Mastication and feeding in horses.

Abstract

This chapter discusses the feeding behaviour of free-ranging and stabled horses, the controls of feeding behaviour and the behavioural consequences of feeding horses high concentrate and low roughage diets, like cribbing and wood chewing. The topics include chewing, chewing rate, mechanics of ingestion, phases of grazing, seasonal and temperature effects, effect of lactation, plant preferences while grazing, eating hay and grain, vigilance and social facilitation, meal patterns, effect of the form of feed, flavour preferences, physiological controls of feeding like defence of energy input and body weight, pregastric factors, glucostatic, gastrointestinal factors and central nervous system depressants.