How Much Feed?

Horses have evolved to eat forage-based diets and natural behaviour dictates they consume small amounts consistently throughout the day. Consequently, the stomach can only hold between eight and sixteen litres at one time (for the average 500-kg horse), and food passes through the stomach within 30 minutes to two hours following ingestion. High-fat feeds (or those with added oil or fat) pass through more slowly than high-grain feeds without added oil.

The horse's stomach
The horse’s stomach cannot stretch in response to a meal as ours does, and food cannot be regurgitated once it enters the stomach, so once it‘s in there, there‘s only one way to go.

Many of us feed from a 20-litre bucket, often brimming with feed. For meals consisting mainly of chaff with a little added grain and for horses that take their time to eat slowly, leisurely getting through the feed in a couple of hours or more, this is probably not a huge problem. But if the feed is mainly grain and the horse bolts it down double quick, the capacity of the stomach is overwhelmed.

Food leaves the stomach and enters the small intestine before mixing sufficiently with digestive acids. The sheer volume of food and the fact that it is only partially prepared for small intestine digestion means that enzymes do not get a chance to do their job properly. Food travels through the small intestine in just two to eight hours and for large meals that have been consumed rapidly, this can mean that undigested grains make it all the way through to the hindgut.

The primary job of the hindgut is to digest fibre. When large amounts of undigested starch (grain) enter the hindgut, they can cause a range of problems for the resident bacteria and other microbes, leading to colic, scouring and sometimes laminitis. In addition, the value of the feed is reduced as the metabolism of energy, minerals and vitamins is compromised by the expedited passage time.

The amount of time required to chew and grind long-stem forages such as hay, pasture and rough, long-cut chaff slows consumption rate and allows time for ingested food to go through the digestive process efficiently. Meals of grain or pellets, which are chewed less before swallowing, have the potential to fill up the stomach quickly.

Avoiding digestive upset
When preparing hard feed meals, remember the following rules of thumb to avoid digestive upset:

Feed little and often - if you need to feed a large amount of grain (more than 5kg per day for a 500-kg horse), split total amount into three meals per day rather than two.
Limit hard feed meals to about 2.5kg per meal of grain/pellets/sweetfeed (for a 500-kg horse) plus a similar volume of chaff if desired - chaff is light and voluminous, so if your 2.5kg grain adds up to 4 litres, an additional 4 litres of chaff is likely only to weigh about 800g, which makes the total meal weight around 3.3kg.
For smaller or larger horses, use the rule of 500g hard feed per 100kg body weight at each meal.
Use long-cut chaff when possible rather than the fine steam-cut chaff - this encourages more chewing and salivation and slows the rate of intake.
For horses that bolt their feed, consider any of the following methods to slow them down a bit:
Add large smooth rocks to the feed bin for them to eat around. Design a grille that fits over the top of the feed trough through which the horse has to pick rather than taking big mouthfuls. Pour grain feed over fluffed-up hay so that they have to rummage around for the feed. Feed smaller more frequent meals with plenty of long-cut chaff.

By taking care of your horse‘s digestive system and being mindful of the amount of food it can handle at one time, you will increase digestive efficiency and reduce the risk of digestive problems. You may even need to feed less as your horse will get the full benefit of every mouthful!

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