Horses are herbivores, spending up to 12 hours a day grazing in pastures or grasslands. It has a large intestinal fermentation zone and a large fibrolytic flora in the caecum and colon. In the large intestine of horses, B vitamins and volatile fatty acids can be synthesized. Horses are less well-adapted to use low-quality roughage than ruminants with ruminal fermentation zones.
Therefore, it is important to think rationally about the feeding of horses first, focusing on the quality of the forage components in the ration. The forage supplied should be clean, soil-free grass. The types are leguminous hay, pasture, semi-dried silage or grass cakes and grasses made into pellets. For horses, silage of forage is more dangerous than other types of roughage, because consuming half-dried silage produced in an improper way can lead to poisoning.
In order to meet the needs of growth, activity, pregnancy or lactation, it is usually necessary to feed grain-based concentrates to maintain adequate and good body condition.