Equine digestive health and a horse’s sleep routine have a strong connection that should not be overlooked if you are looking to give your horses a healthy lifestyle.
Humans tend to eat three big mails throughout the course of the day. However, horses are much different than us. Put in simple words, whenever horses are awake, they are constantly hungry and looking to eat something.
Because horses’ stomachs are quite small, they need to take in frequent and small forages to keep their digestive system moving at all times. This helps them regulate the acids that naturally form in their stomachs and properly digest and absorb the nutrients in their food.
We’ve explained before that horses don’t sleep throughout the entire night, but rather they sleep for short intervals of time and wake up often to eat. This means that if a horse doesn’t have hay at their disposal to eat each time they wake up, they can and will often get hungry which can lead to stress and stomach pain. This can also lead to the development of an unhealthy feeding routine in which a horse devours its meal, causing improper digestion that can imbalance the body.
Therefore, it is essential to combine a horse’s digestive needs with their sleep schedule, meaning that forage should be available at all times, even during the night! Syncing up these two factors can improve a horses’ digestive system and overall health.
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