Horse Eating Behaviours

At any time when your horse is stabled for longer, it is really important to keep them chewing for as long as possible to support their behavioural and digestive health. For good doers, this can become somewhat challenging, as the goal should be to supply sufficient fibre to keep the period of time the gut is empty as short as possible, whilst also managing their calorie intake.

To do this, it can be helpful to supply small amounts of forage at frequent intervals – rather than giving one big hay net in the morning and one at night, try to provide three or four as evenly throughout the day as possible.

However, if you are not able to spread out your horse’s forage ration quite so easily, there are lots of tricks for making hay and haylage last longer, such as placing it in small-holed nets or putting several haynets inside one another. Dividing the total forage provision between multiple nets spread around the stable can also help to slow horses down as they have to move around between them. This was backed up by a study in 2015 which suggested that providing 6kg of hay split between three double layered nets overnight could potentially increase eating time by around 2 hours compared to feeding the same amount of hay all in one single layered net (Ellis et al., 2015). Layering the nets works by further reducing the size of the holes available for the hay to poke through. However, using nets with small holes is thought to be less helpful for ponies with smaller mouths, and there may also be concerns with double netting for individuals with dental problems or musculoskeletal issues in the head or neck. For these reasons a variety of slow-feeder devices are widely available and so could be useful alternatives.

Mixing some straw into the hay net can also help to slow down eating times – even if the horse doesn’t like the taste of straw, they will still spend longer sorting through it, so the straw won’t necessarily be wasted. Straw also tends to be lower in calories so is a nice choice for good doers. More information on feeding straw can be found here.

Providing multiple forage types is another good way of extending eating time as the horse may spend time going between the different choices. However, providing different forage options can also be of benefit from a behavioural perspective, as research suggests that multiple fibre types encourages horses to forage and display more natural grazing and browsing behaviours (Thorne et al., 2005). A study conducted by Goodwin and colleagues (2002) showed that horses with the greatest variety of forage types available spent the least time foraging in their straw bed. This suggests that horses will forage in their straw bed more when they have fewer types of forage available, as they are satisfying their natural behaviour to seek out different feed materials.

Interestingly, a similar effect was seen in a study on feral ponies living alongside cattle in a national park with a very diverse landscape. The researchers found that the horses consumed a much greater variety of different plants throughout the year compared to the cattle, including shrubs, herbs and trees as well as grasses (Thomassen et al., 2023). These results further indicate that the selection of multiple fibre types is a key component of a horse’s natural eating behaviour.

Whilst such a diverse grazing environment may be impractical on most yards, there are other ways in which we can provide a variety of forage types for the horse to mimic their natural eating choices. A simple option is to offer a combination of different long-stemmed conserved forages such as hay, haylage and straw, but we can also include separate buckets of chopped fibres to provide further variety or if other forages aren’t available. Dengie Meadow Lite with Herbs is a great low calorie option which is ideal for good doers, whereas Meadow Grass with Herbs & Oil makes a tasty choice for those who would benefit from additional calories in their ration. Stable toys such as treat balls can also be used to provide pelleted fibres at a slower intake than they would be consumed in the bucket, and Dengie’s Pure Grass Pellets or Alfalfa Pellets work really well for this purpose. Hedgerow haynets are another form of providing environmental enrichment which have become popular in recent years, and more information on these can be found here.

At first glance, adding chopped fibre to your horse’s bucket feed may seem a bit superfluous. To some it may even feel like the garnish to the main meal; for others it’s something they do because they’ve been told it’s important but without really understanding why. The addition of chopped fibre slows the rate at which your horse consumes their feed, also referred to as rate of intake. A study by Ellis et al., (2005) found that it took horses significantly longer to consume pelleted feeds if a chopped fibre is added and also increased the number of chews required. More chews results in more saliva which is a natural buffer to acidity in the digestive system. The more we can do to increase the number of chews the horse makes, the more we’re helping to maintain a healthy gut.

