05/07/2022
Did you know?
In a natural environment, horses will typically eat about 18 hours per day.
While “meal feeding” is the common practice among horse owners, it’s important to take into consideration the amount of time between meals when there is no access to long stem forage.
At 6 hours, reddening of the stomach lining occurs, and at 18 hours, full blown bleeding lesions are present (ulcers).
Let’s say you throw hay at 7pm and it’s gone by 10pm, then it’s given again at 7am. That’s 9 hours per night, every night, of an empty stomach. Reddening can occur at 6 hours. Imagine you applied an abrasive/irritating lotion to a spot on your arm every night for a year. Over time that spot would worsen from a minor surface burn to a painful open wound.
It’s recommended that horses never go more than 4 hours without long stem forage passing through the gut. In the situation where free choice access isn’t a viable option, try utilizing slow feeders to help slow down consumption and drag out the time between feedings.
