Providing feed variety for stabled horses and equine flavour preferences

I’m doing a Postgraduate Diploma at Southampton University at the moment in Companion Animal Behaviour. Although it covers all animals that people might keep as companion animals there are plenty of lectures covering horses specifically. These lectures are run by a well know equine academic, Deborah Goodwin, who has many publications looking at a wide range of issues to do with horses including ethology and welfare.

When we were looking at the problems that arise when confining horses in stables we covered some interesting research that Deborah Goodwin has done to look at how we can make some simple changes to the way in which we give food to our horses. A horse is not naturally evolved to live in a 12 foot square (3.6m sq) space and improving the foraging available to stabled horses can help to reduce the risk of colic, stereotypical behaviour which may arise from boredom, eating of straw bedding and gastric ulcers. In their experiment the researchers compared the behaviour of horses who had one haynet in their stable with the behaviour of horses who had six different types of food to choose from[1]. These six types of feed were haylage, hay and hazel twigs hanging from the stable wall and three feeds were offered in buckets on the ground, swede, carrots and fibre cubes.

Significant differences were noticed in the behaviour of the horses if they were eating in single or multiple forage stables. In the single forage stable (where the horses only had hay) the horses looked over the stable door more often, moved around for longer, ate straw bedding more frequently and showed behaviour that the researches interpreted as looking for alternative resources. Even when the horses’ preferred food (established in an earlier test) was given as the single food the horses still looked over the door more frequently and ate more straw bedding than those who had multiple forages available to them. It should be noted that these food trials and behaviour observations only took place over a 5 minute period but it would seem logical that multiple forages such as hay, haylage, oat straw, alfalfa hay, chaff, ready grass or twigs in the stable are feeds that take the horse quite a long time to eat and offering variety could help the horses over a longer period than 5 minutes.

The longer term benefit of providing multiple forage to stabled horses was tested in a second study[2]. In this experiment horses were tested in a multiple or single forage stable for 25 minutes, twice a day on alternate days and over a 7 day period. As before hay was provided in the single forage stable and in the multiple forage stable the horses were offered 3 long chop and 3 short chop (chaff) foods. The results were consistent with the earlier study. Horses with multiple forages showed more foraging behaviour for longer periods, they ate all the different foods offered but had preferences towards certain ones. Stereotypical behaviours were only seen in the horses just had hay in their stables.

I found this research very interesting because it suggests a very simple and cheap way to improve the lot of horses that have to be stabled due to constraints of weather, livery yard requirements, available grazing or health. Even with a horse that is stabled due to a risk of, or diagnosed, laminitis it would be possible to offer a variety of suitable forages as there are many alternatives on the market now. Fortunately I am able to keep my horses outside 24 hours a day throughout the year but should a health problem cause one to have to be stabled for a period I would certainly experiment with this option.

In another related piece of research flavour preferences of horses were tested[3]. A wide range of flavours which have traditionally be used around the world were selected and the trials showed the following preferences for the 8 horses tested. The most preferred flavours, in order, were; fenugreek, banana, cherry, rosemary, cumin, carrot, peppermint and oregano. Interestingly garlic, which is widely used as a flavour for horse food was not favoured by the horses tested.

I need to go to the health food shop to see if I can find ways to put these flavours into food in order experiment with this myself. If you had a horse that was reluctant to eat a food (especially if it contained a supplement that you want him to eat) adding fenugreek might be worth a try. I am a great fan of Simple System[4] feeds as I have found great benefit in removing added molasses from horses feed and I am swayed by Jane Van Lennep’s argument that we should increase fibre and be careful of cereals in our horses diets due to the way that they are digested in the horses’ gut. Sometimes horses are reluctant to move from the sugary feeds that they are used to when owners change over to Simple Systems and perhaps the owner adding one of these flavourings might help the situation. Alternatively for a stabled horse or, one that is given a large amount of feed, it may be interesting to split this feed into several bowls each with a different flavour. Certainly when I was trying to pursue an underweight TB to eat more this knowledge may have made my life a lot easier.

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[1] Goodwin, D., Davidson, H. and Harris, P. (2002). Foraging enrichment for stables horses: effect on behaviour and selection. Equine Veterinary Journal, 34 (7). 686 – 691.

[2] Thorne, J., Goodwinn, D., Kennedy, M. Davidson, H. and Harris, P. (2005). Foraging enrichment of individually housed horses: Practicality and effects on behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 94. 149 – 164.

[3] Goodwin, D., Davidson, H. and Harris, P. (2005) Selection and acceptance of flavours in concentrate diets for stables horses. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 95. 223 – 232.

[4] http://www.simplesystemhorsefeeds.co.uk/