A slower rate of intake can help to modulate the horse’s insulinaemic response, which is the level of insulin the horse produces to manage the rise in blood glucose levels after eating feed. A study published in 2022 showed that horses with insulin dysregulation (ID), which is associated with problems like PPID and EMS, had a greater insulinaemic response to as little as 0.1g/kg bodyweight of non-structural carbohydrate (NSC) compared to horses without ID (Macon et al., 2022). NSC is the combined values of sugar and starch and a level of 0.1g/kg is very low – even lower than levels commonly found in a pelleted low calorie balancer.

A key point from this study is that all horses consumed the feeds being tested in around 10 minutes which is relatively typical for a bucket feed. A previous study by Jansson et al., (2021) found that forage is consumed more slowly when straw is added and that this also resulted in a lower insulinaemic response. In fact, in the evening when the rate of intake was slowest, there was no significant increase in insulin levels at all. This study was carried out in horses considered to have relatively normal insulin sensitivities, but this effect could be even more beneficial to horses and ponies with ID. These findings combined highlight the importance of not only using low NSC feeds but also slowing the rate of intake as much as possible when managing horses with ID.

It’s not unusual to be worried if you notice your horse eating something they shouldn’t, especially when it comes to things like wooden fences or tree bark (lignophagia), their own or other horses’ droppings (coprophagia), or mud in the field (geophagia). Often considered the most aberrant, consumption of droppings is actually quite common, especially amongst foals from within a few days of birth. This is thought to support the development of the microbial population within the foal’s gastrointestinal tract, serving as a natural probiotic and also providing a source of fibre (Pyles et al., 2023).

In the adult horse whose digestive tract is fully developed, such eating habits can instead be associated with an insufficient intake of fibre, so it’s important to ensure that plenty of forage is provided, as well as making sure your horse is consuming enough. However, these behaviours may also sometimes be seen in horses on spring pasture which is growing very rapidly and has a high water content. If the grass is not very mature, it won’t have built up much structure within its cell walls so the horse may possibly turn to wood chewing in an attempt to source more structural fibre within the ration. In this scenario, providing supplementary hay in the field or even a couple of kilograms of a short chop fibre in the bucket may be of benefit.

Alongside the forage, it’s also important to provide a balanced diet. Generally speaking, a horse will likely be receiving a balanced diet if they are being fed recommended quantities of a fortified feed or balancer which is suitable for their bodyweight and level of work. The only further addition could be some table salt in the bucket or a free-choice salt lick. If feeding the recommended amounts of a nutritionally-balanced feed provides too many calories (indicated by the horse gaining weight and/or having too much energy), an alternative option is to change to a feed with a lower digestible energy (DE) content, or to reduce the amount fed and top-up with a balancer in order to ensure vitamin, mineral and protein requirements are being met. Using a fibre feed in conjunction with a balancer can work really nicely, as the quantity of the fibre feed can be increased or decreased depending on whether the horse is losing or gaining weight, as long as the amount of balancer remains consistent. Contacting a nutritionist for advice is a great place to start if you are feeling unsure.

If the behaviour is persisting and you are concerned your horse is eating large amounts of something they shouldn’t then it may be advisable to speak to your vet.

For horses who can be aggressive around the time of eating, it is important to think about the potential causes of this behaviour. A simple explanation could be that they are hungry, so in this instance consider what they have available to eat in between their bucket feed meals. Ensure you are providing plenty of forage, ideally fed to appetite, and for good doer the use of straw can be beneficial to provide chew time and fibre without as many calories.

However, this behaviour could stem from historical feed restriction or stressful events earlier in life, or it could be a learned behaviour, so if your horse is continually demonstrating aggressive behaviour and they are consuming plenty of forage, it may be advisable to seek help from a qualified behaviour specialist, for example someone who is registered as either a certified Clinical Animal Behaviourist or with the Animal Behaviour & Training Council.