Here we take a brief look at the three phases and what steps to take to help support this most delicate of systems.
Phase One
The digestion process begins when the horse takes a mouthful of food, triggering the release of saliva, which contains bicarbonate that acts as a buffer, as well providing lubrication for the food passing down the oesophagus into the stomach. As the horse chews its food the process of nutrient release begins.
A high fibre diet encourages more natural feeding behaviour, and providing ample forage avoids prolonged periods of starvation and satisfies the natural desire to chew.
Phase Two
Food then enters the stomach and small intestine, with the stomach acting as an early acid bath for any undesirable pathogenic bacteria that may have been consumed with the feed. There is limited fermentation of very simple carbohydrates (e.g. sugars) in the top half of the stomach and then a small amount of protein breakdown in the acidic bottom half.
As horses have evolved largely to ferment fibre in the hind gut, the stomach is relatively small and most of the true digestion of nutrients occurs in the small intestine.
Sticking to the golden rule or feed little and often, concentrate rations should be divided into several smaller feeds across the day.
Phase Three
The hind gut is made up of the caecum, large intestine and colon and accounts for over 60% of the total digestive tract. The caecum is basically a fermentation vat where the bulk of digestion takes place thanks to fibre-digesting bacteria, which break down the tough cellulose, hemi-celullose and lignin in forage. Unlike the acidic conditions of the stomach, the optimum hind gut environment is a near-neutral pH.
Live strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae are commonly used in equine nutrition to enhance fibre digestion in horses.
The overall effect of adding yeast to the diet is the stimulation of fibre-digestion, as well as stabilisation of the hindgut environment and microbial ecosystem.
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