hooves, set up for movement, but they don’t tend to move anywhere near the amount that they need to.
They still have those incredible rows of teeth, but most of the time they are working at a fraction of their capacity.
Yep at times a bit redundant.
You see, many domestic horses are put out to graze on lowland pastures of short grasses, very often grasses unsuitable for them to eat.
Unsuitable because they are packed with sugar, and not with fibre.
Sweet tips of grass that the horse rips off with his front teeth, the incisors.
But by the time it gets to those extensive rows of molar arcades, ready to take on the toughest of plants, that short grass takes just a few seconds before it’s broken down and off into the gut.
Those molars aren’t really being worked hardly at all.
This has a knock on effect with the rest of the horse’s jaw, body, muscles, health.
That coupled with reduced movement, and that amazing horse set up for the roughest of plants, is now only using a small portion of the ability that it is capable of.
But what about the hay, we hear you ask?
Well yes, hay really does make those teeth and jaws work like they were designed to.
But how many domestic horses REALISTICALLY have access to this long natural fibre 24/7?🧐
Not enough.
And owners don’t tend to see the problem with it. They see grass, and they think this is what horses were designed to eat.
Quick, free, easy.
But we hope you can see now, allowing your horse to eat short grazed grass, isn’t giving them what they truly need.
Your horse needs FIBRE every day, and every hour of its life.
Yes it’s that CRUCIAL to their health.
The health of their body, teeth and gut.
Being herbivores, everything that goes into your horses gut needs that extra bit of help to break it down.
It starts with the teeth first…
… and then it’s the turn of those clever bacteria in your horse’s gut - the microbiota.👏
And if your horse predominately eats more sugary grass with barely any fibre, topped up with some less than challenging fairly soft bagged feeds, then the microbiota inhabiting your horse’s gut will be very different to the ones needed for breaking down fibre.
But this is largely never EVER thought about.
And as a consequence our domestic horses are suffering ailments that their wild counterparts rarely encounter.
❌ Laminitis
❌ Colic
❌ Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS)
❌ Skin problems
❌ Weight issues
And far more besides.
So yes, horses were designed to eat grass, but not the lowland soft, sugary, often short grasses found in most horses’ pastures.
Think twice when you turn your horse out onto grass without any hay.
Think twice when your horse gets cold in the winter because there’s no hay to access.
Hay is the FIBRE your domestic horse CRAVES… and not just one or two hay nets a day!
Give your horse hay 24/7, and never let them run out.
It’s the cornerstone of their diet and it’s VITAL.
What type of hay? Well that’s the subject of another post… but in short, no rye or high sugar grass or cereal hays.
Give hay 24/7… it’s what your horse was designed for 👍
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The BHM Team ❤️
