Posts Tagged ‘horse diet’

By Marikje van de Water, B.Sc., DHMS.

High Starch Diets:

Horses often ingest more starch and sugar than they can effectively digest. When horses are fed excess starches from grain or grass, their relatively small stomachs become overloaded with feed, which causes the stomach to delay emptying the food into the small intestine.

When they become contained in the stomach they begin to ferment, causing unnatural levels of harmful bacteria like Lactobacillus to multiply, which then produce organic and lactic acids.

The organic acids are known as volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and are actually a source of energy when they are produced from fibre that is properly fermented in the cecum, which is where ruminant digestions is SUPPOSED to take place.

When the organic acids multiply in the stomach however, Read the rest of this entry »