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Horse diets should take into account the fermentation factor, findings suggest
Sport-horses diets are designed to ensure maintenance, work and, in some cases, growing requirements.
High-performance horses are often fed high-performance diets, calculated with precision based on nutritional values, but fresh research in Chile suggests it may not be that simple.
Horses are hindgut fermenters. “It is therefore important to determine the postgastric nutritive value of their feedstuffs and diets,” Mónica Gandarillas, Juan Pablo Keim and Elisa María Gapp wrote in their paper just published in the journal
Animals.
“Horses are involved in diverse equestrian disciplines that increase their digestible energy and nutrient requirements,” the trio, with the Austral University of Chile, noted. “Therefore, highly balanced nutrient and energy diets are required.”