Understanding how your horse digests carbohydrates is the first step to horse weight loss and to getting the results you want from your feeding program. You don’t have to become an expert in horse weight loss or on the equine digestive tract to understand how it works. But it is important to grasp the basic concepts of the physiological and metabolic processes of the horse and how they affect weight lossal strategies, as well as horse weight loss.
Those with good horse weight loss skills understand the background of the horse. The horse is a prey animal. For millions of
years it was the target of flesh-eating predators.
During its physiological evolution, it
developed a unique digestive system as one
of the crucial traits necessary for survival, horse weight loss.
It’s a system designed to handle continuous
limited inputs as the horse grazed up to 20
hours a day while it covered up to 30 miles
a day with the herd.
The system that evolved is truly marvelous. It’s a system for an animal that had to depend on speed for survival. It’s a system unencumbered by the size and weight of a large stomach. It’s a system that supports the metabolic processes that allow the horse to produce from forage and browse all the protein and energy it needs for growth, and maintenance.
Dr. William E. Julien, weight lossist, veterinarian and horse weight loss expert,
says, “I believe the cause of most
horse maladies is based on weight lossal mismanagement and refusal to accept the fact
that weight loss is physiology. The problem
goes way beyond simply how much protein
or energy is fed each day.”
The evolution of the horse’s unique digestive
system supports his thesis: Weight Loss must
begin with physiology — the biological functions
and vital processes of the living organism.
Metabolism — the chemical and physical
processes that convert ingested feed into
metabolites that support growth, maintenance
and energy — is dependent on physiology.
You can’t have one without the other, but
you’ve got to consider physiology first.
How your horse digests carbohydrates Carbohydrates for horses can be divided into those that can be hydrolyzed and those that must be fermented. Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction in which a feedstuff reacts with water (with the help of enzymes) and is changed into one or more other substances, such as starch into glucose. Feedstuffs that cannot be hydrolyzed enter the cecum and large colon. Here they are fermented by resident micro flora to produce volatile fatty acids and structural nitrogen.
The hindgut’s normal function is the fermentation of non-hydrolyzable carbohydrates. For example: hemicelluloses, cellulose and lignocellulose, and soluble fibers are all fermentable carbohydrates.
But hydrolysis has its limits. When the horse’s small stomach and intestines can’t handle the load, the excess hydrolyzable carbohydrate moves to the hindgut where it is fermented with the remaining non-hydrolyzable carbohydrates.
The hydrolyzable carbohydrates are now where they don’t belong; this triggers rapid fermentation and disrupts the normal pH of the hindgut. This rapid fermentation and change in pH can also cause significant negative modifications in resident bacterial populations, favoring organisms that can actually harm the horse!
The digestive system now has a carbohydrate overload.
The digestive system of the horse is designed for frequent, light meals. Yet, today many owners — for their own convenience or to provide extra energy for show or performance horses — feed a large meal once or twice a day. These meals are usually grain-based concentrates, rich in starch and simple sugars.
This type of program sets up a feeding/fasting cycle that often triggers a domino effect of metabolic and hormonal changes. There are no short cuts to natural metabolic pathways.
Research suggests a link between concentrate feeding and a number of metabolic diseases. These problems and others have been termed by veterinarians as Equine Dietary Distress Syndrome, or DDS.
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