In vivo foregut digestion of starch-based concentrate feeds in horses using the mobile bag technique

Abstract

Metabolic disorders from poor foregut digestion of starch-based concentrate feeds are one of the most serious challenges that face today’s horse owners. Although there are many different cereal and legume-based concentrates used to formulate compound horse feeds in Europe relatively little is known about their in vivo foregut digestibility. While Meyer et al (1993) has examined the effects of processing on digestibility, there is no published data comparing the in vivo foregut digestibility of a wide range of concentrates. Therefore this study sought to determine the digestibility of 20 different starch rich feeds in the foregut of horses using the mobile bag technique.Four mature geldings (BW ranging from 395 to 478 kg) fitted with caecal and colonic cannulae, were maintained in individual stalls, where water was available ad libitum and fed a diet of pellets and straw. The pelleted feed, fed at 0.8% BW/d, contained 14% fibre, 13% crude protein, 3.2% fat and 8.7% ash. This feed was equally divided and offered at 8am and 5pm.