Research has shown that horses on a hay-only diet may not
digest some nutrients as effectively as those fed combination diets and could
benefit from dietary supplementation.
With winter approaching and grass growth stunted by the UK’s
arid summer many horse owners are feeding hay or haylage earlier than usual.
But simply giving horses hay may not be enough for optimum health, even if it
meets their energy needs and requirement to chew.
The study, carried out by WALTHAM® Equine Studies Group, who
provide the science underpinning the SPILLERS® brand, in collaboration with
Michigan State University, discovered that feeding a hay-only diet resulted in
reduced digestibility of many macro and micro minerals (such as calcium,
magnesium, copper and zinc).
The study involved a group of healthy adult horses and a
group of healthy aged horses being randomly assigned on a rotational basis to
one of three diets that supplied similar gross energy over a five-week period:
hay, hay plus a starch and a sugar rich concentrate or hay plus an oil and
fibre rich concentrate. The micro and macro nutrient digestibility was
determined for each diet.
An analysis of faecal and urine samples showed that while
the horse’s ability to digest key nutrients does not appear to decrease with
age across any of the three diets fed, the hay diet was lower than the other
two diets for fat intake, amount digested and percent of apparent
digestibility. However, perhaps most importantly the apparent digestibility for
various macro and micro minerals (including key trace elements) was
consistently lower when fed the hay diet compared with the other two diets.
Clare Barfoot RNutr, the research and development manager at
SPILLERS® said: “It seems that many micro and macro minerals are less available
to the horse from a hay only diet than when the hay is fed together with a
fortified feed. This strongly suggests that horses and ponies fed hay only
diets may require additional supplementation such as a balancer to maintain
good health and well-being.”
For more details, see:
Comparison
of nutrient digestibility between three diets for aged and adult horses.
Sarah
Elzinga, Brian D. Nielsen, Harold C. Schott, Julie Rapson, Cara I. Robison,
Jill McCutcheon, Ray Geor and Patricia A. Harris.
Journal of
Equine Veterinary Science (2017) vol 52 p89
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