Horses have very specific dietary needs as herbivores with different digestive tracts than ours. Their long digestive tract requires a diet high in fiber that must be consumed slowly over time; horses typically eat multiple smaller meals throughout the day rather than eating just three large ones at one sitting like humans do; horses spend much of their day munching away! Here is a brief rundown on what horses eat as well as some things they shouldn’t.
The natural diet of horses consists of pasture grass and tender plants. A good pasture provides most of the nutrition a horse needs for good health; silica found therein also plays an essential role in dental health. Primitive horses often had to make do with less-than-ideal pasture conditions, leading them to obesity, equine metabolic syndrome, and laminitis being relatively rare among wild horses but more prevalent among domestic horses due to human breeding practices and reduced exercise regimes. Pasture grass itself does not cause this situation – rather, modern horses developed through human breeding programs as bred from genetic lines created through selective breeding programs is.
Horse owners with easy keepers must restrict how much fresh grass their horses access. A sudden introduction to lush pasture can cause major behavioral issues; on the other hand, for horses that are harder to care for good pasture can provide superior nutrition.