How to feed sport horses with roughage only

Abstract

Performance horses are commonly fed diets including large amounts of starch-rich concentrates despite that there is little scientific evidence that such diets promote performance. In contrast, it is well known that high concentrate diets can cause gastrointestinal problems, stereotypical behaviour and perhaps also musculoskeletal problems. High energy roughage-only diets could be an alternative to high concentrate diets and promote both health and performance in sport horses. This paper reviews the main studies performed on this subject. The studies have focused on performance, digestion, metabolism and fluid balance. It is concluded that diets based on high energy forage are an alternative to conventional high starch diets.

Keywords

Concentrate; Diet; Exercise; Forage; Performance

Published in

Title: Applied equine nutrition and training : Equine NUtrition and TRAining COnference (ENUTRACO) 2015
Publisher: Wageningen Academic Publishers

SLU Authors

• Jansson, Anna

  • Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Animal and Dairy Science

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-818-6_1
• ISBN: 978-90-8686-272-6
• eISBN: 978-90-8686-818-6

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/132072