Research Alternative Forages for Horses
In 2012 I started my PhD project at the University of New England. The main focus of my study is patch foraging behaviour, particular browsing behaviour, in horses and the use of fodder trees and shrubs as forage enrichment for domesticated horses in Australia. This research will help the horse industry to better understand the potential use of alternative and suitable forage sources and the affect of forage enrichment on the behaviour of horses in intensive equine management systems.
Patch foraging behaviour and animal welfare
Why this interest in patch foraging behaviour? I believe that the ability to browse on a range of trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, roots and mosses might be important for the health and well-being of horses.
In 2009, I moved to Australia from The Netherlands and founded MB Equine Services, which provides specialised equine nutrition and horse property design and pasture management. “Designing pasture systems is part of the business,” I started to investigate the role of alternative forage sources as a drought reserve. And a bit of research made me realise that, in nature, horses browse a lot.
This raised the question: ‘How do domesticated horses cope with an enclosed environment in which there is no – or limited – access to browsing?’ Is there something in browsing that might be important for their nutrient balance or gut and dental health?”
I hope to provide some answers to these questions in my research towards a doctoral degree at UNE. “We don’t often provide our horses with the alternative foods that – in nature – are a large part of their diet,” Variety is the spice of life for herbivores – whether they are confined, or foraging on pastures or rangelands – as well as for people. Like us, they are periodically satiated by familiarity and thrive on variety.
We keep horses in a stable or a paddock without feeling obliged to enrich their lives – and edible enrichment has been shown to be the best sort. Such enrichment could address problems of abnormal behaviour and help to avoid ulcers and dental problems.”
Farmers know that planting shrubs and trees on their properties has a range of environmental and agricultural benefits, and this possible advantage for their horses could add to that list of benefits.
Research
The first stage of the research program was a survey. You may have seen it advertised or may have even participated! If so, thank you for your contribution. This survey allowed us to collect data on how horses are managed and identify if browsing is a common behaviour in domesticated horses in Australia. I am currently conducting the data analysis and writing it up for a journal publication.
The next step is to investigate some of the questions why horses select a variety of foods and when they are more likely to ingest novel and familiar foods. The novel foods will be browse fodder. To be able to answer these questions we will conduct non-invasive preference tests with horses. We will record their behaviour by video recording. The first experiment will hopefully run later this year.
So for now I am working with novel forages, collecting browse from a variety of trees and shrubs and drying them. We need a lot of fresh browse to make a chaff. So over the coming months we will collect these forages so we can dry and chaff them for our testing. I am very curious how the horses will respond.
Keep checking our website and FB page for updates! I hope later this year to give you more information about the publication of the survey and progress of the research.
Publication Journal of Equine Veterinary Science
Finally, I can proudly announce the official publication of my Master Thesis work in the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science: Fecal pH and Microbial Populations in Thoroughbred Horses during Transition from Pasture to Concentrate Feeding. This research was conducted at the Massey University in New Zealand.
Abstract:
Abrupt dietary transitions and feeding of rapidly fermentable diets are common practices in the horse industry and have been associated with digestive and metabolic disorders that can impair the performance of horses. The present study investigated the effect of dietary transition from pasture grazing to confinement with concentrate feeding, and back, on fecal pH and bacterial populations of Streptococcus spp and Lactobacillus spp. Six Thoroughbred fillies, previously grazing perennial ryegrass and white clover-based pasture, were housed in individual stalls and fed an increasing ratio of concentrate to conserved forages for 13 days (days 1-13), followed by an abrupt transition back to only pasture-grazing for 3 days (days 14-16). The concentrate was initially offered at 0.83 kg dry matter (DM)/d and increased to 5 kg DM/d, whereas ensiled alfalfa was initially offered at 0.61 kg DM/d, increasing to 1.22 kg DM/d. Meadow hay was initially offered at 6.73 kg DM/d, decreasing to 1.6 kg DM/d. Fecal specimens were collected daily for determination of pH, and every 2 days for quantitative analysis of Streptococcus spp and Lactobacillus spp. Mean fecal pH increased significantly from pasture baseline values (pH 6.18) during the initial confinement and supplementation on day 1 (6.37), day 2 (6.52), day 3 (6.58), and day 4 (6.43) (standard error of mean [SEM]: 0.056; P < .001). By day 5, mean fecal pH values had decreased to, and remained at, baseline values until the horses returned to pasture, when another increase occurred at day 15 (6.45). Fecal colony forming units (cfu) of Streptococcus spp and Lactobacillus spp increased linearly (r = 0.94; P < .001) from 6.0 and 6.1 log10 cfu/g on day -4, to 7.8 log10 cfu/g on day 14 (SEM: 0.2 P < .001), respectively. Fecal cfu decreased on return to a pasture-only diet (P < .001). In this study, the increment of bacterial populations was associated with a relatively stable fecal pH and highlights the difficulty in identifying the effects of dietary transition on the equine hindgut health, without microbial culture.
http://www.j-evs.com/article/S0737-0806%2812%2900324-3/abstract
Journal of Equine Veterinary Science (JEVS) is an international publication designed for the practicing equine veterinarian, equine researcher, and other equine health care specialist. Published monthly, each issue of JEVS includes original research, reviews, case reports, short communications, and clinical techniques from leaders in the equine veterinary field, covering such topics as laminitis, reproduction, infectious disease, parasitology, behavior, podology, internal medicine, surgery and nutrition. JEVS is also an official publication of the Equine Science Society.
Curious horses
This week we started the forage pilot study, which is part of a honours students practical research work. Its only a small preference trial, but it will provide us with some valuable information for our later studies.
For this trial the student has to visit a number of horse properties and this week we started with the first two properties. The weather had been dry for the last 6 weeks but on the day that we wanted to start the trial – of course they predicted rain! So day 2 of the trial we spend most of the time in the rain with the horses. Nevertheless, the horses preformed even in the rain and showed their normal curiosity to all the visitors and foods we brought in!
PhD Equine Nutrition Project
Browsing – An overlooked aspect in horse management?
Throughout my Animal Management & Science degrees I have been involved in a number of animal nutrition studies- but I had a particular passion for equine nutrition! My last research project was for my Master Degree, which I conducted at the Massey University in New Zealand from 2005 to 2006. I studied the effect of abrupt dietary changes from pasture to confinement and concentrate feeding and vice versa on the faecal pH and microbiology of Thoroughbred horses. In 2006 I travel to Australia to present this work at the Australian Equine Science Symposium – which was a great opportunity to meet other new and renowned equine science and nutrition researchers. Since then I have been interested in continuing my research work in equine nutrition, but it has been very difficult to get something started (in Netherlands, Australia or New Zealand) – as equine nutrition is a topic that doesn’t generally get a lot of priority (it depends also on the topic within equine nutrition). Doing research with horses is also very expensive and there are not a lot of horse industry bodies with enough research funding – so I was not able to continue right away! However, being practically involved with the horse industry for the last 6 years has been a great experience and actually gave me more motivation to research a topic that can be applied to today’s horse management needs and that can improve the welfare of horses.
So in February of this year – I was able to finally start my PhD project on Equine Nutrition. The primary focus of the study is on forage enrichment for domesticated horses in Australia. I am particular interested in browsing behaviour and alternative forages. Although I am not able to give all the results during my research – I would like to keep our clients, readers and horse owners up to date with the progress and research events. On our MB Equine Services website I will regularly post some news about all the things that happen in the research field. So keep checking our website and facebook page or subscribe to our RSS feed!
We have published some educational articles in horse magazines that relate to this research topic. So if you would like to read those – visit our article database page.
Come back to read our next research update!
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